1. Roger Leenhardt, “À bas Ford / vive Wyler!” L'Ecran francais 146 (April 13, 1948). Merve Fejzula, my research assistant, translated this article.
2. Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), 167.
3. Show, March 1970, 15.
4. Gabriel Miller, William Wyler: Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010), 129.
5. William Wyler, “No Magic Wand,” Screenwriter 2, no. 9 (February 1947): 10.
6. Curtis Lee Hanson, “William Wyler,” Cinema 3, no. 5 (Summer 1967): 24.
7. David Bordwell, The Classical Hollywood Cinema (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 346.
8. William Wyler, “Escape to Reality,” Liberty 24, no. 1 (January 4, 1947), 16, reprinted in Picturegoer, March 15, 1947, 8.
9. Directed by William Wyler (Tatge Productions, 1986; New York: Kino Video, 2002), DVD.
10. Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 5–8, 225.
11. Hanson, “William Wyler,” 24.
12. Simon Callow, Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor (New York: Grove Press, 1998), 290.
13. The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (New York: Knopf, 20 04), 975.
14. Wyler, “Escape to Reality,” 16.
15. New York Times, June 18, 1950.
16. Sarris, American Cinema, 167.
17. Schatz, Genius of the System, 5.
18. Miller, William Wyler: Interviews, 119.
19. A. Scott Berg, Goldwyn: A Biography (New York: Ballantine, 1990), 271.
20. Ibid., 273.
21. Quoted in ibid., 272.
22. Ibid., 309.
23. Wyler to Y. Frank Freeman, February 24, 1954, William Wyler Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles, California.
24. Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood's Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995), 13.
25. William Wyler, “Flying over Germany,” News Digest 2, no. 13 (August 15, 1943): 26.
26. André Bazin, Bazin at Work: Major Essays and Reviews from the Forties and Fifties, ed. and trans. Bert Cardullo and Alain Piette (New York: Routledge, 1997), 5.
27. Charles Higham, “William Wyler,” Action 8, no. 5 (September-October 1973): 20.
28. Sidney Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1995), 244.
29. On December 21, 2011, the New York Times reported that nearly sixty years after the film's release, the Writers’ Guild of America West had restored Dalton Trumbo's writing credit for Roman Holiday.
30. Hanson, “William Wyler,” 34.
31. Directed by William Wyler.
32. Joseph i. Anderson and Donald Ritchie, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), 382.
33. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 436.
34. Quoted in Louis Giannetti, Masters of the American Cinema (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981), 206.
1. “William Wyler,” Film Reference, last modified 2012, http://filmreference.com/Directors-Ve-Y/Wyler-William.html.
2. Dave's boss, for instance, tells him that the people of Boonton have money but don't know how to spend it.
3. Internal reports, November 16, 1928, Wyler Collection.
4. Wyler would revisit a scene like this in Funny Girl almost forty years later.
5. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 88.
6. Axel Madsen, William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (New York: Crowell, 1973), 68.
7. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 91.
8. Ibid.
9. Wyler rarely resorted to such imagery, but he would do so again in Dodsworth (1936), when Arnold Iselin sets fire to a letter that Fran Dodsworth received from her husband. Iselin wants Fran to leave her husband and forget the past. Wyler's camera follows the burning letter as it wafts across the balcony.
10. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 92.
11. Carl Laemmle Jr. to Wyler, August 29, 1931, Wyler Collection.
12. Laemmle Jr. to Wyler, September 3, 1931, Wyler Collection.
1. Quoted in Madsen, William Wyler, 81.
2. John Huston, An Open Book (New York: Knopf, 1980), 59.
3. Wyler to Oliver La Farge, December 16, 1932, William Wyler Papers, 1925–1975, Arts Library Special Collections, Young Research Library, UCLA.
4. Huston, An Open Book, 60.
5. Wyler to La Farge, January 30, 1933, Wyler Collection.
6. Huston, An Open Book, 60.
7. Ibid. There is a copy of Huston's script in the Wyler Collection.
8. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 108.
9. Wyler to Carl Laemmle, December 29, 1932, Wyler Collection.
10. Madsen, William Wyler, 85.
11. Elmer Rice, Minority Report (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), 164.
12. Ibid., 121.
13. Elmer Rice, Seven Plays (New York: Viking Press, 1950), 269.
14. Madsen, William Wyler, 90.
15. Telegram from Elmer Rice to Wyler, September 2, 1933, Wyler Collection.
16. Rice, Minority Report, 332.
17. Margot Peters, The House of Barrymore (New York: Knopf, 1990), 353.
18. Madsen, William Wyler, 93.
19. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 114.
20. Wyler to Carl Laemmle, September 9, 1933, Wyler Collection.
21. Peters, The House of Barrymore, 354.
22. Ibid., 586.
23. Delays memo, 1933, Wyler Collection.
24. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 117.
25. Ibid., 118.
26. Ibid.
27. Madsen, William Wyler, 93.
28. Ibid., 94.
29. Hanson, “William Wyler,” 30.
30. Richard H. Pells, Radical Visions and American Dreams (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 79.
31. Pauline Kael, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (New York: Bantam, 1971), 311.
32. Peters, The House of Barrymore, 354.
33. James Rorty, Where Life Is Better (New York: John Day/Reynal and Hitchcock, 1932), 98.
34. Interoffice communication, November 13, 1933, Wyler Collection.
35. Telegram from Rice to Wyler, November 27, 1933, Wyler Collection.
1. Berg, Goldwyn, 263.
2. Ibid., 265.
3. Joseph Breen to Samuel Goldwyn, July 31, 1935, Samuel Goldwyn Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles, California.
4. Directed by William Wyler.
5. Berg, Goldwyn, 267.
6. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 141.
7. Doris V. Falk, Lillian Hellman (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1978), 37.
8. Carl Rollyson, Lillian Hellman: Her Legend and Her Legacy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), 65.
9. New York Times, November 21, 1934.
10. William Wright, Lillian Hellman: The Image, the Woman (New York: Ballantine, 1986), 79.
11. Lillian Hellman, Four Plays by Lillian Hellman (New York: Random House, 1972), viii.
12. Rollyson, Lillian Hellman, 70.
13. William Wright, Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 3rd ser. (New York: Viking Press, 1967), 126.
14. Hellman's early treatments are in folder 2356, Goldwyn Papers.
15. Berg, Goldwyn, 267.
16. Directed by William Wyler.
17. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 145.
18. Hanson, “William Wyler,” 24.
19. Douglas Slocombe, “The Work of Gregg Toland,” Sequence 8 (Summer 1949): 68–69.
20. André Bazin, What Is Cinema? vol. 1, ed. and trans. Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 35–36.
21. Hanson, “William Wyler,” 24.
22. Mark Schorer, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life (New York: Dell, 1961), 616.
23. Rollyson, Lillian Hellman, 86.
24. John Baxter, Hollywood in the Thirties (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1968), 116; Bernard F. Dick, Hellman in Hollywood (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982), 34.
25. Lillian Hellman, Six Plays by Lillian Hellman (New York: Vintage, 1979), 58.
26. “Dialogue Continuity: A Version,” November 23, 1935, Wyler Papers.
27. Graham Greene, “These Three,” Spectator, May 1, 1936.
28. Telegram from David Selznick to Wyler, February 25, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
29. Telegram from Jesse Lasky to Wyler, undated, Wyler Collection.
1. Sinclair Lewis, Dodsworth (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929), 11.
2. Ibid., 142.
3. Ibid., 192–93.
4. Richard Lingeman, Sinclair Lewis: Rebel from Main Street (St. Paul, Minn.: Borealis Books, 2002), 333.
5. Ibid., 332.
6. Ibid, 255.
7. Berg, Goldwyn, 277.
8. Lawrence Grobel, The Hustons (New York: Avon Books, 1990), 169–70.
9. Sidney Howard, Sinclair Lewis's Dodsworth (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1934), xvii.
10. Ibid., xii.
11. Grobel, The Hustons, 177.
12. Memo from Wyler to Goldwyn, March 17, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
13. Madsen, William Wyler, 145.
14. Sidney Howard, “Notes for a Treatment,” undated, Goldwyn Papers.
15. H. C. Potter, early version of Dodsworth script, April 4, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
16. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 153.
17. Howard, “Notes for a Treatment.”
18. Mary Astor, A Life in Film (New York: Delacorte Press, 1967), 119.
19. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 153.
20. Ruth Chatterton's agent to Wyler, June 11, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
21. Astor, A Life in Film, 119.
22. David Niven, The Moon's a Balloon (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1972), 216–17.
23. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 154–55.
24. Astor, A Life in Film, 118–19.
25. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 155.
26. Ken Doeckel, “William Wyler,” Films in Review 22, no. 8 (October 1971): 473.
27. Berg, Goldwyn, 185.
28. Madsen, William Wyler, 147.
29. Howard, Sinclair Lewis's Dodsworth, 3.
30. Astor, A Life in Film, 121.
31. Berg, Goldwyn, 285.
32. Ibid.
33. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 160.
1. Sam Goldwyn to Edna Ferber, October 27, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
2. Joseph McBride, Hawks on Hawks (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 85.
3. Ibid.
4. Berg, Goldwyn, 282.
5. Ibid., 183.
6. Madsen, William Wyler, 153.
7. Berg, Goldwyn, 13.
8. William Arnold, Frances Farmer: Shadowland (New York: Jove/ HBJ Books, 1979), 55–56.
9. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 162.
10. Daniel Mandell transcript, Wyler Papers.
11. Arthur Marx, Goldwyn: A Biography of the Man behind the Myth (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), 225.
12. Todd McCarthy, Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood (New York: Grove Press, 1997), 240; Berg, Goldwyn, 283.
13. McCarthy, Howard Hawks, 241.
14. Telegram from Eddie Curtiss to Wyler, October 29, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
15. Joseph McBride, ed., Focus on Howard Hawks (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 47.
16. Goldwyn to Ferber, October 27, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
17. Ferber to Goldwyn, October 31, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
18. Telegram from Ferber to Goldwyn, October 28, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
19. Edna Ferber, Come and Get It (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1935), 39.
20. Ibid., 28.
21. Ibid., 39.
22. Ibid., 296.
23. Ibid., 316.
24. Robin Wood, Howard Hawks (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), 121–22.
25. Ferber, Come and Get It, 133.
26. Berg, Goldwyn, 282.
27. Wood, Howard Hawks, 119–20.
28. New York Times, November 12, 1936.
29. Jimmy Townsend to Wyler, October 29, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
1. Wyler to Goldwyn, September 3, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
2. Quoted in Wendy Smith, Real Life Drama (New York: Knopf, 1990), 146.
3. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 7.
4. In Nicholas Martin's 1997 revival at the Williamstown Theater Festival—the only major revival of the play since its premiere—set designer James Noone replicated Bel Geddes's set but actually did fill the orchestra pit with water.
5. Merritt Hulburd to Goldwyn, November 8, 1935, Goldwyn Papers.
6. Hulburd to Goldwyn, November 22, 1935, Goldwyn Papers.
7. Berg, Goldwyn, 278.
8. Goldwyn to Hellman, October 16, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
9. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 78–79.
10. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 169.
11. Berg, Goldwyn, 193.
12. Ibid., 293.
13. Joseph Breen to Goldwyn, October 28, 1936, Goldwyn Papers.
14. Quoted in Rollyson, Lillian Hellman, 102–3.
15. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 125, 109.
16. Telegram from Kingsley to Goldwyn, undated, Goldwyn Papers.
17. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 164.
18. Rollyson, Lillian Hellman, 104, 105.
19. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Second inaugural Address,” January 20, 1937, http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres50.html.
20. Robert Sherwood, The Petrified Forest (New York: Scribner's, 1935), 158.
21. Robert Wyler, notes, April 23, 1937, Wyler Collection.
1. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 174–75.
2. Memo from Walter MacEwen to Hal Wallis, in Inside Warner Bros.: 1935–1951, ed. Rudy Behlmer (New York: Viking, 1985), 40–41.
3. Behlmer, Inside Warner Bros., 42–44.
4. Legal file on Jezebel, undated, Wyler Collection.
5. Lou Edelman, undated memo, Wyler Collection.
6. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 176.
7. Whitney Stine with Bette Davis, Mother Goddam (New York: Berkley Books, 1979), 100.
8. Bette Davis, The Lonely Life (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962), 176.
9. Owen Davis, manuscript version of Jezebel, March 9, 1937, box 17, folder 233, Wyler Collection. Owen Davis (1874–1956) was one of the most prolific writers in the history of the American stage. (Despite the southern setting of Jezebel, he was from Portland, Maine.) Davis made his early reputation by turning out dozens of sensational formula melodramas, but when the popularity of that genre began to wane, he decided to write realistic plays for Broadway. An early success was Detour, a variation on Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon; Owen's play premiered in 1921, a year after O'Neill's seminal drama. Two years later, Davis won the Pulitzer Prize for Icebound. His dramatic adaptation of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome (1936) was also a success. Since much of his early work has been lost, estimates of his dramatic output run from 150 to more than 300 plays. He also wrote some film scripts, notably They Had to See Paris (1929) for Will Rogers and an adaptation of Arthur Frederick Goodrich and George M. Cohan's So This Is London (1930).
10. Ibid.
11. Robert Buckner, script, April 30, 1937, Wyler Collection.
12. Hal Wallis and Charles Higham, Starmaker: The Autobiography of Hal Wallis (New York: Macmillan, 1980), 91.
13. Stine, Mother Goddam, 102.
14. Charles Higham, Bette: The Life of Bette Davis (New York: Macmillan, 1981), 104.
15. Directed by William Wyler.
16. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 182.
17. Barbara Leaming, Bette Davis: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 141.
18. Charles Higham, “William Wyler Directs Bette Davis in Jezebel,” Columbia University Oral History Office, Fathom: The Source for Online Learning, last modified 2002, http://www.fathom.com/feature/35675/.
19. Quoted in Leaming, Bette Davis, 141.
20. Charles Affron, Star Acting (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977), 225.
21. Bazin, Bazin at Work, 17.
22. Affron, Star Acting, 229.
23. Richard Gilman, The Making of Modern Drama (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1975), 103.
24. Whitney Stine with Bette Davis, I'd Love to Kiss You: Conversations with Bette Davis (New York: Pocket Books, 1990), 14.
25. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 176.
26. Leaming, Bette Davis, 144.
27. Production notes, Wyler Collection.
28. Treatment by Clements Ripley, July 14, 1937, Wyler Collection. This collection also contains a revised treatment by Ripley and Abem Finkel dated September 14, 1937.
29. Affron, Star Acting, 233.
1. See George Bluestone, Novels into Film (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), and Michael A. Anderegg, William Wyler (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979). John Harrington's “Wyler as Auteur,” in The English Novel and the Movies, ed. Michael Klein and Gillian Parker (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981), focuses more on Wyler's contributions as a director.
2. Anderegg, William Wyler, 67.
3. Slocombe, “The Work of Gregg Toland,” 71.
4. Richard Griffith, Samuel Goldwyn: The Producer and His Films (New York: Museum of Modern Art Film Library, 1956), 34.
5. Anderegg, William Wyler; Harrington, “Wyler as Auteur.”
6. Harrington, “Wyler as Auteur.”
7. John Gassner and Dudley Nichols, Twenty Best Film Plays I & II (New York: Garland, 1977), 331.
8. Variety, April 13, 1939.
9. Berg, Goldwyn, 328.
10. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 198.
11. George N. Fenin and William K. Everson, The Western (New York: Penguin, 1977), 247.
12. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 205.
13. Darryl Zanuck to Goldwyn, July 3, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
14. Stuart Lake to Goldwyn, July 10, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
15. Goldwyn to Zanuck, August 14, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
16. Lillian Hellman to Goldwyn, August 9, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
17. Oliver La Farge, notes on script, August 31, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
18. Stuart Lake's revised treatment, June 1, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
19. Niven Busch treatment, October 24, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
20. Edwin Knopf, memo, September 26, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
21. Memo from Jock Lawrence to Goldwyn, October 19, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
22. Jeffrey Meyers, Gary Cooper: American Hero (New York: Cooper Square Press, 1998), 139.
23. Goldwyn to Gary Cooper, November 2, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
24. Cooper to Goldwyn, November 18, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
25. Goldwyn to Cooper, December 29, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
26. Hollywood Reporter, December 1, 1939.
27. Quoted in Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 206.
28. Telegram, January 6, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
29. Dmitri Tiomkin to Goldwyn, April 25, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
30. Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993), 286.
31. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 206–7.
32. La Farge, notes on script, August 31, 1939.
33. Jock Lawrence, notes on script, October 19, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
34. One need only compare the conflict between Ryker and Starrett in Shane, where both sides are presented sympathetically. Director George Stevens (like Wyler) recognizes the historical necessity of the homesteaders’ viewpoint, but the magnitude of the struggle between the two sides is more compelling in the later film.
35. San Antonio (1945; directed by David Butler) deals with outlaws’ attempts to steal cattle and ruin the Texas economy during the 1870s, a decade before Wyler's film takes place. That film, which opens with shots of large herds of cattle, stars Errol Flynn as Clay Hardin, who will save the cattle industry from the outlaws.
36. Wyler's best friend, John Huston, would revisit the Bean-Langtry story in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), with Paul Newman as the judge and Ava Gardner as Lillie.
37. Robert Warshow, The Immediate Experience (1962; reprint, New York: Athenaeum, 1970), 138.
38. This relationship can be seen as the prototype for other buddy-rival westerns, such as Bad Company, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Vera Cruz, and others.
39. Toland uses a flickering candle again, to far different effect, in The Grapes of Wrath (released the same year), when Tom Joad lights a candle in his parents’ deserted house and discovers Muley.
40. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 211.
41. Ibid., 212.
42. Affron, Star Acting, 239.
43. Davis, The Lonely Life, 250–51.
44. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 212.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., 215. Another ending was filmed in which the disputed scene between Leslie and Robert is eliminated. We see Leslie put on her glasses and try to knit her lace. She breaks down in frustration and walks out the back door, dropping the lace. The rest of the scene is the same, except that Wyler cuts from the party to the lace on the floor.
47. Ed Sikov, Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), 162.
48. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 215.
1. Telegram, February 22, 1939, Goldwyn Papers.
2. Berg, Goldwyn, 355.
3. Ibid.
4. Philip Dunne, Take Two (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), 93.
5. Ibid., 94.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 96.
8. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 219.
9. Dunne, Take Two, 97.
10. Hellman, Six Plays, 156–57.
11. Ibid., 205.
12. Ibid.
13. Hellman to Goldwyn, undated (possibly March 1940), Goldwyn Papers.
14. Reeves Espy, May 3, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
15. Interoffice memo from Edwin Knopf to Goldwyn, May 3, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
16. Memo from Jock Lawrence to Goldwyn, undated, Goldwyn Papers.
17. Wyler to Goldwyn, May 6, 1940, Goldwyn Papers.
18. Hellman to Goldwyn, January 27, 1941, Goldwyn Papers.
19. Telegram from Goldwyn to Wyler, March 21, 1941, Goldwyn Papers.
20. Berg, Goldwyn, 358.
21. Davis, The Lonely Life, 206.
22. Sikov, Dark Victory, 179.
23. Berg, Goldwyn, 358.
24. Telegram from Wyler to Goldwyn, March 21, 1941, Goldwyn Papers.
25. Madsen, William Wyler, 210.
26. Lillian Hellman also saw Regina as more multifaceted: “When I wrote it, I was amused by Regina—I never thought of her as a villainous character—all I meant was a big sexy woman.” She also referred to the play as a “dramatic comedy” and to Regina as “kind of funny.” Quoted in Peter Feibleman, Lilly: Reminiscences of Lillian Hellman (New York: William Morrow, 1989), 261.
27. Leaming, Bette Davis, 196.
28. New York World-Telegram, September 9, 1941.
29. Leaming, Bette Davis, 199.
30. Ibid.
31. Stine, Mother Goddam, 151.
32. Hellman to Davis, May 20, 1941, Wyler Collection.
33. Bazin, What Is Cinema? 69.
34. Affron, Star Acting, 250.
35. Anderegg, William Wyler, 106.
36. Most of Hellman's early drafts begin with Oscar shooting at Lionnet. Zan is riding across a bridge as we hear gunshots, which startle her horse; this in turn causes Oscar to miss his shot. He tells Simon to inform Zan not to ride along the road again. Even the final script (April 15, 1941, Goldwyn Papers) opens with Zan and Addie riding through Lionnet as the camera reveals the house's disrepair. Addie is commenting on how fine the place once was when Simon stops them and warns them not to drive through while Oscar is shooting. Then there is a cut to the Hubbards’ warehouse and Leo sneaking off the train.
37. The box imagery is also discussed in Affron, Star Acting.
38. Directed by William Wyler.
39. Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg, Hollywood in the Forties (New York: Zwemmer and Barnes, 1968), 116.
40. A similar shot with rain in the background is used in Dodsworth, when Fran tells Sam that she has decided to stay in Europe.
41. Directed by William Wyler.
42. Quoted in Stine, Mother Goddam, 159.
43. Ibid.
44. Rollyson, Lillian Hellman, 180.
45. Ibid.
46. Wright, Lillian Hellman, 161. Pendleton had played Leo in Mike Nichols's 1967 revival at Lincoln Center, which starred Anne Bancroft as Regina. Nichols, like Wyler, preferred a softer view of the Hubbards; he presented them as decent people who are transformed into monsters by events.
1. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “FDR and the Four Freedoms Speech,” January 6, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum (accessed January 30, 2012), http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/fourfreedoms.
2. Draft letter from Wyler to Y. Frank Freeman, February 24, 1954, Wyler Collection.
3. Directed by William Wyler.
4. This charge was revived seven years later, and the studios were ordered to divorce production from exhibition and distribution.
5. Bernard F. Dick, The Star Spangled Screen (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985), 89.
6. Ibid., 90.
7. Berg, Goldwyn, 368.
8. Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Goes to War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 224.
9. According to Koppes and Black (Hollywood Goes to War, 225), RKO and MGM wanted to re-release Gunga Din and Kim to increase sympathy for the British. The OWI appealed to the studios to drop their plans, citing the dangers those pictures posed for Allied unity.
10. Wyler to Hedda Hopper, August 2, 1942, Wyler Collection.
11. Michael Troyan, A Rose for Mrs. Miniver (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005), 130.
12. Script dated October 18, 1941, with pink page revisions dated as late as November 7, 1941, Wyler Collection.
13. Directed by William Wyler.
14. For the same reason, he would cut the more overtly preachy scenes from The Best Years of Our Lives four years later.
15. Script, October 18, 1941, Wyler Collection.
16. Bosley Crowther, The Lion's Share (New York: Dutton, 1957).
17. Troyan, A Rose for Mrs. Miniver, 126.
18. Ibid., 129.
19. Unidentified clipping, August 2, 1942, Wyler Collection.
20. The first air-raid episode in the film is experienced from the Beldons’ point of view. They are forced into their basement along with their servants, and Mrs. Beldon objects to being ordered about by an air-raid warden. But when she hears the planes coming, Wyler isolates her in the frame, dwarfing her beside a large fireplace, and she seems diminished and alone.
21. Script, October 18, 1941, Wyler Collection.
22. Herman A Talent for Trouble, 235.
23. Ibid.
24. Letter, March 1942, Wyler Collection.
25. Frank Capra, The Name above the Title (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 318.
26. Lillian Hellman, An Unfinished Woman (New York: Bantam, 1970), 103.
27. Ibid., 105.
28. Ibid.
29. The Russia film was eventually made as a full-length feature, The North Star, with a screenplay by Hellman. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, and Walter Brennan.
30. Telegram from Frank Capra to Wyler, April 8, 1942, Wyler Collection.
31. Wyler, handwritten note, April 8, 1942, Wyler Collection.
32. Wyler to Capra, April 22, 1942, Wyler Collection.
33. Capra to Wyler, undated, Wyler Collection.
34. May 25, 1942, Wyler Collection.
35. Madsen, William Wyler, 225.
36. Wyler's physical, May 25, 1942, Wyler Collection.
37. Wyler's first choice for a writer was irwin Shaw, who was not eligible for a commission due to his age (twenty-eight) and his draft status (1-A). Memo, July 31, 1942, Wyler Collection.
38. Army orders, August 22, 1942, Wyler Collection.
39. Wyler to Commanding General of the Eighth Air Force, April 21, 1943, Wyler Collection.
40. Ibid.
41. Quoted in Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 249.
42. Lieutenant Jerome Chodorov, October 6, 1942, Wyler Collection.
43. “Wyler Escapes injury,” New York Times, February 4, 1943.
44. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 252.
45. Los Angeles Herald Express, February 15, 1943.
46. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 252.
47. Wyler to Mrs. H. J. Tannenbaum, May 5, 1943, Wyler Collection.
48. Wyler, “Flying over Germany,” 25.
49. Ibid.
50. Wyler to Robert Lovett, June 28, 1943, Wyler Collection.
51. August 26, 1943, Wyler Collection.
52. Telegram from Wyler to Beirne Lay, July 27, 1943, Wyler Collection.
53. Ibid.
54. Wyler to Tex McCrary, November 6, 1943, Wyler Collection.
55. Ibid.
56. Uncredited, undated script, “Eighth Air Force,” August 6, 1943, Wyler Papers.
57. Uncredited, undated script, Wyler Papers.
58. Lester Koenig, Memphis Belle script, December 10, 1943, Wyler Collection.
59. Ibid.
60. Wyler, “Details of Service M/Sgt Lester H. Koenig,” Wyler Collection.
61. He would return to these bucolic images again and again in his postwar work—for instance, in the shots of Boone City at the beginning of The Best Years of Our Lives and particularly in the vast expanses of land, space, and beauty in Friendly Persuasion and The Big Country. There is even a fleeting feel for the countryside in his dark and bitter final films, The Collector and The Liberation of L. B. Jones.
62. Karel Reisz, “The Later Films of William Wyler,” Sequence 13 (1951): 25.
63. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 265.
64. Review by Bosley Crowther, New York Times, April 14, 1944.
65. Zanuck to Wyler, April 2 1944, Wyler Collection.
66. Wyler to Moss Hart, February 20, 1944, Wyler Collection.
67. Wyler to Zanuck, February 22, 1944, Wyler Collection.
68. Memo from Edward Munson Jr., May 18, 1944, Wyler Collection.
69. Memo from Wyler, June 19, 1944, Wyler Collection.
70. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 271.
71. Wyler to Tex, October 12, 1944, Wyler Collection.
72. Madsen, William Wyler, 256.
73. Lester Koenig, treatment, June 27, 1944, Wyler Collection.
74. Ibid.
75. Lester Koenig, revised treatment, June 17, 1944, Wyler Collection.
76. Wyler to Francis Harmon, November 27, 1945, Wyler Collection.
77. Wyler to Harmon, December 4, 1945, Wyler Collection.
78. Ibid.
1. Hermine Rich isaacs, “William Wyler: Director with a Passion and a Craft,” Theatre Arts 31 no. 2 (February 1947).
2. Marx, Goldwyn, 307.
3. “The Way Home,” Time, August 7, 1944.
4. Marx, Goldwyn, 308.
5. Isaacs, “William Wyler,” 22.
6. Pat Duggan to Goldwyn, June 15, 1945, Goldwyn Papers.
7. Robert Sherwood to Goldwyn, August 27, 1945, Goldwyn Papers.
8. Telegram from Goldwyn to Sherwood, September 4, 1945, Goldwyn Papers.
9. Interoffice memo, November 16, 1945, Goldwyn Papers.
10. Berg, Goldwyn, 410.
11. New York Times, November 17, 1946.
12. Wyler, “No Magic Wand,” 6.
13. Ibid.
14. Charles Affron and Jona Mirella Affron, Best Years: Going to the Movies, 1945–1946 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 226.
15. Isaacs, “William Wyler,” 22–23.
16. James Agee, “What Hollywood Can Do,” Nation, December 7, 1946, 14.
17. In earlier versions of the script (Goldwyn Papers), the men discuss their families in more detail and even share some pictures. Fred sees Peggy for the first time—in a picture—and is immediately taken with her. Fred also talks about Gadorsky, the pilot he has nightmares about but never discusses in detail in the final film. Homer mentions a book he is reading, Victory over Fear, and remarks that “every one of us has got to fight out that battle inside himself.” Al later tells Fred, “A kid like Homer is lucky in a way…. He's got his scars where you can see them…. Maybe it's easier to have them where you can see them, than have them hidden inside.” Perhaps Wyler's three-shot framing was influenced by that line, which was eventually cut from the script.
18. Miller, William Wyler: Interviews, 136.
19. In Sherwood's earliest drafts, Fred goes right to the drugstore to see Mr. Bullard, who tells him that Marie no longer lives at home. He then calls his parents to get her address.
20. Early script, November 17, 1945, Goldwyn Papers.
21. Arthur Miller, All My Sons (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1947), 31–32.
22. Robert Sherwood, script entitled “Glory for Me,” December 10, 1945, Goldwyn Papers; additional revised page dated February 20, 1946.
23. Wyler, “No Magic Wand,” 6–7.
24. In an earlier version of the script (November 17, 1945, Goldwyn Papers), Peggy's boyfriend (named Payne) is puzzled that she would date a soda jerk. (in earlier versions, it should be remembered, Fred asks Marie for a divorce early in the film.) He says, “What happened to this country while I've been away? Has it turned into a democracy or something?”
25. Wyler, “No Magic Wand,” 8.
26. Griffith, Samuel Goldwyn, 41.
27. Early script, November 17, 1945, Goldwyn Papers.
28. Later draft of script, December 10, 1945, Goldwyn Papers.
29. In a departure from the novel and from earlier versions of the script, Marie asks Fred for a divorce, claiming that she is sick of having no money and is tired of waiting for him to find a job.
30. Later draft of script, December 10, 1945, Goldwyn Papers.
31. Telegram from Wyler to Sherwood, June 6, 1946, Wyler Collection.
32. Wyler, “No Magic Wand,” 9.
33. Ibid., 10.
34. Ibid.
35. Slocombe, “The Work of Gregg Toland,” 75.
36. Ibid.
37. André Bazin, William Wyler ou le janséniste de la mise en scene, Revue du Cinema (1948), reprinted in Qu'est-ceque le cinema (1958). Hugh Gray did not translate this essay or include it in the American edition of Bazin's What Is Cinema? it was later translated by Bert Cardullo and included in Bazin at Work.
38. Anderegg, William Wyler, 142.
39. Wyler, “No Magic Wand,” 10.
40. Madsen, William Wyler, 274.
41. “MacKinlay Kantor's Charges Baffle Him,” undated clipping, Goldwyn Papers.
42. Wyler to lawyer, June 6, 1948, Wyler Collection.
1. Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 507.
2. Madsen, William Wyler, 280.
3. McBride, Frank Capra, 507.
4. Film Daily, November, 13 1946.
5. “The Story of Liberty Films,” Wyler Collection.
6. Quoted in McBride, Frank Capra, 530.
7. Madsen, William Wyler, 288.
8. Wyler memo, August 10, 1948, Wyler Collection.
9. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 307.
10. In the casting notes for the play, then titled “Washington Square,” a second page of possible actors to play Morris includes Montgomery Clift and Henry Fonda; Gene Barry and John Forsythe also appear on the list. The list for Catherine includes Olivia de Havilland and her sister Joan Fontaine; Wyler's first wife, Margaret Sullavan; and Jane Wyatt, Jessica Tandy, and Mercedes McCambridge. The candidates for Dr. Sloper include Ralph Richardson, Cedric Hardwick, and Wyler favorite Walter Huston, along with Vincent Price, Louis Calhearn, and Ronald Colman.
11. Patricia Bosworth, Montgomery Clift (New York: Bantam, 1979), 142.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 142, 143.
14. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 310.
15. Hanson, “William Wyler,” 28.
16. In a letter, the Goetzes describe the origins of their play:
Well, our latest play, “One Man Show,” closed after five weeks…. We thought it was a very good play…. One of us said to the other: “Well, we're better off than Henry James.” Mr. James had the experience to stop all experiences. He came out on the stage the opening night of “Guy Donville” to calls of “Author, Author,” and then was hooted. Thinking about James, one day we picked up an early novel of his, “Washington Square.”…As dramatists we saw in it a number of things: First, it was about the father-daughter relationship of which we still had much to say; second, it was told in terms of characters who did what people always do, the worst things for the best reasons; third, there was the real challenge of turning poor, dull “Catherine Sloper” into a true heroine. We could not forget that girl. She kept at us.
Ruth and Augustus Goetz to John Chapman, March 17, 1948, Ruth and Augustus Goetz Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.
17. Lee Sabinson pointed out this stark portrait of a world comprising unattractive characters in his evaluation of the play, which he read in manuscript and declined to produce: “I found Washington Square an extremely well-written and interesting character study but unfortunately nowhere in the play did I find a single character I was interested enough to root for one hundred per cent. Catherine…I found completely unattractive…. Dr. Sloper is psychotic on the subject of his daughter…and the final denouement of her inner struggle comes too late in the play for me to care about her.” Letter from the Goetzes’ agent to Leah Salisbury, July 23, 1946, Goetz Papers.
18. That early script also indicates that the Goetzes wanted to experiment with a narrator whose voice would introduce the characters, but they wisely dispensed with that approach.
19. John Hobart, “Director William Wyler and The Heiress,” unidentified newspaper clipping, Wyler Papers.
20. Ruth Goetz and Augustus Goetz, The Heiress (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1975), 41, 52.
21. The dialogue for this confrontation was created for the film. In the play, Catherine avoids an encounter with her father by excusing herself, telling him, “I have some letters to write.”
22. New York Times, October 7, 1949.
23. Variety, May 26, 1950, Wyler Collection.
24. Ronald Davis, “Southern Methodist University Oral History Project: William Wyler (1979),” reprinted in Miller, William Wyler: Interviews, 101.
1. Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900; reprint, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959), 55.
2. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 318.
3. Terry Coleman, Olivier (New York: Henry Holt, 2005), 220.
4. David O. Selznick to Wyler, June 14, 1950, Wyler Papers.
5. Coleman, Olivier, 223.
6. Ibid., 222.
7. Elia Kazan, A Life (New York: Knopf, 1988), 144.
8. Coleman, Olivier, 222–23.
9. Stephen C. Brennan, “Sister Carrie Becomes Carrie,” in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction on Screen, ed. R. Barton Palmer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 187.
10. Variety, October 12, 1949.
11. San Francisco Chronicle, November 12, 1949.
12. Madsen, William Wyler, 299.
13. Wyler to Goetzes, June 7, 1949, Wyler Collection.
14. In light of the Breen office's objections to the material, it is interesting that RKO commissioned a “story test report” on Sister Carrie—which was to star Ingrid Bergman—from Audience Research inc. That agency concluded that the story “has below average appeal for moviegoers both as to subject matter and as a vehicle for Ingrid Bergman.” Audience Research inc., “Story Test Report,” July 21, 1944, Wyler Papers.
15. Goetzes’ treatment, May 27, 1949, Goetz Papers.
16. Goetzes to Wyler, May 31, 1949, Goetz Papers.
17. Wyler to Goetzes, June 7, 1949, Goetz Papers.
18. ibid.
19. Even in one of the later versions of the script, the Goetzes are still portraying Hurstwood as an aggressive man with a quick temper. For example, when Carrie visits him at the restaurant and Slawson catches the couple in an embrace and orders them to “carry that on in the back room,” Hurstwood retorts, “Keep your filthy mouth to yourself. You fathead!” He then throws down his coat and walks out. He never exhibits this kind of bravado in the released film.
20. Archer Winston, New York Post, February 11, 1952.
21. Brandon French, On the Verge of Revolt: Women in American Films of the Fifties (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1978).
22. This is not an unusual view for a Wyler film. A similar pessimism informs Counsellor-at-Law, Dodsworth, The Little Foxes, The Heiress, and, to some extent, The Best Years of Our Lives, although in all but The Heiress, the negativity is balanced by a promise that happiness is possible with the right partner. Dodsworth seems headed for a happier future with Edith Cortwright, Regina's blighted marriage is contrasted by her daughter's love for David Hewitt, and the failure of Fred Derry's marriage is offset by his love for Peggy and the marriage of Homer and Wilma. No such balance is offered here.
23. Bosley Crowther, “‘Carrie,’ with Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones, is New Feature at the Capitol,” New York Times, July 17, 1952.
24. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 330.
25. David Selznick to Frank Freeman, August 22, 1951, Wyler Papers.
26. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 330.
1. “Committee to Defend the Motion Picture industry against Unjust Attacks,” undated, Wyler Collection.
2. Quoted in Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 299.
3. Washington Daily News, November 6, 1947.
4. Dunne, Take Two, 194.
5. Ibid., 199.
6. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 301.
7. Dunne, Take Two, 197.
8. Ibid., 199.
9. Madsen, William Wyler, 286.
10. Dunne, Take Two, 198.
11. Gordon Kahn, Hollywood on Trial (New York: Boni and Gaer, 1948), 219–20.
12. Ibid., 223.
13. Ibid., 221.
14. Valley Times, May 7, 1947. The August 25, 1947, issue of Newsweek reported that Best Years was on a list, compiled by the HUAC, of films that portray “congressmen as crooks and bankers as stony-hearted villains.” Examples of un-Americanism cited in the film include the Dana Andrews character (Fred Derry) being denied a plane reservation on his way home, even though a prosperous fat citizen has no trouble getting one; Fred being turned down for anything better than his former job as a soda jerk by the 4-F personnel manager of an unsympathetic drugstore chain; and the Fredric March character (Al Stephenson) as an ex-sergeant who is unhappy in his postwar job as vice president of a bank, which heartlessly insists on collateral for loans to ex-Gis.
15. Kahn, Hollywood on Trial, 184.
16. “Wallace Talks to 12,000 after Secret Fund Raising,” Los Angeles Examiner, May 17, 1948.
17. Letter from Wyler on behalf of Adrian Scott, November 28, 1950, Wyler Collection.
18. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 339.
19. Wyler to Bosley Crowther, undated, Wyler Collection.
20. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 241, 242.
21. Ibid., 243–44.
22. New York Times, July 23, 1950.
23. The filmmakers inserted a scene at the beginning in which McLeod and Mary meet in a cab and she tells him about a doctor's visit for another failed pregnancy.
24. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 320.
25. Kirk Douglas, The Ragman's Son (New York: Pocket Books, 1989), 163. Wyler's recollection was different: he claimed that he suggested Douglas play the part on stage in Phoenix, “where a troupe was doing a revival of the play. They were delighted to have him. He got a hundred dollars, maybe.” Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 335.
26. Douglas, The Ragman's Son, 165.
27. George Stevens Jr. et al., “The Test of Time: William Wyler,” American Film 1, no. 6 (April 1976). The others were Howard Hawks, Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, and Joseph Mankiewicz.
28. Charles Higham, Hollywood Cameramen (Bloomington: indiana University Press, 1970), 51–52.
29. Anderegg, William Wyler, 175.
30. Ibid.
31. It is interesting to note that in the second draft of the screenplay, that conversation takes place in a bar called the Hangout, not in the privacy of a cab. When Mary tells McLeod that she cannot have a baby and suggests a trip to Lake Tahoe, he turns her down because of the Schneider case: “I can't sleep with that killer loose in the city.” Clearly, Wyler wants to introduce McLeod sympathetically, as a family man. First draft of Dead End, November 11, 1950, Wyler Collection.
32. Kingsley, Five Prize Winning Plays, 280.
33. New York Times, November 17, 1951.
34. Madsen, William Wyler, 304.
35. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 347.
36. Paul Kohner to Wyler, January 22, 1953, Wyler Collection. In his autobiography An Open Book, John Huston wrote (135–36):
In 1952 both José Ferrer and I ran head-on into trouble after bringing Moulin Rouge back from Paris for its premiere in Los Angeles. Joe had a reputation for being far left but he was in fact no more a Communist than my grandmother. Nevertheless, when we opened in Los Angeles some splinter groups from the American Legion—inspired, no doubt, by Hedda Hopper's constantly raking me over the coals in her column—paraded in front of the theater with placards declaring that José Ferrer and John Huston were Communists. I must say it took the edge off the festivities.
37. Arthur Jacobs to Paul Kohner, January 21, 1953, Wyler Collection.
38. Kohner to Wyler, February 14, 1953, Wyler Collection.
39. Art Arthur to Wyler, April 4 and 8, 1953, Wyler Collection.
40. Y. Frank Freeman to Wyler, January 2, 1954, Wyler Collection.
41. Draft of letter from Wyler to Freeman, February 24, 1954, Wyler Collection.
42. Wyler to Freeman, May 3, 1954, Wyler Collection.
43. Ibid.
44. The Broadway producers would adopt Wyler's original notion and cast Paul Newman, in his first starring stage role, opposite Karl Malden.
45. Anderegg, William Wyler, 180.
46. Peter Biskind, Seeing Is Believing (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 162, 164.
47. Joseph Hayes, The Desperate Hours (New York: Random House, 1954), 245.
48. Bernard Kantor, irwin R. Blacker, and Anne Kramer, eds., Directors at Work (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), 428.
49. Wyler, “Production Notes,” Wyler Collection.
50. Anderegg, William Wyler, 182.
51. Film Daily, March 16, 1960.
52. Hanson, “William Wyler,” 31.
53. Higham, “William Wyler,” 18.
54. Gene D. Phillips, “William Wyler,” Focus on Film 24 (Spring 1976): 7, reprinted in Miller, William Wyler: Interviews.
55. Variety, March 8, 1961.
56. Hellman to Wyler, April 1961, Wyler Collection.
57. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 417.
1. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 367.
2. Michael Wilson, script, February 14, 1947, p. 17, Wyler Papers.
3. Jessamyn West, To See the Dream (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1957), 8.
4. Ibid., 92–93.
5. Ibid., 94.
6. Ibid.
7. Kael, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, 238.
8. West, To See the Dream, 101.
9. Ibid., 265–66.
10. Madsen, William Wyler, 318.
11. In the final script by West and Robert Wyler, there is more participation by the Quakers. A farmer reads from a letter his daughter received from Abraham Lincoln: “Your people—the Friends—are having a very great trial. On principle and faith opposed to both war and oppression, they can only practically oppose oppression by war. In this hard dilemma, some have chosen one horn and some the other. For your sons and friends appealing to me on conscientious grounds, I have done and shall do the best I could and can, in my own conscience, under my own oath to the law.” These sentiments are voiced by Major Harvey in Wilson's script but do not appear in the finished film. Perhaps Wyler felt this presidential tolerance lent more credence to the Quaker position than he wanted to show. The script also has a businessman recommending that instead of giving all they earn “to the meeting,” they give that money to the families of those wounded and killed in the war. Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler, “Final Script,” August 18, 1955, Museum of Modern Art.
12. West, To See the Dream, 286. Interestingly, in the final script, this comic sequence takes a serious turn when, during the Birdwells’ visit, the Hudspeths arm themselves and hide in the barn when they hear Confederate raiders near their farm. The raiders eventually leave, but not before taking Red Rover, the horse Jess has just traded to Mrs. Hudspeth. Jess is willing to return Lady, the horse he received in the exchange, but the widow insists that the trade is final.
13. West and R. Wyler, “Final Script,” 153A.
14. Jessamyn West to Wyler, July 1955, Wyler Collection.
15. West and R. Wyler, “Final Script.”
16. Wilson's script also had a more thematically satisfying ending than that used in the film, since it deals with the consequences of war. Eliza announces that Josh will return with Gard to the battlefront, where the war is obviously still raging. Josh, who admits that he has “no stomach for killing,” wants to contribute to the war effort as a stretcher-bearer. Michael Wilson, script, February 13, 1947, Wyler Papers.
17. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 376.
18. Madsen, William Wyler, 326.
19. Wyler affidavit, March 1957, Wyler Papers.
20. Stuart Millar affidavit, March 1957, Wyler Papers.
21. Michael Wilson, versions of Friendly Persuasion script, September 20, 1946, and February 13, 1947, Wyler Papers.
22. Memo from Wyler to Freeman, April 8, 1954, Wyler Papers.
23. Letter from Wyler to Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1978.
24. “Some Summit Lore from Silver Screen,” New York Times, May 31, 1988.
25. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 379.
26. Ibid., 382.
27. Charlton Heston, In the Arena: An Autobiography (New York: Boulevard Books, 1997), 164.
28. Warshow, The Immediate Experience, 147.
29. Wyler to Robert Swink, May 16, 1958, Wyler Collection.
30. Heston, In the Arena, 169.
31. Madsen, William Wyler, 338.
32. In making Ben-Hur, Wyler became embroiled in yet another writing credit controversy, albeit without the political implications involved in Friendly Persuasion. Wyler wanted both Christopher Fry and Karl Tunberg to get credit for the screenplay, and according to Wyler, Tunberg initially agreed but changed his mind when the matter came before the Writers’ Guild. Gore Vidal claims that Wyler wanted Fry to receive sole credit, but Fry thought Vidal should get co-credit. As with Friendly Persuasion, the guild ruled in favor of the original writer (Tunberg) and denied credit to the two other writers who had substantially revised the script. Because Wyler had campaigned against Tunberg's sole credit, the guild eventually blamed him for ruining the writer's chances at the Oscars—of the film's twelve nominations, it won everything except the award for Best Screenplay. While accepting his Best Actor award, Charlton Heston inflamed matters further by thanking Christopher Fry, which prompted the Writers’ Guild to send an angry letter to Heston.
33. “Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic,” Ben-Hur, directed by William Wyler (1959; Santa Monica, Calif.: MCM/UA Home Video, 1993), VHS.
34. In the novel, Messala is merely wounded in the race, not killed. But he is also bankrupted as a result of his wager with Sheik ilderim.
35. Madsen, William Wyler, 339.
1. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 420.
2. Madsen, William Wyler, 366.
3. Ibid., 367.
4. “Movies: Wyler's Wiles,” Time, June 18, 1965.
5. Directed by William Wyler.
6. The novel establishes that she is a virgin, despite her relationship with an older man.
7. The screenwriters eliminate Miranda's relationship with G.P. (George Paston), an artist who mistreats women. He tells Miranda that he has seduced many women like her and even married two of them. G.P. collects conquests and, in this regard, is similar to Freddie. The fact that Miranda worships him and admires his values is disquieting. Miranda's politics and class prejudices are also cut from the film's characterization. The screenwriters omit particulars from Freddie's past as well, including the death of his father when he was a child, the abandonment by his mother, and his subsequent rearing by an aunt who disparages his interest in butterfly collecting.
8. Village Voice, June 24, 1965.
9. Saturday Review, December 25, 1965.
10. Quoted in Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 436.
11. Laurents would later write one of Streisand's most famous film roles—Katie Morosky in The Way We Were.
12. Barbra Streisand, e-mail message to author, May 10, 2013.
13. Ibid.
14. The opening sequence is a total reimagining of the play, which opens in Fanny's dressing room. She enters the room and says, “Hello, Gorgeous,” followed by the stage manager's announcement, “Half hour, Miss Brice.”
15. The earlier script versions, which were written for Sidney Lumet by Sidney Buchman, eliminate the framing device: the first opens with Fanny asking Eddie Ryan, “You think beautiful girls are going to stay in style forever?” and ends with her singing “Nicky Arnstein, Nicky Arnstein—I’ll never see him again”; the second opens with Mrs. Strakosh singing “if a Girl isn't Pretty.” Sidney Buchman, scripts for Funny Girl, September 23 and November 7, 1966, Wyler Papers.
16. Barbra Streisand, e-mail message to author, May 10, 2013. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 447. During the shoot, Streisand and Sharif had a passionate affair, which ended when filming was over. Wyler channeled this emotion in Streisand for the final song.
17. Pauline Kael, Going Steady (New York: Bantam, 1971), 165.
18. The film added three songs not written for the show. In addition to “My Man,” the writers included “Second Hand Rose” and “I’d Rather Be Blue.” Seven songs from the original show were cut.
19. Quoted in Keith Garebian, The Making of Gypsy (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1998), 120.
20. Madsen, William Wyler, 390, 391.
21. Randall Riese, Her Name Is Barbra (New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1994), 282.
22. Barbra Streisand, e-mail message to author, May 10, 2013.
23. Miller, William Wyler: Interviews, 34.
24. Telegram from Wyler to Darryl Zanuck, September 19, 1967, Wyler Collection.
25. Madsen, William Wyler, 397–98.
26. Entertainment World, April 10, 1970.
27. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 452.
28. Jesse Hill Ford, The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones (Boston: Atlantic-Little Brown, 1965), 346.
29. Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1970.
30. Mark Harris, Pictures at a Revolution (New York: Penguin, 2008), 335.
31. Time, August 11, 1967.
32. Andrew Sarris, “Director of the Month,” Show 1, no. 6 (June 1970): 14–15.
33. Entertainment World, April 10, 1970.
34. Madsen, William Wyler, 403.
35. Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 455.
36. Ibid., 467.