Let’s go to the Movies
Part 15
Victor Fleming returned to work and Sam Wood stayed on to help.
According to David Selznick Sam Wood did an outstanding job filling in for Fleming and in one of his memos he stated that there was no loss in picture quality during that period.
Fleming was back on the set the second week of May and Sam Wood agreed to stick around and help out where ever he was needed. By that time in the production the working script was in place and Selznick’s idea was to drive forward and complete filming as soon as possible.
To accomplish that goal he wanted to have as many as five units shooting various scenes on the same day. And as a means to that end Selznick would take Sam Wood up on his offer and then add several other second unit directors to shoot various location scenes.
Previously mentioned second unit directors Yakima Canutt and James A Fitzpatrick were already on the list.
Fitzpatrick was in Georgia shooting background scenes from the actual Tara area.
In order to have enough directing talent available Peter Ballbusch, a solid utility director was added to the second unit director’s list.
B. Reeves Eason had a wide range of experience as actor, writer and director also signed up as a second unit director.
Chester M. Franklin was hired for his experience dating back to the silent days.
William Cameron Menzies the present production designer and art director of GWTW was pressed into service as a second unit director. The versatile Menzies was also a film director, producer and screenwriter.
Menzies would later add to his resume the film ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ where he shared producer credits with Mike Todd and Kevin McCloy.
The Kentucky Derby
This week’s sports pages all over the world will be filled with stories about Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. Horses, trainers and owners will all get their moment of fame. Some of the stories will be original and insightful while most will be boilerplate rhetoric you could have read the week before any past derby. And some of the best stories may be overlooked this week simply because late in the afternoon on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs the Kentucky Derby will be run. And sometimes a star is born.
But once the winner gets that blanked of roses, be it favorite or unbelievable Longshot a new cycle begins with talk in the Sunday morning sports pages about the 2009 race for the Triple Crown.
Back in 1919 a star and a tradition was born.
The big story coming out of the 1919 Kentucky Derby was that Sir Barton was not in the race to win, he was entered as a rabbit to go out fast and wear down the favorites giving Sir Barton’s stable mate Billy Kelly a chance to come from behind and take all the marbles. Well, it didn’t work out that way because Sir Barton didn’t tire; he just went on to win the race.
Sir Barton was immediately put on a train and shipped to Baltimore where only four days later he won the Preakness. Then a couple of weeks after that race he took New York by storm and won a race at Belmont, which was later to become the Belmont Stakes.
And that was the beginning of a horse racing tradition known as the Triple Crown.
(To be continued)
Nazi Stolen Art
Excerpt from ‘The Goring Collection.
Jacob Meyers, head of the Founders Group Intelligence Division, hooks up with Interpol’s international art investigation. Two suspect paintings, a Manet and Cézanne, are sold in Berlin as copies and tracked to the Berghoff Gallery in Chicago where they sell as originals. The paintings came from cache plundered by the Nazi’s now controlled by Cartel.
FGI Operatives investigate and report a flurry of Cartel activities in Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Accidental shooting at the Chicago Gallery, two murders in San Francisco, political blackmail in Las Vegas and a rogue group within the Cartel dealing drugs in West Georgia. That hodgepodge of crimes makes no sense until Jacob gets a tip from informant giving him date and place for Cartel’s upcoming grand auction. But the real bombshell comes when Cartel member – ex Senator Tripp Farrell – is linked to San Francisco murders.
A task force made up of FGI, Customs, DEA and a local sheriff quashed the Cartel’s multi-million dollar auction and shut down the drug trafficking operation. But the hunt for Cartel’s main stash continued and leads to Europe where FGI, Interpol and a Danish Partisan group team up to search for the Goring Collection.
Writers Notebook:
A lesson from Hemingway’s ‘A Moveable Feast.’
‘…good and severe discipline.’
‘It was in that room that I learned not to think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day. That way my subconscious could be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything…’
‘Going down the stairs when I had worked well, and that needed luck as well as discipline, was a wonderful feeling and I was free then to walk anywhere in Paris. If I walked down by different streets to Jardin du Luxembourg in the afternoon I would walk through the gardens and then go to the Musee du Luxembourg…’ ‘I went there nearly every day for the Cézanne’s and to see the Manet’s and the Monet’s and the other Impressionist’s that I had first come to know about in the Art Institute in Chicago…’
‘But if the light was gone in the Luxembourg I would walk up through the gardens and stop in at the studio apartment where Gertrude Stein lived at 27 rue de Fleurus.’
Another example of what the writer observes is what eventually goes onto the printed page. And Hemingway believed that those observations after passing through the subconscious was the way to build from, ‘that one true sentence,’ he talked about so often.
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Oz, Wind and The Great Gatsby
Let’s Go to the Movies
Part 14
Exhausted!
Victor Fleming never got a break between his work on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and his assignment to ‘Gone With the Wind.’
Under normal circumstances, with only a couple of days rest it would have been enough for a routine transition. However, his assignment to ‘Gone With the Wind,’ was anything but routine. The general public had already formed opinions and had high expectations of what they wanted from reading the 1034 page novel. And David Selznick had every intention of satisfying those expectations.
In a sense Fleming’s first hurdle was in the area of public relations. He was replacing George Cukor, a very popular director; through no fault of his own, nonetheless it was a touchy situation, as some members of the GWTW cast didn’t like the change at all.
Second and probably more important was that the script was still in pieces and had to be assembled, one script written by Sidney Howard and the other by Oliver Garrett. David Selznick picked and chose from, not unlike a Chinese Restaurant menu, scenes by selecting from Side A or Side B. Now this is just an educated guess, but I suspect that Ben Hecht was the go to guy to write, when necessary, transitions and any other slight modifications that Selznick came up with. For the most part those changes within the scenes came from the book. You see Selznick, continued to sift through Margaret Mitchell’s novel and, when he found a fit, he transferred dialogue or a phrase or two straight out of the book to the shooting script. Sounds insane, but you have to admit that when all the pieces were assembled – it worked.
The trouble was that Victor Fleming didn’t have a clue about the eventual outcome. To him at that moment it probably looked like a train wreck in the making.
That was in mid February of 1939 and it took about two months before the shooting schedule and other duties began to take a physical tole on the director.
The first indication of a problem was a hush, hush memo dated April 14, 1939 from Selznick to his Vice President Henry Ginsberg and first assistant Daniel O’Shea.
The memo posed the possibilities of again having to halt production. ‘…I have for some time been worried that Fleming would not be able to finish the picture because of his physical condition….’
Fleming’s doctor thought he was in good enough shape to continue work, but from Selznick’s personal observation he said ‘…he is so near the breaking point both physically and mentally from shear exhaustion that it would be a miracle, in my opinion, if he’s able to shoot for another seven or eight weeks.’
Selznick certainly didn’t want his opinion to get back to Fleming, but during the course of the memo he mentioned a couple of possible replacement directors Bob Leonard from the MGM staff and Bill Wellman at Paramount.
Selznick’s intuition regarding Fleming’s physical condition likely came from his knowledge about what brought him to GWTW in the first place. Fleming had been working in a pressure cooker situation over at MGM on ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ the directors position had been like playing the game of musical chairs. Some of the directors that had been assigned and later replaced were Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe, George Cukor, and Victor Fleming, sound familiar? When Fleming was pulled off Oz to replace Cukor on ‘Gone With the Wind’ he was replaced by King Vidor.
And although Victor Fleming wasn’t there for the final takes of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ he got sole credit for directing the film. Screen Credits are part of the inside Hollywood politics and while several directors might work on and contribute to a film, usually only one gets the screen credit while the others go Unaccredited.
On April 26, Fleming collapsed on the set from exhaustion and was out for a two-week rest. Sam Wood took over for the ailing Fleming. Wood came over from MGM and was not without credentials, he had directed Ginger Rogers in her Oscar winning performance in Kitty Foyle.
(To be continued)
More about Nazi Stolen art and ‘The Goring Collection.’When Jacob asked why the painting was withdrawn from the auction a tight-lipped manager was trotted out and asserted, “Due to confidentiality agreements with the seller we can offer no reason why the painting has been withdrawn.”
“Is there any possibility that it will be offered at a later time?” Jacob asked.
“We have no way of knowing that,” the manager said in a tone that dismissed any further questions.
‘Jacob knew the man was lying and was frustrated by his own actions that had allowed the painting to be snatched right out from under his nose. Suddenly he felt pangs of guilt, not for his present thoughts, but what he hadn’t recognized in the past. For soon after the Nazi’s took the painting he had simply dismissed Papa’s Pissarro as just another relic that could easily be replaced. Of course, looking back at the situation he could only attribute that callous dismissal to his youth. But when the painting turned up, at the Auction House, he saw everything in a different light and suddenly realized just how much the painting had meant to him and his sister during the war years. And at that moment he made a solemn promise, in the memory of his parents, to use every resource at his disposal to find Papa’s cherished painting. Jacob furrowed his brow as he thought about the daunting task ahead.’
Even today Nazi stolen art still grabs headlines.
U.S. Customs Seizes Old Master Lost in Nazi-Era Forced Sale
By Catherine Hickley
For Old Master story Click Here
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aMX2V40qezwk&refer=muse
Writers Notebook:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
In a long ago April, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his editor Maxwell Perkins were bantering about who should get credit for the structure of ‘The Great Gatsby.’ As the release date approached everyone at Scribner’s along with the author believed they had a best seller on their hands. As it turned out the critic’s had other ideas.
Two days after publication The New York World described F. Scott Fitzgerald’s latest A Dud. And unfortunately most of those early critics’s arrived at that same conclusion.
The book didn’t sell and Scribner’s warehouse had several thousand copies of the unsold books to prove it. But to find a reason why later generations gave ‘Gatsby’ a new life, one might look back at H.L. Mencken’s remarks at the time of publishing. Mencken said he found the form ‘No more than a glorified anecdote and a far inferior story at bottom.’ But he did recognize ‘the novel as plainly the product of a sound stable talent, conjured into being by hard work. And he appreciated the craft of revision that accounted for so much, and it shows on every page.’
Mencken also credited Fitzgerald with ‘depicting the rattle and hullabaloo of society with great gusto and sharp accuracy.’ (The flapper, Speakeasies and Bathtub gin)
Of course there were some good reviews at the time that were drowned out by the other side. However, even today with its rebirth and popularity when talk gets around to ‘The Great Gatsby’ you can still find good arguments on both sides of the debate.
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
Part 14
Exhausted!
Victor Fleming never got a break between his work on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and his assignment to ‘Gone With the Wind.’
Under normal circumstances, with only a couple of days rest it would have been enough for a routine transition. However, his assignment to ‘Gone With the Wind,’ was anything but routine. The general public had already formed opinions and had high expectations of what they wanted from reading the 1034 page novel. And David Selznick had every intention of satisfying those expectations.
In a sense Fleming’s first hurdle was in the area of public relations. He was replacing George Cukor, a very popular director; through no fault of his own, nonetheless it was a touchy situation, as some members of the GWTW cast didn’t like the change at all.
Second and probably more important was that the script was still in pieces and had to be assembled, one script written by Sidney Howard and the other by Oliver Garrett. David Selznick picked and chose from, not unlike a Chinese Restaurant menu, scenes by selecting from Side A or Side B. Now this is just an educated guess, but I suspect that Ben Hecht was the go to guy to write, when necessary, transitions and any other slight modifications that Selznick came up with. For the most part those changes within the scenes came from the book. You see Selznick, continued to sift through Margaret Mitchell’s novel and, when he found a fit, he transferred dialogue or a phrase or two straight out of the book to the shooting script. Sounds insane, but you have to admit that when all the pieces were assembled – it worked.
The trouble was that Victor Fleming didn’t have a clue about the eventual outcome. To him at that moment it probably looked like a train wreck in the making.
That was in mid February of 1939 and it took about two months before the shooting schedule and other duties began to take a physical tole on the director.
The first indication of a problem was a hush, hush memo dated April 14, 1939 from Selznick to his Vice President Henry Ginsberg and first assistant Daniel O’Shea.
The memo posed the possibilities of again having to halt production. ‘…I have for some time been worried that Fleming would not be able to finish the picture because of his physical condition….’
Fleming’s doctor thought he was in good enough shape to continue work, but from Selznick’s personal observation he said ‘…he is so near the breaking point both physically and mentally from shear exhaustion that it would be a miracle, in my opinion, if he’s able to shoot for another seven or eight weeks.’
Selznick certainly didn’t want his opinion to get back to Fleming, but during the course of the memo he mentioned a couple of possible replacement directors Bob Leonard from the MGM staff and Bill Wellman at Paramount.
Selznick’s intuition regarding Fleming’s physical condition likely came from his knowledge about what brought him to GWTW in the first place. Fleming had been working in a pressure cooker situation over at MGM on ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ the directors position had been like playing the game of musical chairs. Some of the directors that had been assigned and later replaced were Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe, George Cukor, and Victor Fleming, sound familiar? When Fleming was pulled off Oz to replace Cukor on ‘Gone With the Wind’ he was replaced by King Vidor.
And although Victor Fleming wasn’t there for the final takes of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ he got sole credit for directing the film. Screen Credits are part of the inside Hollywood politics and while several directors might work on and contribute to a film, usually only one gets the screen credit while the others go Unaccredited.
On April 26, Fleming collapsed on the set from exhaustion and was out for a two-week rest. Sam Wood took over for the ailing Fleming. Wood came over from MGM and was not without credentials, he had directed Ginger Rogers in her Oscar winning performance in Kitty Foyle.
(To be continued)
More about Nazi Stolen art and ‘The Goring Collection.’When Jacob asked why the painting was withdrawn from the auction a tight-lipped manager was trotted out and asserted, “Due to confidentiality agreements with the seller we can offer no reason why the painting has been withdrawn.”
“Is there any possibility that it will be offered at a later time?” Jacob asked.
“We have no way of knowing that,” the manager said in a tone that dismissed any further questions.
‘Jacob knew the man was lying and was frustrated by his own actions that had allowed the painting to be snatched right out from under his nose. Suddenly he felt pangs of guilt, not for his present thoughts, but what he hadn’t recognized in the past. For soon after the Nazi’s took the painting he had simply dismissed Papa’s Pissarro as just another relic that could easily be replaced. Of course, looking back at the situation he could only attribute that callous dismissal to his youth. But when the painting turned up, at the Auction House, he saw everything in a different light and suddenly realized just how much the painting had meant to him and his sister during the war years. And at that moment he made a solemn promise, in the memory of his parents, to use every resource at his disposal to find Papa’s cherished painting. Jacob furrowed his brow as he thought about the daunting task ahead.’
Even today Nazi stolen art still grabs headlines.
U.S. Customs Seizes Old Master Lost in Nazi-Era Forced Sale
By Catherine Hickley
For Old Master story Click Here
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aMX2V40qezwk&refer=muse
Writers Notebook:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
In a long ago April, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his editor Maxwell Perkins were bantering about who should get credit for the structure of ‘The Great Gatsby.’ As the release date approached everyone at Scribner’s along with the author believed they had a best seller on their hands. As it turned out the critic’s had other ideas.
Two days after publication The New York World described F. Scott Fitzgerald’s latest A Dud. And unfortunately most of those early critics’s arrived at that same conclusion.
The book didn’t sell and Scribner’s warehouse had several thousand copies of the unsold books to prove it. But to find a reason why later generations gave ‘Gatsby’ a new life, one might look back at H.L. Mencken’s remarks at the time of publishing. Mencken said he found the form ‘No more than a glorified anecdote and a far inferior story at bottom.’ But he did recognize ‘the novel as plainly the product of a sound stable talent, conjured into being by hard work. And he appreciated the craft of revision that accounted for so much, and it shows on every page.’
Mencken also credited Fitzgerald with ‘depicting the rattle and hullabaloo of society with great gusto and sharp accuracy.’ (The flapper, Speakeasies and Bathtub gin)
Of course there were some good reviews at the time that were drowned out by the other side. However, even today with its rebirth and popularity when talk gets around to ‘The Great Gatsby’ you can still find good arguments on both sides of the debate.
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
GWTW on Location, Nazi Stolen Art and Blogging
Let’s go to the Movies
David Selznick had some sleepless nights mulling over his vision for the final cut of his Gone With the Wind film. Not only did it involve the length of the picture it involved the grand scope of every frame. Could they make a larger than life picture within the confines of their back lot? The answer was a resounding NO.
Selznick tackled the problem and alluded to a partial answer in a memo dated March 9, 1939 directed to Ray Klune, his production manager,
Selznick complained about the exteriors being shot outside Tara and compared them to other films such as ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘The Great Waltz,’ and he wasn’t pleased with what he saw…’Frankly, I’m now terribly sorry we didn’t build Tara on location…I’d like you and Mr. Menzies to get together immediately to make sure that out remaining exteriors, such as the exterior of Twelve Oaks, and the shot in which Gerald talks about the land being the only thing that matters, have real beauty instead of looking like B picture film…This is quite apart from the photography – I don’t see how the greatest cameraman in the world could get much beauty out of what we have given him for the exterior of Tara. (I am not speaking now of the set itself but of the landscaping, the line of trees etc…Incidentally, I would also like you to consider whether your second unit should go immediately to Georgia, or any other place, to pick up some shots for the opening sequence…’
Well, that memo sparked an increase in location scouting and eventually second unit film crews moved off the Selznick Studio back lot and began shooting GWTW’s exterior scenes in the great outdoors.
James Fitzpatrick (‘Travel Talks’ short subject producer) was hired as a second unit director and dispatched to Georgia to get an authentic sense of the land and the Georgia environment.
Second unit camera’s cast and crew’s traveled from Culver City to locations at Agoura Hills, Big Bear, Calabasas, Chico, Malibu Lake, Pasadena, San Bernardino National Forest, Simi Valley, and probably several other locations.
Some of the directors involve in that location filming were Sam Wood, Yakima Canutt, Chester Franklin, and the aforementioned James Fitzpatrick filmed Georgia scenes, some of which were used in the title sequence of the film.
The second unit work on those exterior scenes was well worth the effort as they gave the film an openness that would otherwise have been missing had Selznick not had that great vision.
Some of the outdoor scenes that added real life and continuity to the film include Big Sam’s ‘Quittin’ time’ scene with men coming home from the fields.
Gerald O’Hara’s horse riding and jumping sequences, Gerald and Scarlett’s walk and his talk about the land.
Scarlett’s ‘As God is my witness’ scene in the open field gives us a few moments of true movie magic.
The cotton field scene with sisters Suellen and Careen as well as the returning veterans and the long shot sequence of Ashley coming home from the war are all effective.
And when you consider that this film was made long before modern special effects became a part of moviemaking is hard to believe they actually pulled it off. But the test of time alone proves that their hard work was rewarded and that Selznick’s vision had been right on target.
The industry recognized the quality of the film immediately and gave awards to Lyle Wheeler for best interior decoration and William Cameron Menzies for outstanding achievement in the use of color. (Those are just a couple of awards; Gone With the Wind almost swept the Academy Awards in 1939 – a year of great films. More later on 1939 films and awards.)
Hitler’s Stolen Art Still in the News
The irony is in the timing. While America was waiting for the opening of ‘Gone With the Wind’ Europe was preparing for World War II. .
BERLIN (AP) — Two paintings that the Nazis forced a Jewish art dealer to sell off in the 1930s have been returned to his estate, and its heirs said Wednesday they were working hard to recover hundreds more.
‘Tom Barnes has tapped the headlines into Nazis stolen art and crafted a spellbinding mystery.’ Julie Burton, playwright and author of “Consider the Tulips.”
‘The Goring Collection.’
Jacob Meyers is stunned to see his father’s Pissarro – taken by the Nazi’s in 1945 – among the paintings up for sale at the Old World Auction House in Manhattan. He questions management and while he reads a phony provenance, the Pissarro is withdrawn from sale and mysteriously disappears. Jacob, head of an intelligence group, alerts Interpol and joins their ongoing investigation into the underground world of stolen art.
Two suspect paintings, a Manet and a Cézanne sold by an international cartel in Berlin as copies, are tracked to the Berghoff Gallery in Chicago where they are auctioned off as originals. An accidental shooting at the gallery exposes the cartel’s shell game and leads to blackmail of a Las Vegas odds maker, murder of a San Francisco politician, and the assassination of a former matinee idol in West Virginia.
Link to stolen art display: Click Here
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/arts/design/20muse.html?_r=2&8dpc
Writers Notebook:
On Internet Blogging:
Think of blogging as a community bulletin board.
Simply put you blog to share information with others and you can blog about anything Aunt Suzie’s favorite recipes, politics, pop art, gardening or fly-fishing.
The political classes are having a field day in the blog world.
My ‘RocktheTower’ blog reflects many of my personal experiences as writer, actor and hurricane hunter.
Most writers have files filled with stuff (and some is just that – stuff) we’ve written in the past articles, essays etc. If you’ve written a book you’re in good shape because you have lots of material to fall back on. Use excerpts to promote your book or make a point.
You set your own schedule and deadline to post. My idea is to work with consistency in order to make that deadline. One of the incentives I use is that at the end of the day I will have accumulated enough material to edit into a book about storytelling on the blog.
Twitter is something you might look into, it will give you another way to generate new ideas and feed your blog: something to think about.
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
David Selznick had some sleepless nights mulling over his vision for the final cut of his Gone With the Wind film. Not only did it involve the length of the picture it involved the grand scope of every frame. Could they make a larger than life picture within the confines of their back lot? The answer was a resounding NO.
Selznick tackled the problem and alluded to a partial answer in a memo dated March 9, 1939 directed to Ray Klune, his production manager,
Selznick complained about the exteriors being shot outside Tara and compared them to other films such as ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘The Great Waltz,’ and he wasn’t pleased with what he saw…’Frankly, I’m now terribly sorry we didn’t build Tara on location…I’d like you and Mr. Menzies to get together immediately to make sure that out remaining exteriors, such as the exterior of Twelve Oaks, and the shot in which Gerald talks about the land being the only thing that matters, have real beauty instead of looking like B picture film…This is quite apart from the photography – I don’t see how the greatest cameraman in the world could get much beauty out of what we have given him for the exterior of Tara. (I am not speaking now of the set itself but of the landscaping, the line of trees etc…Incidentally, I would also like you to consider whether your second unit should go immediately to Georgia, or any other place, to pick up some shots for the opening sequence…’
Well, that memo sparked an increase in location scouting and eventually second unit film crews moved off the Selznick Studio back lot and began shooting GWTW’s exterior scenes in the great outdoors.
James Fitzpatrick (‘Travel Talks’ short subject producer) was hired as a second unit director and dispatched to Georgia to get an authentic sense of the land and the Georgia environment.
Second unit camera’s cast and crew’s traveled from Culver City to locations at Agoura Hills, Big Bear, Calabasas, Chico, Malibu Lake, Pasadena, San Bernardino National Forest, Simi Valley, and probably several other locations.
Some of the directors involve in that location filming were Sam Wood, Yakima Canutt, Chester Franklin, and the aforementioned James Fitzpatrick filmed Georgia scenes, some of which were used in the title sequence of the film.
The second unit work on those exterior scenes was well worth the effort as they gave the film an openness that would otherwise have been missing had Selznick not had that great vision.
Some of the outdoor scenes that added real life and continuity to the film include Big Sam’s ‘Quittin’ time’ scene with men coming home from the fields.
Gerald O’Hara’s horse riding and jumping sequences, Gerald and Scarlett’s walk and his talk about the land.
Scarlett’s ‘As God is my witness’ scene in the open field gives us a few moments of true movie magic.
The cotton field scene with sisters Suellen and Careen as well as the returning veterans and the long shot sequence of Ashley coming home from the war are all effective.
And when you consider that this film was made long before modern special effects became a part of moviemaking is hard to believe they actually pulled it off. But the test of time alone proves that their hard work was rewarded and that Selznick’s vision had been right on target.
The industry recognized the quality of the film immediately and gave awards to Lyle Wheeler for best interior decoration and William Cameron Menzies for outstanding achievement in the use of color. (Those are just a couple of awards; Gone With the Wind almost swept the Academy Awards in 1939 – a year of great films. More later on 1939 films and awards.)
Hitler’s Stolen Art Still in the News
The irony is in the timing. While America was waiting for the opening of ‘Gone With the Wind’ Europe was preparing for World War II. .
BERLIN (AP) — Two paintings that the Nazis forced a Jewish art dealer to sell off in the 1930s have been returned to his estate, and its heirs said Wednesday they were working hard to recover hundreds more.
‘Tom Barnes has tapped the headlines into Nazis stolen art and crafted a spellbinding mystery.’ Julie Burton, playwright and author of “Consider the Tulips.”
‘The Goring Collection.’
Jacob Meyers is stunned to see his father’s Pissarro – taken by the Nazi’s in 1945 – among the paintings up for sale at the Old World Auction House in Manhattan. He questions management and while he reads a phony provenance, the Pissarro is withdrawn from sale and mysteriously disappears. Jacob, head of an intelligence group, alerts Interpol and joins their ongoing investigation into the underground world of stolen art.
Two suspect paintings, a Manet and a Cézanne sold by an international cartel in Berlin as copies, are tracked to the Berghoff Gallery in Chicago where they are auctioned off as originals. An accidental shooting at the gallery exposes the cartel’s shell game and leads to blackmail of a Las Vegas odds maker, murder of a San Francisco politician, and the assassination of a former matinee idol in West Virginia.
Link to stolen art display: Click Here
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/arts/design/20muse.html?_r=2&8dpc
Writers Notebook:
On Internet Blogging:
Think of blogging as a community bulletin board.
Simply put you blog to share information with others and you can blog about anything Aunt Suzie’s favorite recipes, politics, pop art, gardening or fly-fishing.
The political classes are having a field day in the blog world.
My ‘RocktheTower’ blog reflects many of my personal experiences as writer, actor and hurricane hunter.
Most writers have files filled with stuff (and some is just that – stuff) we’ve written in the past articles, essays etc. If you’ve written a book you’re in good shape because you have lots of material to fall back on. Use excerpts to promote your book or make a point.
You set your own schedule and deadline to post. My idea is to work with consistency in order to make that deadline. One of the incentives I use is that at the end of the day I will have accumulated enough material to edit into a book about storytelling on the blog.
Twitter is something you might look into, it will give you another way to generate new ideas and feed your blog: something to think about.
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Nameless Faces on the Silver Screen, MS and Mark Twain
Let’s go to the Movies
I grew up watching dozens of nameless faces on that giant silver screen. Saturday at the Bijou or in my case the Princess Theatre in Jackson, Georgia you’d likely see two features a western, Bulldog Drummond, a thriller serial with a cliffhanger ending, a newsreel and a couple of cartoons all for a dime. Wow – what a bargain.
Saturday was the day when we became familiar with many of those nameless faces. There was a lot of typecasting with the expected bad guys almost always playing their regular heavies roles and likewise the good folks that would eventually form a posse and go chasing the heavies.
Many of those nameless faces were among the UNCREDITED cast members that worked on ‘Gone With the Wind.’
Of the 72 players listed on the uncredited roster about two thirds could be called professional extras. Today they’re known as background performers. In 1939 most of those people were proud of their work and it showed on the set, the AD (assistant director) or the director gave them instructions as to what their action would be during the scene and they did their job without question. Some of those players owned extensive wardrobes and came to work dressed in the period the movie was depicting and they got extra pay for those costumes. There is also extra pay for special business or silent bit assignments given out on the set. And once in a while someone will be given a piece of dialogue to perform, which automatically makes that person a day player with a substantial increase in pay.
The other third of that group was made up of one-time feature players in silent films or sound that were simply past their prime while some of the younger players among them were on their way up. These people listed below will give you an idea of how the casting department followed Selznick’s guidelines and put those faces on the screen to compliment an almost perfect main cast.
Ralph Brooks was featured in ‘Smash Up’ an Oscar nominated film with Susan Hayward for best actress and Dorothy Parker for best original story. Brooks was in ‘Tulsa’ another Susan Hayward film that won an Oscar for best effects and special effects.
Eddy Chandler pops up in many films and he is prominent in Charlie Chan ‘In the Secret Service.’
Wallis Clark, Frank Coghlan Jr, Gino Corrado and Lester Dorr all had long bits and extra résumé’s.
Tommy Kelly had a brief but good run as a child actor while Si Jenks padded his long resume playing old men in westerns.
Dirk Wayne Summers had a long resume and did several episodes on ‘Golden Girls.’
Emerson Treacy, Philip Trent, Julie Ann Tuck, Ernest Whitman, Guy Wilkerson and John Ray all had long résumé’s listing small roles in feature films and TV.
George Meeker was featured in a string of movies playing disagreeable characters, the guy you loved to hate.
Charles Middleton was outstanding in the very popular Flash Gordon serial playing Ming the Merciless. Middleton played dozens of feature roles but Ming might have been the highlight of his film career.
Alberto Morin had an amazing career doing features and small parts in both movies and TV. Morin Played General Le Claire in ‘Two Mules for Sister Sara’ starring Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine. Morin worked in Hellfighters with John Wayne and played scores of roles in TV including multiple episodes on ‘Dallas’ and ‘I Love Lucy.’
David Newell had an extensive background in movies and TV. Newell is best known for his role as the postman in ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.’
Marjorie Reynolds came up through the ranks and at the top of her career was cast in a leading role alongside Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in the film ‘Holiday Inn.’
The three remaining names on my list all went on to have stellar acting careers and deserve TOP BILLING:
Frank Faylen, Tom Tyler and Richard Farnsworth.
Frank Faylen played the average guy in more than 200 movies and TV films. The most memorable might have been the likeable cab driver working with James Stewart in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
Tom Tyler had a long and profitable career beginning in the silent film era. He starred in the ‘Captain Marvel’ serial and played leads in numerous B westerns and scores of feature roles in major films.
Richard Farnsworth: Farnsworth began working in film in 1937 as stuntman and actor. He achieved stardom in the 1982 film ‘The Grey Fox’ for which he won the Genie award. Then in 1999 Richard Farnsworth was nominated for an academy award as best actor for the film ‘The Straight Story.’
David Selznick demanded and got the best talent available for GWTW from stars to the minor roles and the class of those actors’ shows today when you watch the film on TV or your DVD.
Now let’s go from make-believe to one mans story -- living with Multiple Sclerosis.
The Gang’s All Here
By Chris Tatevosian
“The Monster and His Friends"
My marriage of ten years began dissolving when the “Monster” invited his friends to live in my house. If you have MS, you’ve probably met the gang. There was the kingpin, Stress, his best friend Anger and his twin, Misdirected. Of course a feeling of worthlessness was always there along with inadequacy, low self-esteem and depression. You can also add worry, anxiety and lack of communications to the mix. And all of those characters hung around and never left -- but my wife did.
Sounds like the cast of a real nightmare. At that point of my life it literally was a nightmare, and I couldn’t see myself ever waking up. MS can destroy relationships between spouses, family members and friends. Eventually I turned on a more positive attitude and wrote the book, “Life Interrupted, It’s Not All About Me,” a self-help memoir, my real life story of marriage interrupted by multiple sclerosis. It could have been any chronic illness or disability and it could have been anyone’s relationship. Still, this book is intended to help others going through a similar situation deal with the stress and hardship put on one’s relationships as a result of a chronic illness or disability.
My story is not always pretty, but it’s real. I have written this book to help others in similar situations avoid making the same mistakes that I did. You’re not alone, and there is hope when facing and dealing with the stress put on a relationship as a result of life being interrupted, as in my case by -- MS.
I got remarried last April. My new bride, Jane, is fantastic. And even though my disease is worse than during my first marriage I could not ask for more. So what’s changed? We truly have a wonderful relationship. Why is my marriage working so well now, even though my MS has continued to progress over the past eight years? I can attribute this to two factors. First, Jane is truly a special person, and second. I have written this book, which has afforded me the opportunity to slow down and examine my life. The obvious fact is, we have the choice to go through life dealing with whatever trials and tribulations we must, and deal with either a smile or a frown. Yes, we have an affliction, but that doesn’t mean we have to go through the rest of our lives ticked off at everything and everyone, and as a consequence live life in complete misery.
My wife Jane and I laugh and laugh together and at one another all the time. Sure, I have slip ups, get frustrated and angry. It happened just the other night. I became so frustrated with Jane during the middle of the morning. Actually it was 3:17 am; I have one of those giant digital alarm clocks for the legally blind. When I can’t sleep, believe me I know what time it is. You see, Jane suffers from restless leg syndrome and the other night she was kicking me in the shin, and other places all night long. BAD! Of course I have to deal with nocturnia, which means every time I wake up I have to empty my bladder. I take prescription Flomax so normally I can sleep through the night without having to get up to visit the bathroom. Needless to say, it was a long night and I was ready to yell at my wife, which I would have done in my previous marriage. So what’s the difference, what’s changed? The difference is that I have written, re-written, read and re-read my book so many times that when I do begin to slip-up it’s so obvious that I usually catch myself. Of course Jane has read the book too, so when I slip up she’s quick to point out, “Chris, I think you need to revisit page 76 “and we have a good chuckle. I never thought I would get married again. After all, who would marry damaged goods? At one point prior to my marriage I said to my wife to be, why would you marry someone with MS it’s like buying a vase with a hole in the bottom. Her response was, maybe I want it to hold dried flowers. So these dried flowers are happily married and loving every minute of it.
If you’d like to learn more about the dissolving of my first marriage and strengthen your own, please visit my web site www.lifeInterrupted-nolonger.com Click Here
Writers Notebook:
Samuel Langhorne Clemons
Mark Twain worked with words most of his life. At the age of twelve he took a job in a print shop as an apprentice. His storytelling jargon came from newspaper headlines and stories, not from the editorial pages. Twain wrote for the masses and he wrote in their vernacular, and always inserting a healthy dose of his unique sense of humor.
Mark Twain has shared a special writing tip with us, his approach to writing an autobiography. ‘Start it at no particular time in your life; talk only about the things which interest you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale; and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting theme that has intruded itself into your mind.’
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.www.tombarnes39.com
I grew up watching dozens of nameless faces on that giant silver screen. Saturday at the Bijou or in my case the Princess Theatre in Jackson, Georgia you’d likely see two features a western, Bulldog Drummond, a thriller serial with a cliffhanger ending, a newsreel and a couple of cartoons all for a dime. Wow – what a bargain.
Saturday was the day when we became familiar with many of those nameless faces. There was a lot of typecasting with the expected bad guys almost always playing their regular heavies roles and likewise the good folks that would eventually form a posse and go chasing the heavies.
Many of those nameless faces were among the UNCREDITED cast members that worked on ‘Gone With the Wind.’
Of the 72 players listed on the uncredited roster about two thirds could be called professional extras. Today they’re known as background performers. In 1939 most of those people were proud of their work and it showed on the set, the AD (assistant director) or the director gave them instructions as to what their action would be during the scene and they did their job without question. Some of those players owned extensive wardrobes and came to work dressed in the period the movie was depicting and they got extra pay for those costumes. There is also extra pay for special business or silent bit assignments given out on the set. And once in a while someone will be given a piece of dialogue to perform, which automatically makes that person a day player with a substantial increase in pay.
The other third of that group was made up of one-time feature players in silent films or sound that were simply past their prime while some of the younger players among them were on their way up. These people listed below will give you an idea of how the casting department followed Selznick’s guidelines and put those faces on the screen to compliment an almost perfect main cast.
Ralph Brooks was featured in ‘Smash Up’ an Oscar nominated film with Susan Hayward for best actress and Dorothy Parker for best original story. Brooks was in ‘Tulsa’ another Susan Hayward film that won an Oscar for best effects and special effects.
Eddy Chandler pops up in many films and he is prominent in Charlie Chan ‘In the Secret Service.’
Wallis Clark, Frank Coghlan Jr, Gino Corrado and Lester Dorr all had long bits and extra résumé’s.
Tommy Kelly had a brief but good run as a child actor while Si Jenks padded his long resume playing old men in westerns.
Dirk Wayne Summers had a long resume and did several episodes on ‘Golden Girls.’
Emerson Treacy, Philip Trent, Julie Ann Tuck, Ernest Whitman, Guy Wilkerson and John Ray all had long résumé’s listing small roles in feature films and TV.
George Meeker was featured in a string of movies playing disagreeable characters, the guy you loved to hate.
Charles Middleton was outstanding in the very popular Flash Gordon serial playing Ming the Merciless. Middleton played dozens of feature roles but Ming might have been the highlight of his film career.
Alberto Morin had an amazing career doing features and small parts in both movies and TV. Morin Played General Le Claire in ‘Two Mules for Sister Sara’ starring Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine. Morin worked in Hellfighters with John Wayne and played scores of roles in TV including multiple episodes on ‘Dallas’ and ‘I Love Lucy.’
David Newell had an extensive background in movies and TV. Newell is best known for his role as the postman in ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.’
Marjorie Reynolds came up through the ranks and at the top of her career was cast in a leading role alongside Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in the film ‘Holiday Inn.’
The three remaining names on my list all went on to have stellar acting careers and deserve TOP BILLING:
Frank Faylen, Tom Tyler and Richard Farnsworth.
Frank Faylen played the average guy in more than 200 movies and TV films. The most memorable might have been the likeable cab driver working with James Stewart in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
Tom Tyler had a long and profitable career beginning in the silent film era. He starred in the ‘Captain Marvel’ serial and played leads in numerous B westerns and scores of feature roles in major films.
Richard Farnsworth: Farnsworth began working in film in 1937 as stuntman and actor. He achieved stardom in the 1982 film ‘The Grey Fox’ for which he won the Genie award. Then in 1999 Richard Farnsworth was nominated for an academy award as best actor for the film ‘The Straight Story.’
David Selznick demanded and got the best talent available for GWTW from stars to the minor roles and the class of those actors’ shows today when you watch the film on TV or your DVD.
Now let’s go from make-believe to one mans story -- living with Multiple Sclerosis.
The Gang’s All Here
By Chris Tatevosian
“The Monster and His Friends"
My marriage of ten years began dissolving when the “Monster” invited his friends to live in my house. If you have MS, you’ve probably met the gang. There was the kingpin, Stress, his best friend Anger and his twin, Misdirected. Of course a feeling of worthlessness was always there along with inadequacy, low self-esteem and depression. You can also add worry, anxiety and lack of communications to the mix. And all of those characters hung around and never left -- but my wife did.
Sounds like the cast of a real nightmare. At that point of my life it literally was a nightmare, and I couldn’t see myself ever waking up. MS can destroy relationships between spouses, family members and friends. Eventually I turned on a more positive attitude and wrote the book, “Life Interrupted, It’s Not All About Me,” a self-help memoir, my real life story of marriage interrupted by multiple sclerosis. It could have been any chronic illness or disability and it could have been anyone’s relationship. Still, this book is intended to help others going through a similar situation deal with the stress and hardship put on one’s relationships as a result of a chronic illness or disability.
My story is not always pretty, but it’s real. I have written this book to help others in similar situations avoid making the same mistakes that I did. You’re not alone, and there is hope when facing and dealing with the stress put on a relationship as a result of life being interrupted, as in my case by -- MS.
I got remarried last April. My new bride, Jane, is fantastic. And even though my disease is worse than during my first marriage I could not ask for more. So what’s changed? We truly have a wonderful relationship. Why is my marriage working so well now, even though my MS has continued to progress over the past eight years? I can attribute this to two factors. First, Jane is truly a special person, and second. I have written this book, which has afforded me the opportunity to slow down and examine my life. The obvious fact is, we have the choice to go through life dealing with whatever trials and tribulations we must, and deal with either a smile or a frown. Yes, we have an affliction, but that doesn’t mean we have to go through the rest of our lives ticked off at everything and everyone, and as a consequence live life in complete misery.
My wife Jane and I laugh and laugh together and at one another all the time. Sure, I have slip ups, get frustrated and angry. It happened just the other night. I became so frustrated with Jane during the middle of the morning. Actually it was 3:17 am; I have one of those giant digital alarm clocks for the legally blind. When I can’t sleep, believe me I know what time it is. You see, Jane suffers from restless leg syndrome and the other night she was kicking me in the shin, and other places all night long. BAD! Of course I have to deal with nocturnia, which means every time I wake up I have to empty my bladder. I take prescription Flomax so normally I can sleep through the night without having to get up to visit the bathroom. Needless to say, it was a long night and I was ready to yell at my wife, which I would have done in my previous marriage. So what’s the difference, what’s changed? The difference is that I have written, re-written, read and re-read my book so many times that when I do begin to slip-up it’s so obvious that I usually catch myself. Of course Jane has read the book too, so when I slip up she’s quick to point out, “Chris, I think you need to revisit page 76 “and we have a good chuckle. I never thought I would get married again. After all, who would marry damaged goods? At one point prior to my marriage I said to my wife to be, why would you marry someone with MS it’s like buying a vase with a hole in the bottom. Her response was, maybe I want it to hold dried flowers. So these dried flowers are happily married and loving every minute of it.
If you’d like to learn more about the dissolving of my first marriage and strengthen your own, please visit my web site www.lifeInterrupted-nolonger.com Click Here
Writers Notebook:
Samuel Langhorne Clemons
Mark Twain worked with words most of his life. At the age of twelve he took a job in a print shop as an apprentice. His storytelling jargon came from newspaper headlines and stories, not from the editorial pages. Twain wrote for the masses and he wrote in their vernacular, and always inserting a healthy dose of his unique sense of humor.
Mark Twain has shared a special writing tip with us, his approach to writing an autobiography. ‘Start it at no particular time in your life; talk only about the things which interest you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale; and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting theme that has intruded itself into your mind.’
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.www.tombarnes39.com
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Aristotle, Shakespeare and Gone With the Wind
Let’s go to the Movies
Part 11
Cast in order of appearance:
Gerald O’Hara – Thomas Mitchell Ellen O’Hara – Barbara O’Neil
Scarlett O’Hara – Vivien Leigh Suellen O’Hara – Evelyn Keyes
Careen O’Hara – Ann Rutherford Brent Tarleton – George Reeves
Stuart Tarleton – Fred Crane Mammy – Hattie McDaniel
Pork – Oscar Polk Prissy – Butterfly McQueen
Jonas Wilkerson – Victor Jory Big Sam – Everett Brown
John Wilkes – Howard Hickman India Wilkes – Alicia Rhett
Ashley Wilkes – Leslie Howard Melanie Hamilton – Olivia de Havilland
Charles Hamilton – Rand Brooks Frank Kennedy – Carroll Nye
Rhett Butler – Clark Gable Aunt ‘Pittypat’ Hamilton – Laura Hope Crews
Dr. Meade – Harry Davenport Uncle Peter – Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson
Mrs. Meade – Leona Roberts Mrs. Dolly Merriwether – Jane Darwell
Belle Watling – Ona Munson Yankee Deserter – Paul Hurst
Emmy Slattery – Isabel Jewell Bonnie Blue Butler – Cammie King
Amputation Case – Eric Linden Johnny Gallagher – J.M. Kerrigan
Tom – Yankee Captain -- Ward Bond Phil Meade – Jackie Moran
Reminiscent Soldier – Cliff Edwards Bonnie’s London Nurse L.Kemble-Cooper
Renegade -- Yakima Canutt Cathleen Calvert – Marcella Martin
Beau Wilkes – Mickey Kuhn Soldier Holding Beau Wilkes – Louis J. Heydt
A Carpetbagger – Olin Howland Corporal – Irving Bacon
Yankee Major – Robert Elliott Mounted Officer – William Bakewell
Maybell Merriwether – Mary Anderson
Stars, feature players, bits and extras were all carefully chosen for their parts in Gone With the Wind. It goes without saying that the stars and features had to meet the physical and emotional requirements laid out by Margaret Mitchell in her book. But Selznick took his strict casting model a bit further and included bits and extras.
He voiced some of his thoughts on the subject to production manager Ray Klune in one of his famous memos…’I’ve always felt that it is a false kind of economy to save on bit actors. The time that cheap and inexperienced actors cost through the director’s inability to get performances out of them alone more than makes up the difference between the salaries and the salaries of good actors…nothing is as important on the screen as the actor. To save money on actors and spend it on sets is silly – the audiences are looking at the actors, not at the sets, if our action means anything. And while a bit actor is on the screen, if it is only for two seconds, he is as important as the star…’
Small roles – Large talents
Some of the small, but memorable roles, among the credited actors were Everett Brown who played the loyal Big Sam. ‘Quitten’ time is when I say it’s quitten’ time.’--‘Quitten’ time.’ And later when Yakima Canutt the renegade stopped Scarlett’s carriage at the bridge Big Sam comes to her rescue. Canutt was typecast for his renegade role – he had dozens of credits playing heavies in the old Hollywood westerns. Yakima Canutt was a director as well, he was also one of Hollywood’s premiere stuntmen. Canutt contributed to GWTW as a second unit director and directed all those great chariot races in Ben Hur. He made movie history when he did the famous stagecoach stunt in John Ford’s Classic ‘Stagecoach.’
Aunt Pittypat’s coachman, Uncle Peter, was none other than Jack Benny’s sidekick Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson.
Paul Hurst, the Yankee deserter shot by Scarlett had scores of acting credits in supporting roles that included ‘The Ox Bow Incident’ with Henry Fonda and Harry Davenport (Dr. Meade in GWTW) and ‘The Westerner’ with Gary Cooper, Dana Andrews and Walter Brennan.
Next week I’ll talk about some of the characters on the UNCREDITED roster of bits and extras that contains more than seventy names.
Gone With the Wind and Doc Holliday Connection
In the novel Philippe Robillard is killed off during a barroom brawl in New Orleans, and a priest returned the locket and letters to Ellen in Savannah. When in fact a minister at Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where Doc Holliday died of tuberculosis, actually sent them to Sister Melanie at St. Vincent’s Academy in that same city.
What a savvy storyteller she was. Peggy Mitchell knew how to shut down controversy and illustrated that technique by killing off Philippe in a New Orleans barroom. It was
an absolutely brilliant piece of writing. She left no loose ends, nothing that could point toward Doc Holliday’s life west of the Mississippi.
There is no doubt that Peggy Mitchell was bright, and not to leave anything out, there is one final scene relative to the Robillard story in chapter twenty-four that makes the case even more convincing. Scarlett was a lot like her mother, but the daughter never came to realize just how much like Ellen she really was -- even after she was told.
In one of the late scenes it comes out that Mammy was the only one that knew the full extent of Ellen’s undying love for Philippe. When Scarlett returned to Tara and was mourning her mother's death the half-breed Dilcey told Scarlett her mother’s dying words. Feeleep! Feeleep! Scarlett assumed the name was Philippe and she asked the question, 'Who was he and what had he been to Mother that she died calling his name?' But Scarlett got no answers because Mammy kept her silence and Dilcey didn’t know.
So according to the words in “Gone With the Wind, Ellen never lost her love for Philippe Robillard. Which means, at least in Margaret Mitchell's mind, Sister Mary Melanie never got over John Henry.
And to find the rest of the story you have to look no further than Margaret Mitchell’s world of the Old South with its plantations, cotton fields and magnolias.
Writers Notebook:
Maxwell Anderson’s rule for making a hit play:
‘What is the rule, Max?’ Josh demanded.
‘Well it turns out it was Aristotle all the time. It’s also in all the great Shakespeare plays, and any strong play that takes the protagonist through a series of experiences that leads to a moment toward the end of the play where he discovers something about himself that he could have known all along, but didn’t. This discovery changes the entire course of his life – and that change must be for the better. If the change is for the worse the audience will reject the play. The audience must see and feel the leading man or woman become wiser and that doesn’t mean a happy ending. If the hero is to die, the revelation must come before the death.
People then leave the theatre feeling better. They’ve had an exciting and uplifting experience and that excitement gives life to the play.’
Josh Logan goes on to say ‘I’ve used this golden rule to some extent on every play and film I’ve done. It has strengthened the strong ones and quite often saved the weak ones from disaster.’
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.www.tombarnes39.com
Part 11
Cast in order of appearance:
Gerald O’Hara – Thomas Mitchell Ellen O’Hara – Barbara O’Neil
Scarlett O’Hara – Vivien Leigh Suellen O’Hara – Evelyn Keyes
Careen O’Hara – Ann Rutherford Brent Tarleton – George Reeves
Stuart Tarleton – Fred Crane Mammy – Hattie McDaniel
Pork – Oscar Polk Prissy – Butterfly McQueen
Jonas Wilkerson – Victor Jory Big Sam – Everett Brown
John Wilkes – Howard Hickman India Wilkes – Alicia Rhett
Ashley Wilkes – Leslie Howard Melanie Hamilton – Olivia de Havilland
Charles Hamilton – Rand Brooks Frank Kennedy – Carroll Nye
Rhett Butler – Clark Gable Aunt ‘Pittypat’ Hamilton – Laura Hope Crews
Dr. Meade – Harry Davenport Uncle Peter – Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson
Mrs. Meade – Leona Roberts Mrs. Dolly Merriwether – Jane Darwell
Belle Watling – Ona Munson Yankee Deserter – Paul Hurst
Emmy Slattery – Isabel Jewell Bonnie Blue Butler – Cammie King
Amputation Case – Eric Linden Johnny Gallagher – J.M. Kerrigan
Tom – Yankee Captain -- Ward Bond Phil Meade – Jackie Moran
Reminiscent Soldier – Cliff Edwards Bonnie’s London Nurse L.Kemble-Cooper
Renegade -- Yakima Canutt Cathleen Calvert – Marcella Martin
Beau Wilkes – Mickey Kuhn Soldier Holding Beau Wilkes – Louis J. Heydt
A Carpetbagger – Olin Howland Corporal – Irving Bacon
Yankee Major – Robert Elliott Mounted Officer – William Bakewell
Maybell Merriwether – Mary Anderson
Stars, feature players, bits and extras were all carefully chosen for their parts in Gone With the Wind. It goes without saying that the stars and features had to meet the physical and emotional requirements laid out by Margaret Mitchell in her book. But Selznick took his strict casting model a bit further and included bits and extras.
He voiced some of his thoughts on the subject to production manager Ray Klune in one of his famous memos…’I’ve always felt that it is a false kind of economy to save on bit actors. The time that cheap and inexperienced actors cost through the director’s inability to get performances out of them alone more than makes up the difference between the salaries and the salaries of good actors…nothing is as important on the screen as the actor. To save money on actors and spend it on sets is silly – the audiences are looking at the actors, not at the sets, if our action means anything. And while a bit actor is on the screen, if it is only for two seconds, he is as important as the star…’
Small roles – Large talents
Some of the small, but memorable roles, among the credited actors were Everett Brown who played the loyal Big Sam. ‘Quitten’ time is when I say it’s quitten’ time.’--‘Quitten’ time.’ And later when Yakima Canutt the renegade stopped Scarlett’s carriage at the bridge Big Sam comes to her rescue. Canutt was typecast for his renegade role – he had dozens of credits playing heavies in the old Hollywood westerns. Yakima Canutt was a director as well, he was also one of Hollywood’s premiere stuntmen. Canutt contributed to GWTW as a second unit director and directed all those great chariot races in Ben Hur. He made movie history when he did the famous stagecoach stunt in John Ford’s Classic ‘Stagecoach.’
Aunt Pittypat’s coachman, Uncle Peter, was none other than Jack Benny’s sidekick Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson.
Paul Hurst, the Yankee deserter shot by Scarlett had scores of acting credits in supporting roles that included ‘The Ox Bow Incident’ with Henry Fonda and Harry Davenport (Dr. Meade in GWTW) and ‘The Westerner’ with Gary Cooper, Dana Andrews and Walter Brennan.
Next week I’ll talk about some of the characters on the UNCREDITED roster of bits and extras that contains more than seventy names.
Gone With the Wind and Doc Holliday Connection
In the novel Philippe Robillard is killed off during a barroom brawl in New Orleans, and a priest returned the locket and letters to Ellen in Savannah. When in fact a minister at Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where Doc Holliday died of tuberculosis, actually sent them to Sister Melanie at St. Vincent’s Academy in that same city.
What a savvy storyteller she was. Peggy Mitchell knew how to shut down controversy and illustrated that technique by killing off Philippe in a New Orleans barroom. It was
an absolutely brilliant piece of writing. She left no loose ends, nothing that could point toward Doc Holliday’s life west of the Mississippi.
There is no doubt that Peggy Mitchell was bright, and not to leave anything out, there is one final scene relative to the Robillard story in chapter twenty-four that makes the case even more convincing. Scarlett was a lot like her mother, but the daughter never came to realize just how much like Ellen she really was -- even after she was told.
In one of the late scenes it comes out that Mammy was the only one that knew the full extent of Ellen’s undying love for Philippe. When Scarlett returned to Tara and was mourning her mother's death the half-breed Dilcey told Scarlett her mother’s dying words. Feeleep! Feeleep! Scarlett assumed the name was Philippe and she asked the question, 'Who was he and what had he been to Mother that she died calling his name?' But Scarlett got no answers because Mammy kept her silence and Dilcey didn’t know.
So according to the words in “Gone With the Wind, Ellen never lost her love for Philippe Robillard. Which means, at least in Margaret Mitchell's mind, Sister Mary Melanie never got over John Henry.
And to find the rest of the story you have to look no further than Margaret Mitchell’s world of the Old South with its plantations, cotton fields and magnolias.
Writers Notebook:
Maxwell Anderson’s rule for making a hit play:
‘What is the rule, Max?’ Josh demanded.
‘Well it turns out it was Aristotle all the time. It’s also in all the great Shakespeare plays, and any strong play that takes the protagonist through a series of experiences that leads to a moment toward the end of the play where he discovers something about himself that he could have known all along, but didn’t. This discovery changes the entire course of his life – and that change must be for the better. If the change is for the worse the audience will reject the play. The audience must see and feel the leading man or woman become wiser and that doesn’t mean a happy ending. If the hero is to die, the revelation must come before the death.
People then leave the theatre feeling better. They’ve had an exciting and uplifting experience and that excitement gives life to the play.’
Josh Logan goes on to say ‘I’ve used this golden rule to some extent on every play and film I’ve done. It has strengthened the strong ones and quite often saved the weak ones from disaster.’
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.www.tombarnes39.com
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