Tom Barnes's Blog: Tom's 'RocktheTower' Blog - Posts Tagged "gatsby"
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?pi...
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
www.RocktheTower.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?pi...
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
www.RocktheTower.com
Tom's 'RocktheTower' Blog
I do a variety blog and post every Wednesday. I am an actor, writer and hurricane hunter and my subjects are generally written about those fields. During Hurricane Season I do at least one story every
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