9/23/23
Newsletter #467
The Crack of Dawn
Even though Nebraska is one of the least populated states in the country, it’s produced an inordinate amount of famous Hollywood people. Without exaggeration, all of the movie moguls came from Eastern Europe . . . except Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, who came from Wahoo, Nebraska. Henry Fonda came from Omaha. When he was eleven, a lady who was friends with his parents and ran the community theater, needed a young boy for her newest production and put Fonda in a play because he was the right age, as this was Henry Fonda’s first stage performance. The lady was named Dorothy Brando. About ten years later she would have a son named Marlon Brando. Meanwhile, Dick Cavett grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and one of his classmates was Sandy Dennis. As a kid Cavett wanted to be a magician. At the age of eleven he saw a popular young local magician perform at a nearby church whose name was Johnny Carson, from Norfolk, Nebraska.
This is a famous Hollywood story. Oddly, in 1952 the two biggest directors in Hollywood were also two of the oldest, Cecil B. DeMille and John Ford. In 1952 DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth won Best Picture, but Best Director went to John Ford for The Quiet Man. 1952 was also the peak of the House Unamerican Activities Committee’s congressional hearings, where they were busily indicting and causing the blacklisting of a lot of primarily Jewish writers, directors and actors who had past Communist affiliations. The head of the most extreme nationalist, anti-Communist group, the National Committee for a Free Europe – formed at the instigation of Allen Dulles, head of the CIA – was Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille’s movies made a lot of money. Samson and Delilah was a huge hit in 1949.
The president of the DGA at the time was Joseph L. Mankiewicz who had recently won the Oscar for Best Director in both 1949 and 1950. Although neither Joseph nor his elder brother Herman (who co-wrote Citizen Kane) were on trial before HUAC, many people they both knew and loved were. So, Cecil B. DeMille had the great idea that all of the members of the Director’s Guild should sign loyalty oaths to America. Joseph Mankiewicz was totally against it, calling for a vote.
The DGA theater was overfilled, and Joe Mankiewicz was having difficulty controlling the meeting. DeMille came out accompanied by the great actor, Aldolphe Menjou (Paths of Glory, among many others), also a rabid anti-Communist, and proposed the idea of all DGA members signing loyalty oaths. This caused pandemonium. Mankiewicz lost control of the agitated, hollering throng.
Meanwhile, a little old guy with a patch over one eye stood up. He wore a dirty sailing outfit, no laces in his sneakers, and chewed a rag, which he did when he wasn’t smoking. When you stand and address a Guild meeting, you start off with who you are. This is me paraphrasing. “My name is Jack Ford and I make westerns. C.B., you and me were here in Hollywood at the very beginning. You make pictures that people love [he presently had the biggest hit in the country with The Greatest Show on Earth] and you always have. But C.B., your politics are up your ass. I’m not signing any goddam loyalty oath. So let’s all vote with Joe Mankiewicz and get this thing over.” The actual speech is longer and more thoughtful, but that’s the gist.
OK, The Greatest Show on Earth, Best Picture, 1952. 153 minutes.
When I was a kid back there in the late-1960s, early-1970s they would make a big deal out of showing movies on TV for the first time. The 9:00 Movie on Friday night. Cut to me, the eager ten-year-old kid, thinking, “Oh, cool, Best Picture, 1952, this’ll be great. A big spectacle.” When the film ended, I had turned eleven and was now completely jaded with life. All of my faith in mankind was gone. Never before in all of my long years watching movies had I seen a film awarded the Oscar for Best Picture that had sucked so bad. How could the Oscar voters sit all the way through that travesty of a movie, then vote for it for Best Picture? It was both unfathomable and unconscionable. And in the same year they gave John Ford Best Director for The Quiet Man? Was this some sort of internecine deal? Was everything at the Oscars not on the up and up?
Well, The Quiet Man was terrific, but The Greatest Show on Earth was making more money faster than any movie since Gone with the Wind. As my wise friend Rick once said of C.B. DeMille, “He was the best filmmaker in the world in 1913, and he never got any better than that.”
Please excuse my crass advertising, but I suppose that I would be foolish not to.
Should anyone care, this is my website (which is busily being rebuilt), and where I can be contacted through “Ask the Director.” When the site first went up in 1998, I was working a lot more as a director.
Man, what a geek
Glad to see the rebuild coming! I checked "Ask the Director" daily starting 2000, and read every script, story, novel, and essay you posted. No one can say I've wasted my life.