9/16/22
Newsletter99
The Crack of Dawn
But wait, I have more about Carson McCullers. Columbia Pictures did the worst job imaginable selling The Member of the Wedding. Instead of pushing that it was a hit Broadway play; they took the one moment of “action,” when the girl, Frankie, breaks a bottle over a soldier’s head as the image on the poster, which is utterly misleading. So, the film tanked. But it was a beautiful film rendition of McCullers’ book and play. I don’t know, but I have to believe that she was pleased with the film on an artistic level. And though she kept writing books and stories, Hollywood wasn’t interested. Fourteen years later, in 1967, John Huston took on McCullers’ second novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye. The book is strange and wonderful, in its own odd, Carson McCullers, way, and did not seem like suitable film material. This time, instead of getting a small, low-budget, though purely faithful, film version, like The Member of the Wedding; John Huston made a big A-movie out of Reflections in a Golden Eye, starring Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. The film is a disaster in every possible way, including John Huston’s pretentious use of golden filters, and was one of the big bombs of 1967. Once again, I don’t know that one thing had anything to do with the other, but that same year Carson McCullers died at the age of 50. I suspect that if seeing that movie didn’t kill her, it expeditated her demise. It’s too bad because had she lived one more year she could have seen the very faithful film version of her first book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968). Both Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke (in her film debut) were nominated for Oscars, and the film was a hit. Then in 1991, actor/writer Simon Callow directed a film version of McCullers’ book, The Ballad of the Sad Café. I somehow found myself at the gala premiere with the cast and crew. The film is so dreadful that I sneaked out the back door of the theater to avoid the possibility of speaking to anyone involved.
The 1932 Olympics were held in Los Angeles. To create a direct path to the stadium, the city of Los Angeles built the main thoroughfare, Olympic Blvd. Taking advantage of the Olympics being there by using it as the setting of their story, they made the forgotten gem, Million Dollar Legs (1932), starring W.C. Fields. Fields plays the president of the country of Klopstockia, where all men are named John and all women are named Mary. Jack Oakie, an unforgivable ham, falls in love with a girl named Mary. He wanders through Klopstockia calling, “Mary!” Every woman, and a goat, all turn and look. W.C. Fields performs several of his best physical bits with his hat and cane. One of the writers was the extremely young Joseph Mankiewicz, who would go on to win four Oscars: Best Director and Best Screenplay for A Letter to Three Wives (1949), then again the next year, Best Director and Best Screenplay for All About Eve (1950). Plus, Million Dollar Legs is only 61-minutes long.
A couple of silly name changes in Hollywood were: Jules Garfinkle became John Garfield, Francis Gumm became Judy Garland, Emmanuel Goldenberg became Edward G. Robinson, Lucille Le Sueur became Joan Crawford, Muni Weisenfreund became Paul Muni, Claudette Chauchoin became Claudette Colbert, and of course, Marion Morrison became John Wayne.
As they say in New Zealand, Good on ya.