10/29/22
Newletter142
The Crack of Dawn
Sgt. Alvin York was America’s most celebrated war hero of WWI. Alvin had been a drunken hellraiser in his youth in Tennessee. Then, as depicted in the movie, he got struck by lightning in the end of his rifle and found God. Alvin became religious, then was drafted into the army. He made a serious attempt to be classified as a conscientious objector and not fight, but was talked out of it. He received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, gathering 35 machine guns, killing at least 25 enemy soldiers and capturing 132 prisoners singlehandedly.
Meanwhile, Jesse Lasky, co-founder of Paramount Pictures, got into tax trouble and was fired from Paramount. But Lasky had an ace up his sleeve because he personally owned the rights to Alvin York’s story. Alvin York had been extremely hesitant to let a movie be made about him because it would glorify violence. Well, Jesse Lasky had to get this picture made because he was over his head in debt (just by the way, of the four founders of Paramount: Lasky, Adolph Zukor, Sam Goldwyn and Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse Lasky was the nice one who everybody liked). So, Lasky went to Tennessee to beg Alvin York to let him make this movie. Finally, Lasky asked what he could possibly do to get York to agree? Alvin York, who was a tall, thin, gangly guy with a big nose, said, “Can you get Gary Cooper to play me?” Lasky assured him he could, although he had no idea if he could or not, and York agreed. Jesse Lasky then sent Gary Cooper a telegram begging him to star in the movie, and signed it Alvin York. Well, how could Cooper turn down America’s most-decorated war hero?
Lasky put together an A-production with Howard Hawks directing, and John Huston co-writing the script. The film was nominated for 9 Oscars. Gary Cooper won Best Actor. The film didn’t save Jesse Lasky’s filmmaking career, but it kept him out of bankruptcy, and it was a great film to end his career with.
Jesse Lasky started in show business back in the early 1900s in vaudeville. He and his sister Blanche had a routine wherein they both played cornet and told jokes. Blanche married Sam Goldfish, who would ultimately become Sam Goldwyn. In 1911 Jesse decided to become a producer of plays and his partner was Beatrice DeMille. Beatrice bullied Jesse into letting her unqualified, ne’er-do-well son, Cecil, direct. It was a success.
And since I’m telling this story backward, Adolph Zukor, who deserves his own newsletter, was one of, if not the most, disliked movie mogul. Aside from co-founding Paramount, being extremely disagreeable, and living to be 103 (I remember the day he died in 1976), Zukor was the man who issued in the “feature-length” film. In 1910 Adolph Zukor decided that movies should be full-length, meaning an hour or two, just like a play. All movies at that point were either one-reel at about 10 minutes, or two-reels at 20 minutes. Having absolutely no idea what he was doing, but having money because he was a successful furrier, he purchased a 53-minute French movie of the biggest stage star Sarah Bernhardt on stage doing The Loves of Queen Elizabeth (1912). It’s a play on stage with a lot of dialogue, no sound, and no clue how movies are made beyond reloading the camera. It was a smash success. Adolph Zukor immediately formed Famous Players in Famous Plays, and pulled this schtick off a couple of times, and because he was right and it was time for movies to become feature-length, he kept making money.
So, Zukor and Lasky formed Lasky-Famous Players (which was how Paramount was known for 10-15 years), then brought in his brother-in-law, Sam Goldfish, the greatest glove salesman in the world, then brought in his former producing partner’s son, Cecil B. DeMille, and they packed up the truck and went to Hollywood.
And that’s the rest of the story.