Film Fun Friday #3

(photo courtesy of The Internet Movie Database - http://www.imdb.com)

Rebecca, United Artists, 1940

"I dreamt I went to Manderley..."

Thus starts Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which I believe she originally wrote as a parody of gothic novels that were out at the time. (I may not be correct about that, BTW.)

I'd never attempted to read the book, as I'd seen the movie several times; I did know that the ending had to be cleaned up for this movie version. This, because of the infamous Production Code; all I'll say is that it involved a murder and one of the characters.

When my sis-in-law gave me all of her classic, hardbound books a few years ago, I wondered if I'd actually read any of them. I started on Rebecca sometime last year. After all, that first line...it just had to be good.

Meh.

The beginning dragged and dragged and dragged for me. I felt like my brain was going to fall out or something - it was that dreary.

Others may like it, though count me among those who wonder why. But always remember that the way I look at it, you like what you like, and their is no such thing as a guilty pleasure - just a pleasure, thank you. :-)

So here's some trivia for ya:

• Ronald Colman was originally pencilled in as Max de Winter. The part eventually went to Laurence Olivier, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

• Naturally, Vivien Leigh tried out for the part of the second Mrs. de Winter; after all, she was in luuurve with Olivier (during filming of Gone With the Wind, too, although the studio kept Leigh and Olivier separated for most - if not all - of the filming).

• The role went to Joan Fontaine, Olivia de Havilland's sister. She, too, was nominated for an Oscar, for Best Actress.

• The largest of the Manderley miniatures took up nearly an entire soundstage.
  

Have a fun weekend!

~Nancy Beck

Film Fun Friday #3

(photo courtesy of The Internet Movie Database - http://www.imdb.com)

Rebecca, United Artists, 1940

"I dreamt I went to Manderley..."

Thus starts Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which I believe she originally wrote as a parody of gothic novels that were out at the time. (I may not be correct about that, BTW.)

I'd never attempted to read the book, as I'd seen the movie several times; I did know that the ending had to be cleaned up for this movie version. This, because of the infamous Production Code; all I'll say is that it involved a murder and one of the characters.

When my sis-in-law gave me all of her classic, hardbound books a few years ago, I wondered if I'd actually read any of them. I started on Rebecca sometime last year. After all, that first line...it just had to be good.

Meh.

The beginning dragged and dragged and dragged for me. I felt like my brain was going to fall out or something - it was that dreary.

Others may like it, though count me among those who wonder why. But always remember that the way I look at it, you like what you like, and their is no such thing as a guilty pleasure - just a pleasure, thank you. :-)

So here's some trivia for ya:

• Ronald Colman was originally pencilled in as Max de Winter. The part eventually went to Laurence Olivier, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

• Naturally, Vivien Leigh tried out for the part of the second Mrs. de Winter; after all, she was in luuurve with Olivier (during filming of Gone With the Wind, too, although the studio kept Leigh and Olivier separated for most - if not all - of the filming).

• The role went to Joan Fontaine, Olivia de Havilland's sister. She, too, was nominated for an Oscar, for Best Actress.

• The largest of the Manderley miniatures took up nearly an entire soundstage.
  

Have a fun weekend!

~Nancy Beck

Film Fun Friday #2

(image courtesy of The Internet Movie Database - http://www.imdb.com)

David Copperfield, M-G-M, 1935

Well, I had to bring up Dickens at some point, so why not now? :-)

David O. Selznick, best known for bringing Gone With the Wind (1939) to the big screen, went through a period in the middle 1930s where he brought some of the books he enjoyed when he was a lad to the screen.

This was his try at David Copperfield, and it was quite successful. I'll admit that I can't remember the last time I saw this film; it's not something that's run on the movie channels all the time. But with DOS at the producing helm, combined with M-G-M's moolah (and all-around expertise and sheen that was sometimes the envy of the other movie studios), it turned out quite well.

The cast is almost completely British (duh, right?); there was an ample "British colony" of actors in Hollywood at the time (might still be, for all I know).

So here's your trivia stuff for today:

• Charles Laughton (the original Mutiny on the Bounty is probably what he's best known for) originally had the role of Micawber. After three or four days of work, Laughton gave up the part.

• W. C. Fields took over the Micawber role. Yes, that W. C. Fields! Offbeat casting (to put it mildly), but it worked out well.

• M-G-M budgeted the film at just under $1 million (a considerable sum in the 1930s, especially for a non-musical film), but the production costs ballooned to $1,069,225.

• By the end of summer 1935, the picture had grossed $3.5 million in the U.S. alone.

• David O. Selznick and George Cukor (they were friends, after all) took a trip to England to find the young version of David Copperfield. They saw more than 2,500 actors, testing about 100 of these.

• They found their David not among the 100 tested; it was a sudden thing, wherein 10-year-old Freddie Bartholomew was submitted by his aunt. His parents weren't as enthusiastic about the idea of his becoming a movie actor...but as you can see in the picture in this post (Micawber and young Master Copperfield), Freddie won out.

Have a great weekend! :-)

~Nancy Beck

Film Fun Friday #2

(image courtesy of The Internet Movie Database - http://www.imdb.com)

David Copperfield, M-G-M, 1935

Well, I had to bring up Dickens at some point, so why not now? :-)

David O. Selznick, best known for bringing Gone With the Wind (1939) to the big screen, went through a period in the middle 1930s where he brought some of the books he enjoyed when he was a lad to the screen.

This was his try at David Copperfield, and it was quite successful. I'll admit that I can't remember the last time I saw this film; it's not something that's run on the movie channels all the time. But with DOS at the producing helm, combined with M-G-M's moolah (and all-around expertise and sheen that was sometimes the envy of the other movie studios), it turned out quite well.

The cast is almost completely British (duh, right?); there was an ample "British colony" of actors in Hollywood at the time (might still be, for all I know).

So here's your trivia stuff for today:

• Charles Laughton (the original Mutiny on the Bounty is probably what he's best known for) originally had the role of Micawber. After three or four days of work, Laughton gave up the part.

• W. C. Fields took over the Micawber role. Yes, that W. C. Fields! Offbeat casting (to put it mildly), but it worked out well.

• M-G-M budgeted the film at just under $1 million (a considerable sum in the 1930s, especially for a non-musical film), but the production costs ballooned to $1,069,225.

• By the end of summer 1935, the picture had grossed $3.5 million in the U.S. alone.

• David O. Selznick and George Cukor (they were friends, after all) took a trip to England to find the young version of David Copperfield. They saw more than 2,500 actors, testing about 100 of these.

• They found their David not among the 100 tested; it was a sudden thing, wherein 10-year-old Freddie Bartholomew was submitted by his aunt. His parents weren't as enthusiastic about the idea of his becoming a movie actor...but as you can see in the picture in this post (Micawber and young Master Copperfield), Freddie won out.

Have a great weekend! :-)

~Nancy Beck

Film Fun Friday #1

(photo courtesy of the Internet Movie Database)

I'm launching what I hope will be a new feature. It's something I've been thinking about for a while now, considering I'm such a nut case when it comes to U.S. films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

It's Just Trivia, Folks

This is all done with fun in mind, because I've read tons and tons of trivia on these old Hollywood movies. I mean, I've got the movie books to prove it! (Just got the last one on Columbia Pictures off of eBay the other day, heh.)

Gone With the Wind - The Book

A lot of people probably don't know the sensation this book caused when it was released in 1936. It went on to several print runs, and this from a woman who was hesitant to have the book published in the first place!

I read in a bio of Margaret Mitchell that she had stacks of Gone With the Wind (GWTW) all over her apartment, and that she had to scramble to find all the pieces when she finally did decide to send it to a publisher.

Gone With the Wind - The Movie

There's a lot of trivia surrounding the movie version of the book; I've seen the movie several times (no, not when it first came out in 1939; how old do you think I am? ;-)), and it's just so lovely to look at. The performances of what's basically a soap opera are first rate, as is the musical score by Max Steiner.

It won a ton of OscarsTM, including one for Vivien Leigh.

Where's the Trivia?

It's just below, Grasshopper. :-) This is what I hope is some stuff that isn't widely known (except maybe by other movie nuts like me).

• Vivien Leigh's agent was Myron Selznick, brother of David O. Selznick, the producer of GWTW. David had narrowed the list as to who would play Scarlett to two actresses (one of whom was Paulette Goddard), but Myron brought Vivien along to the first scene to be shot and declared to his brother that he'd found Scarlett.

• The first scene to be shot was the burning of Atlanta, where Rhett puts a cloak or something over the horse's eyes and leads the horse through. First, none of the principle actors or actresses are in that scene; they're all stunt doubles (I believe Yakima Canutt, who came to fame with John Wayne, doubled as the Rhett character). Second, there were some old sets being burned in that scene - including the huge wall from King Kong (obviously, the original version of that movie). The wall had been sitting there for six years, so Selznick thought it was high time to get rid of it. And what better way than to combine it with a shot for use in another movie?

• Speaking of King Kong, David O. Selznick headed up RKO at the time King Kong went into production. He filched money from other productions once he saw the dailies; his instinct told him this was something worth spending money on.

• George Cukor was originally pencilled in as the director of GWTW. A friend of Selznick's, he was well known for especially helping actresses give good performances. He was subsequently fired by Selznick because he was moving too slowly; Selznick eventually decided that two directors were needed, one for the main story, the other for second unit stuff (outdoor scenes, that sort of thing). Victor Fleming was brought on board, even though he'd just worked like a bandit on The Wizard of Oz. He had a nervous breakdown at one point; Selznick brought in another director for a few days while Fleming recovered.

• Interestingly, Cukor was originally brought in as the director of The Wizard of Oz. His main contribution to that film - and it was a biggie - was to get rid of Judy Garland's "doll face" make-up and blonde wig. It was thought that the reason for Garland's get up was because Louis B. Mayer's (head of M-G-M at the time) obsession with signing Shirley Temple; Cukor thought the story suggested a more homespun, down-to-earth look. And, of course, he was right. :-)

And that's your trivia for today. Tune in next week - and have a good weekend! :-)

~Nancy Beck

Film Fun Friday #1

(photo courtesy of the Internet Movie Database)

I'm launching what I hope will be a new feature. It's something I've been thinking about for a while now, considering I'm such a nut case when it comes to U.S. films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

It's Just Trivia, Folks

This is all done with fun in mind, because I've read tons and tons of trivia on these old Hollywood movies. I mean, I've got the movie books to prove it! (Just got the last one on Columbia Pictures off of eBay the other day, heh.)

Gone With the Wind - The Book

A lot of people probably don't know the sensation this book caused when it was released in 1936. It went on to several print runs, and this from a woman who was hesitant to have the book published in the first place!

I read in a bio of Margaret Mitchell that she had stacks of Gone With the Wind (GWTW) all over her apartment, and that she had to scramble to find all the pieces when she finally did decide to send it to a publisher.

Gone With the Wind - The Movie

There's a lot of trivia surrounding the movie version of the book; I've seen the movie several times (no, not when it first came out in 1939; how old do you think I am? ;-)), and it's just so lovely to look at. The performances of what's basically a soap opera are first rate, as is the musical score by Max Steiner.

It won a ton of OscarsTM, including one for Vivien Leigh.

Where's the Trivia?

It's just below, Grasshopper. :-) This is what I hope is some stuff that isn't widely known (except maybe by other movie nuts like me).

• Vivien Leigh's agent was Myron Selznick, brother of David O. Selznick, the producer of GWTW. David had narrowed the list as to who would play Scarlett to two actresses (one of whom was Paulette Goddard), but Myron brought Vivien along to the first scene to be shot and declared to his brother that he'd found Scarlett.

• The first scene to be shot was the burning of Atlanta, where Rhett puts a cloak or something over the horse's eyes and leads the horse through. First, none of the principle actors or actresses are in that scene; they're all stunt doubles (I believe Yakima Canutt, who came to fame with John Wayne, doubled as the Rhett character). Second, there were some old sets being burned in that scene - including the huge wall from King Kong (obviously, the original version of that movie). The wall had been sitting there for six years, so Selznick thought it was high time to get rid of it. And what better way than to combine it with a shot for use in another movie?

• Speaking of King Kong, David O. Selznick headed up RKO at the time King Kong went into production. He filched money from other productions once he saw the dailies; his instinct told him this was something worth spending money on.

• George Cukor was originally pencilled in as the director of GWTW. A friend of Selznick's, he was well known for especially helping actresses give good performances. He was subsequently fired by Selznick because he was moving too slowly; Selznick eventually decided that two directors were needed, one for the main story, the other for second unit stuff (outdoor scenes, that sort of thing). Victor Fleming was brought on board, even though he'd just worked like a bandit on The Wizard of Oz. He had a nervous breakdown at one point; Selznick brought in another director for a few days while Fleming recovered.

• Interestingly, Cukor was originally brought in as the director of The Wizard of Oz. His main contribution to that film - and it was a biggie - was to get rid of Judy Garland's "doll face" make-up and blonde wig. It was thought that the reason for Garland's get up was because Louis B. Mayer's (head of M-G-M at the time) obsession with signing Shirley Temple; Cukor thought the story suggested a more homespun, down-to-earth look. And, of course, he was right. :-)

And that's your trivia for today. Tune in next week - and have a good weekend! :-)

~Nancy Beck