Calendar: December 15

A Year: Day to Day Men: 15th of December

Garçon Model Briefs

On December 15, 1939, the drama film “Gone with the Wind”, directed by Victor Fleming and starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, premiered in Atlanta at the Loew’s Grand Theatre.

On September 9, 1939, David O. Selznick, his wife, Irene, investor John Witney and film editor Hal Kern drove out to Riverside, California to preview it at the Fox Theater. The film was still a rough cut at this stage, missing completed titles and lacking special optical effects. It ran for four hours and twenty-five minutes, but would later be cut down to under four hours for its proper release. A double bill of “Wild Nights” and “Beau Geste” was playing, and after the first feature it was announced that the theater would be screening a preview; the audience were informed they could leave but would not be readmitted once the film had begun, nor would phone calls be allowed once the theater had been sealed.

When the title appeared on the screen the audience cheered, and after it had finished it received a standing ovation. In his biography of Selznick, David Thomson wrote that the audience’s response before the film had even started “was the greatest moment of Selznick’s life, the greatest victory and redemption of all his failings”, with Selznick describing the preview cards as “probably the most amazing any picture has ever had.”

About 300,000 people came out in Atlanta for the film’s premiere on December 15, 1939. It was the climax of three days of festivities hosted by Mayor William B, Hartsfield, which included a parade of limousines featuring stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags and a costume ball. Eurith D. Rivers, the governor of Georgia at that time, declared December 15 a state holiday. Residents and visitors to Atlanta lined the streets for up to seven miles to watch a procession of limousines bring the stars from the airport.

Only Leslie Howard and Victor Fleming chose not to attend: Howard had returned to England due to the outbreak of World War II, and Fleming had fallen out with Selznick and declined to attend any of the premieres. Hattie McDaniel was also absent, as she and the other black cast members were prevented from attending the premiere due to Georgia’s Jim Crow laws, which would have kept them from sitting with their white colleagues. Upon learning that McDaniel had been barred from the premiere, Clark Gable threatened to boycott the event, but McDaniel convinced him to attend.

Calendar: October 3

A Year: Day to Day Men: 3rd of October

Perched

October 3, 1941 marks the premier of John Huston’s directorial debut of “The Maltese Falcon” in New York City.

“The Maltese Falcon” was based on Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel of private detective Sam Spade’s solution to a mystery case. Hammett, who had once worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, created the character of Sam Spade as a dream detective, the person most private detectives wanted to be. The plot follows Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart, and his dealings with a client and three unscrupulous adventurers, all of whom are competing to obtain a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette.

Humphrey Bogart was not the first choice to play Sam Spade; producer Hal B. Wallis initially offered the role to George Raft, who turned it down not wanting to work with a newly starting director. Bogart, at the age of forty-two, was delighted to play a highly ambiguous honorable yet greedy character. Huston was grateful that Bogart accepted the role, the film consolidating their friendship and leading to future films such as “Key Largo” in 1948 and “The African Queen” released in 1951.

The character of the sinister “Fat Man” Kasper Gutman was based on the overweight British detective / entrepreneur A. Maundy Gregory. Producer Hal Wallis sugggested that Huston give a screen test to Sydney Greenstreet, a veteran stage character actor who had never appeared on film before. The sixty-one year old Greenstreet impressed Huston with his sheer size, his abrasive laugh, and his manner of speaking. Greenstreet later appeared with Bogart in “Casablanca” and starred in the 1946 “The Verdict”.

The character of Joel Cairo, played by Peter Lorre, was based on a criminal arrested by Dashiell Hammett for forgery in 1920. In the novel, the character is clearly gay, but to avoid problems with the Hays Office censors, this was downplayed considerably in the movie. Because of the Hays Office strict regulations, homosexuality could only be shown through hints, not through any direct means. Thus, Cairo’s calling cards and handkerchiefs are scented; Cairo fusses about his clothes; and Cairo makes subtle fellating gestures with his cane during an interview with Sam Spade.

The uncredited appearance of the character actor Walter Huston, in a small cameo role as the freighter captain who delivers the Falcon, was done as a good luck gesture for his son, John Huston, on his directorial debut. The elder Huston had to promise Jack Warner, head of the studio, that he would not demand a dime for his little role before he was allowed to stagger into Spade’s office.

“The Maltese Falcon” received three nominations for the 14th Academy Awards; Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Sydney Greenstreet, and Best Adapted Screenplay for John Huston’s work. The film was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry in 1989 and was cited by Panorama du Film Noir Americain as the first major film noir.

Calendar: August 15

A Year: Day to Day Men: 15th of August

Behind Door One

August 15, 1939 marks the Hollywood premier of the film “The Wizard of Oz”.

In January 1938, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to L. Frank Baum’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” from Samuel Goldwyn, who had toyed with the idea of making the film as a vehicle for Eddie Cantor who would play the Scarecrow. The final draft of the script was completed on October 8, 1938, following numerous rewrites from many screenwriters; Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf received the film credits.

In his book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, Frank Baum describes Kansas as being “in shades of gray”. Effectively, the use of monochrome sepia tones for the Kansas sequences was a stylistic choice that evoked the dull and gray countryside. Much attention was given to the use of color in the production, with the MGM production crew favoring some hues over others. Consequently, it took the studio’s art department almost a week to settle on the final shade of yellow used for the yellow brick road.

Though Judy Garland was set for the part, Nicholas Schenck, head of Loew’s Inc., MGM’s controlling parent company, felt box-office security in the person of Shirley Temple was needed to ensure a financial return against Oz‘s big budget. At an unofficial audition, MGM musical mainstay Roger Edens listened to Temple sing and reported that she lacked the robust vocal chops required for the extravaganza being prepared. So, the part of Dorothy remained Judy Garland’s, as intended.

Gale Sondergaard, a recent Academy Award winner, was originally cast as the Wicked Witch; however, she became unhappy when the witch’s persona shifted from sly and glamorous into the familiar “ugly hag”. She turned down the role and was replaced on October 10, 1938, just three days before filming started, by MGM contract player Margaret Hamilton. After the filming of “The Wizard of Oz”, both Hamilton and Garland started filming the Busby Berkeley musical “Babes in Arms” with Hamilton playing a role similar to the Wicked Witch.

An extensive talent search produced over a hundred little people to play Munchkins. They were each paid over 125 dollars a week, equivalent to 2200 dollars today. The MGM costume and wardrobe department, under the direction of costume designer Adrian Greenberg, had to design over 100 costumes for the Munchkin sequences. They then had to photograph and catalog each Munchkin in his or her costume so that they could correctly apply the same costume and makeup each day of production.

The Hollywood premiere was on August 15, 1939 at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. While the earnings for the film were considerable, the high production cost, in association with various distribution and other costs, meant the movie initially recorded a loss of over one million dollars for the studio. It did not show what MGM considered a profit until a 1949 re-release earned an additional $1.5 million. The film has been inducted into National Film Registry of the Library of Congress and is listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.