Universal under Cliff Work, its production chief, has announced 11 new features to begin shooting during August, September and the first week of October – all due to a fresh influx of cash. First off today will be ’Swing That Cheer,’ a college football comedy-drama. [As production chief, Work was overseeing an upswing in business at Universal, helped along in the main by Deanna Durbin. Work and William S Scully had come over from RKO Theaters, and they initiated a policy to make pictures with a focus on input from exhibitors, thereby drawing closer to the demands of the theater-going public].
Director John M Stahl has petitioned Postmaster General Farley to print a series of postage stamps with portraits of Hollywood stars. [Not until 1993 was a film star put on a US postage stamp in. In this case it was Grace Kelly. Mostly presidents, revolutionary war figures and Civil War figures were honored on stamps in the 1930s].
MGM is in negotiations with George M Cohan for a film based on his life, to star the showman himself. Cohan prefers to do a version for the stage first, and is asking for MGM’s backing for that venture. [A film about the entertainer (‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’) was finally made by Warner Brothers. It began shooting on 12/3/1941, four days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.]
Franchot Tone, who has just finished work on ‘Three Loves Has Nancy’ has refused to sign up again with MGM. Instead he wants to return to Broadway. Sources cite that his recent breakup with his wife Joan Crawford was behind his decision. [Tone and Crawford divorced in March of 1939. Tone was back at MGM in October 1938 for ‘The Girl Downstairs,’ but then was gone again and only returned later in 1939 for ‘Fast and Furious,’ a comedy-mystery directed by Busby Berkeley (obviously, not the paean to speed and street racing)].
No successor to Warner Oland has yet been announced at 20th Century Fox. They have denied that Keye Luke (Charlie Chan’s number one son) will be moved up to the part. Screen tests made with J Edward Bromberg have been promising.
Paramount has given the greenlight to a film about Gettysburg. Clifford Odets has already supplied a script. Henry Hathaway has been pegged to direct. Production will start in October after Albert Lewin, the producer returns from vacation. [At this time Lewin was at work on ‘Zaza’ from late June until late Sept 1938. This Gettysburg script was another project that did not get made. In the Clifford Odets papers held by the NY Public Library, this script is filed in an unproduced works folder. Interestingly, in his testimony before the House of Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, when his motives for working in Hollywood were called into question, he claimed that he only did it to make a living, not as a propagandist, (adding as a side note that anything offensive would have been re-written anyway). When pressed about who had enlisted him for the Communist Party, he pointed the finger at actor J Edward Bromberg. Odet’s play Golden Boy was then at Columbia in preproduction. His play Rocket to the Moon would go on the stage in 1939].
The latest news on ‘Gone with the Wind’ – MGM will finance and release it. Selznick is to produce; Gable will play Rhett; and Selznick will select the actress to portray Scarlett. Production is scheduled to begin shortly after New Year’s – its budget projected to be $1.5 million.
At RKO producer Pandro Berman is being pressured to begin production on ‘Balloon Busters,’ about Frank Luke, the air ace from the recent World War. The studio has owned the Liberty magazine serial upon which it is based for five years. And with Hughes and Corrigan in the news, it seemed to them to be the optimum time for it. [It did not get made. Berman moved from the Astaire-Rogers ‘Carefree’ on to the prestige period film ’The Hunchback of Notre Dame.’ It was his only film for 1939, and his last for RKO. After that he went with MGM. Louis B Mayer had been after him for years, waiting for his contract with RKO to run out].
Louis Bromfield’s novel ‘The Rains Came’ sold to 20th Century Fox for $55,000. [The drama was produced and released in 1939. An early “disaster film,” the action is set in India around a devastating earthquake and flood].
MGM is loaning Spencer Tracy to 20th Century Fox to play opposite Alice Fay in ‘Dance Hall.’ [The property, a novel (The Giant Swing) written by W R Burnett, had been acquired back in 1932. It passed through the hands of thirteen writers, and did not get into production until 1941 – neither Tracy nor Fay were involved].
WB is turning 30 acres of their ranch at Calabasas into a No Man’s Land for their remake of ‘The Dawn Patrol.’ [To contain expenses, scenes were planned to utilize aerial footage shot while making the 1930 version directed by Howard Hawks].
OUTSIDE HOLLYWOOD
In Paris, Marlene Dietrich is negotiating with a French company for a role in an upcoming film about a Montmartre nitery. Her $120,000 asking price, if agreed to, would be a local record. [Out of work since 1937, Dietrich finally made it back into film with 1939’s ‘Destry Rides Again’ for Universal].
A fleet of whaling vessels are being rounded up in Seattle for WB’s ‘Sea Wolf,’ to star Pat O’Brien. [Other actors were talked about to fill the role of Wolf Larsen, including Gable and Muni, before the project was put on hold. In 1940, Edward G Robinson was selected for the part, and the film was finally made].
The British Brontë Society has been assured by Samuel Goldwyn that he no longer is entertaining a change of title for ‘Wuthering Heights’ to ‘He died for Her.’ He is currently seeking an actor for the Heathcliffe part. Merle Oberon will have the female lead. William Wyler, who will direct, has been in England to familiarize himself with the locations. [Other titles that the Selznick organization was considering were even more strange – ‘Gypsy Love’ and ‘Fun on the Farm’].
