Word: capra
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...Dore Schary had "postponed' two pictures, The Boy with the Green Hair (which preached racial tolerance) and White Tower (a plea for international harmony). There was doubt that Frank Capra, already well into making State of the Union (for M-G-M), would have started this satire on U.S. politics under present circumstances. One frightened Hollywoodenhead said that even last year's Academy Award winner The Best Years of Our Lives could not have been made now (one of the villains was a banker...
Going Paramount's Way. Hollywood's independent producers have been frightened by the box-office slump and the new British movie tax. Six months ago, Frank Capra's Liberty Films sold out to Paramount Pictures (TIME, May 26). Last week Director Leo McCarey's Rainbow Productions, Inc. made a similar deal. McCarey got $1,000,000 worth of Paramount stock for his 50% interest; another $1,000,000 worth went to his associates, among them Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Hal Roach Jr. Paramount gets the services of McCarey and Norman Z. McLeod plus the future...
...independent movie companies in the Hollywood pool, Liberty Films Inc. seemed most likely to become a big fish. It had three of Hollywood's top directors: Frank Capra (Mr.Deeds Goes to Town), a three-time Oscar winner; William Wyler, whose Best Years of Our Lives won nine Oscars last year; George Stevens (Penny Serenade) and Samuel Briskin, who was once Columbia Pictures production boss...
...Capra made the first one, It's a Wonderful Life. It was an excellent film, but not at the box offices. It was released just about the time that movie's attendance, in general, began to slump. It's a Wonderful Life cost $2,300,000 and has grossed only about $2,000,000 so far, less than half of what Liberty expected...
With the artistic freedom they had gained, Capra, Wyler and Stevens had also acquired the worries of businessmen. Wyler sighed: "I have no talent for business. I don't like it. What I want to do is direct pictures. But now I have to fuss with lawyers, make decisions about distribution, be a salesman and so on. I just don't know...