Word: selznicks
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...over at Columbia, found in Stewart "the uncommon common man": as a lion tamer of the wild Vanderhof clan in You Can't Take It with You and as Jefferson Smith, patron saint of patriotic lost causes, nurser of noble grudges, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. David O. Selznick saw Stewart as a worthy partner for Carole Lombard in the intelligent soaper Made for Each Other. Somebody at Universal made him the unlikely western hero of Destry Rides Again, opposite an amused Marlene Dietrich. These moguls may have undervalued Stewart as an appealing young actor who wouldn't upstage...
Says David Picker, former head of United Artists and a friend of Halmi's: "He's a throwback to the kind of creative producer--Sam Spiegel, David O. Selznick--the cultured, romantic, passionate kind, who won't let go of an idea until it happens." And who wants things the way he wants things. When Assante tried to back out of The Odyssey at one point during the production because he was unhappy about the script, Halmi slapped him with a lawsuit for the entire budget of the film. Assante came back, and Halmi conceded to a reworking...
...like Howards End and Remains of the Day, they have, almost alone, kept alive what in Cohn's day was one of Hollywood's more agreeable genres: the handsomely made, well-acted literary-historical drama. These movies reflected the cultural aspirations of producers like Irving Thalberg and David O. Selznick while serving the needs of that portion of the audience not enamored of car chases and tommy-gun fire...
...tawdrier scenes are so strangely earnest that they fail to imbue this interminably long spectacle with the campiness it desperately needs. No one expected Scarlett to be comparable with David O. Selznick's Gone With the Wind, the recipient of nine Academy Awards.But it might at least have tried to measure up to Melrose Place...
...lore about how some films' most indelible scenes -- say, the final words of A Star Is Born ("Mrs. Norman Maine") or Casablanca ("Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship") -- were the last-minute inspirations of uncredited writers or producers. Or about how David O. Selznick, in the middle of making Gone With the Wind, closed down production and asked writer Ben Hecht to save the picture. Hecht cobbled a few scenes, urged Selznick to adhere more closely to Sidney Howard's original screenplay and departed with $10,000 for a week's work...