Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

SIDNEY SKOLSKV r~\ Continued, from page 26 whether by design, accident or putting it over on the home office. It is the epoch of incredulity in New York. They protest against run-away production on the one hand and help the get-away with the other. They are ambidextrous, but never let one hand know what the other is doing. It is the season of Light in Hollywood. Despite damaging statements (“Hollywood is through”), Hollywood remains the glamour and movie capitol of the world. More visitors were here this past summer to see less movies being made than during the past four summers. It is the season of Darkness in New York. They delight in considering Hollywood washed up. When they didn’t hire no-talent men to do the washing up, they took the brush into their own untalented hands. It is the spring of hope in Hollywood. The four seasons aren’t here. It is always spring. No matter how bad the situation gets, the industry is stuck with a thing called hope. Everybody has a dream. The dream may be considered a nightmare. The dreamer may be put down as cockeyed. But don’t forget, he’s a cockeyed optimist. He knows that if you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true? It is the winter of despair in the New York home offices. They talk about liquidating studios, making money from newly discovered oil wells. They make money by selling their not-too-old movies to television to keep people from going to theaters. They talk about everything but making money by making enough movies. I can hear you asking, “How did these terrible things come about? Wasn’t Hollywood a tale of one city? Wasn’t it its own teller of tales?” It all started when the handwriting appeared on the roof. The television aerials. L. B. Mayer was the highest salaried executive in the United States. He dictated what movies M-G-M manufactured; he set salaries of actors; he okayed the cost of every picture. Few people realized Nicholas Schenck in the New York Office was Mayer’s boss. As P long as the studio made a fortune every year. Schenck never interfered with Mayer, although he wasn’t fond of him personally. When the M-G-M yearly statements started appearing repeatedly in red ink instead of black. Mayer was no longer riding into the sunset for the happy ending. Schenck and Mayer had a few Judge Hardy-Andy Hardy talks which resulted in the firing of the once-considered-untouchable L. B. Mayer. Then, after Nicholas Schenck backed the wrong horse (Dore Schary), Schenck was fired. In the picture business every boss — no matter how big and important — has a bigger and more important boss. The emotionless, no-blood-in-their-veins bosses of practically every major studio are the bankers and the stockholders. Their magic and quick-medicine was to run away from the real problem. They’d made their block-busters in Europe. Where they had money they couldn’t get out of countries. Where labor costs were cheaper (an extra gets $5 a day over there — in Hollywood an extra gets $100 and extra money if he speaks a line or does a piece of business). Also, Hollywood studios could obtain financial backing from the English, French, West German and Italian governments, among others, because after the war years those countries desired to develop their own picture industries — and were willing to pay for the know-how. (In England ^this is known as the Eddy Plan.) This is important, too: Making pictures abroad was great for the actor; staying away for eighteen months provided a loop hole to beat the high-bracket United States income tax. Money is even more important than patriotism — the last refuge of the scoundrel. If memory serves correctly. Gene Kelly was the first movie star to crawl through the income tax loop. Like many pioneers, Kelly got hurt. When Gene came home, he never regained his previous star status. At present he is “Going Crosby’s Way,” playing Father O’Malley in the TV series of “Going My Way.” Bing won an Oscar for his portrayal of the priest. It’s doubtful if Kelly will see an Emmy. The actor making movies away from home (Hollywood) was on a vacation and had a ball. Best examples, but by no means the only ones, are Liz Taylor — her behavior made the original Cleopatra nunlike; Marlon Brando — whose antics on Tahiti made former champ playboy Errol Flynn a Boy Scout. Despite all the savings in labor costs, (entire armies from Yugoslavia and Spain have been hired for less than C. B. DeMille paid all the extras in “Samson and Delilah” and “The Greatest Show On Earth”), “Mutiny On The Bounty” cost in the neighborhood of thirty million dollars, “Cleopatra” in the neighborhood of forty-five million dollars. These are the most expensive pictures ever made in the history of Hollywood. It hasn’t been cheap to make movies in Europe. Run-away production now became an epidemic. The industry didn't have a Dr. Salk to provide a vaccine. The deserting rats turned Hollywood into a capsized ship. Yet Hollywood, through its great strength, tradition and faithful fans, has never lost either its glamour or its stars. Cary Grant made “The Grass Is Greener” in England. “The Pride And The Passion” in Spain, but to the world he remains a Hollywood star. Rock Hudson made “Come September” in Italy, Paul Newman “Exodus” in Israel, Charlton Heston “Ben Hur” in Rome, Glenn Ford “The Four Horsemen” in Paris, William Holden “The Lion” in Africa, James Garner “The Great Escape” in Munich, Ava Gardner is doing “55 Days In Peking” in Spain — yet they all have remained Hollywood stars to themselves and to the fans throughout the world. Hollywood is too well known for its well knownness. It would be stupid to deny Hollywood was shook up. In spite of the stupidity and tremendous odds, Hollywood’s special brand of glamour — that even Noah Webster for all his wisdom and many pages can’t define — keeps it going. There’s no denying many fine pictures came from Europe. However, to the world, Rome is decadent, scandalous. La Dolce Vita. Spain is all plains, mountains, bullfighters and a place where Ava Gardner resides. England is traditional, the Eddy plan and inhabited by Angry Young Men who shouldn't be angry. France is Brigette Bardot, towels, the New Wave. And the New Wave is at low ebb. drying inward from the edges. You name the places. They are all devoid of Glamour, the special indefinable Hollywood Glamour, penetrating even Iron Curtains. The European stars desire the touch of the Hollywood magic. The Mighty Joe Levine tossed an expensive party at the Beverly Hills Hotel so that Sophia Loren might come to Hollywood for one day only. That day, she put her footprints in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, in the evening she received her Oscar for her performance in “Two Women.” Watching the presentation were Natalie Wood. Warren Beatty, Tab Hunter and even Tuesday Weld — all considered movie stars by the actress who received the Academy Award for the Best Performance of the Year. Youngsters from all over America run away to Hollywood to become movie stars. They don't run away to London, Paris, Rome, etc. Despite the wrong thinking in New York. Hollywood is on its way back, it has its return ticket. I don’t mean to convey the impression Hollywood will be what it once was in the days of Clark Gable and Norma Shearer or what it was like in the days and unexpected nights of Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin— for Hollywood has always been in transition. It’s too much of even Hollywood to expect it to he the same as it was in the ’20’s, the ’30’s, the ’40’s, the ’50’s. Why demand it of Hollywood? Is New York, is Washington, is Chicago the same now as it was during those old calendars? Don’t sell Hollywood short. Hollywood is a Tall story. I kid you not when I tell you — Hollywood doesn’t even have to fear fear itself! We’re ready for the retakes! The E.nd