Take One (Jul 15, 1979)

you to go around and spend a few days, meet the boys, and get to know the place.” I did. The first director assigned was Jack Rubin. I came back a second time because Rubin wanted to find out more about it. Then Rubin suddenly got myelitis and died; then I got kicked out of the studio. Who do you think kicked me out? Harry Rapf. At the time, I was being used as a troubleshooter. I was sent from one set of rushes to another, looking at half a picture; they’d say, “What do you think?” and I'd say, “Well, I think this and this and this ...” “Great ideas, Dore, will you write it out for us?” I'd say, “Fine, but the writer who you already have must know I'm doing it.” I was the fair-haired boy. But I knew this about film already — your hair changes color very quickly. That's when Harry Rapf called me into his office and gave me a script to read. He said, “I’m having trouble with it. They tell me you're a very good troubleshooter .. .” Sol read it ona Friday, came in ona Monday, and said, “Well, I don’t think you should make it. It's false. It doesn’t work. And so-and-so isn’t right for the part. You've got very little money in it, forget it!” He rose up to his full height of 5'7” and said, “It’s not your business to tell me what I should and shouldn't make. You know how much you've cost this studio already?” ‘What could I have cost the studio?” “Three days’ work.” I said, “I don’t know what you're talking about.” He said, “I'll tell you what I’m talking about. You're fired! Get out of this studio.” So I left and went downstairs. Now just consider what happened over the weekend. MGM general manager Eddie Mannix’s wife, who had been ill, died. So he wasn’t in the studio. So the head of the writers said, “Dore, I can’t do anything about it, because Rapf is a prominent producer here. If he says, “Fire you, | gotta fire you.” So I said, “Well, OK.” After Mannix’s wife died, his father was killed in an accident, his mother died a couple of weeks later of shock and then he had a heart attack. By this time, something like ten or twelve weeks had gone by and | couldn't get a job. It was the first period since I arrived in Hollywood that I couldn’t work. What had happened to Boys’ Town? Boys’ Town was ready. Finally, I read that Boys’ Town was going into production. Tracy hadn’t wanted to play a priest again. But he had gone ona binge and when he came out of it he decided he would do Boys’ Town. I couldn't get a job. I had been making $750 a week, which was a lot of money for B pictures, but I had not had a big A picture. Meanwhile, I was working with director Leo McCarey, who signed me to think up a story. He had a title called Love Affair, but he had no idea for the script itself. Who are the people? What will separate them? What will bring them 28 TAKE ONE SCHARY together? How do we do that in high-class terms, in McCarey terms? He was thinking of a diplomat like Charles Boyer. Then I got an idea that the woman should be crippled in an accident and would disappear from his life because she wouldn’t want to be a burden. He said that was great. So we cooked up a story in a week. What had Leo McCarey heard about you? Same as the others, that I was a good story man. After a week, he said, “The story works and you're going to share the credit with me, but I’m going to get Don Stewart to write the screenplay.” | said, “Good luck.” I got $750 and he owned the story. So now things were getting very rough because our second child was on the way and I was running out of money. I never had any feeling about saving. Money was mine to spend, enjoy, give, and I took care, thank God, of a lot of people. So I was figuring I'd have to give back some of the furniture which we owned money on and go back to New York and start over. Then I got a call—by now it was September—from John Considine at MGM, who said “We're previewing Boys’ Town and I want you to come.” So my wife and I went and the picture was an absolute smash. We knew. It all worked like a charm. I came out of the preview and John put his arm around me and said to my wife, “Excuse me, Miriam, I've got to take Dore over. Eddie Mannix wants to say hello to him.” He took me over to Mannix, the general manager, and Mannix gave me a bear hug, and said, “What the hell are you doing now? You got an assignment with a studio?” I replied, “Eddie, I was thrown out!” He said, “By whom?” I said, “Harry Rapf.” He said, “When?” I said, “About three months ago.” He said, “You be in my office tomorrow. We'll put you to work. You gotta get back to work. . .” The next day, I went in and sat with John, because they were running the picture again. They wanted to take out a scene and both John After going on a binge Tracy decided to do Boys’ Town and I felt very strongly about not taking the scene out; it was the fight scene. We won our battle, then we saw Mannix, I got my job and everything was fine. Boys’ Town was a big big hit and in time I got the Academy Award. Two days later, I got a call from McCarey and he said, “I’m taking your name off.” He had made Love Affair by then. Of course months had gone by from the time Boys’ Town hit the street until the Academy Awards. When he said, “I’m taking your name off,” there was no guilt operating or anything. I said, “Why’re you doing that, Leo?” He said, “Why, you got your award, now I want to get mine.” He was serious? Goddamn right he was serious. I said, “Well, good luck.” He said, “I think you're putting the witch’s curse on me.” I said, “I hadn’‘t thought about it but I may be ...” He was nominated for Love Affair, but he didn’t get an Award. That's not a very nice Leo McCarey story. No, it isn’t. He was funny, entertaining, cut your balls off if he had to. What sort of pictures did you do when you returned to MGM? Well, when I got back, I did the Edison bio pictures. Then I did A Broadway Melody, and then I did a picture called Married Bachelor. I also did some fixing up here and there. I was enjoying myself. I was having great fun and the Writers Guild was negotiating contracts and I was on the committee that got the first Guild contract. That's a story that will be in my autobiography. Were there political projects that were unrealized at MGM? I worked with John Considine on a project about Simon Bolivar, which | absolutely adored. | loved that story, but it was never made. It’s crazy. The reason was timidity. They were afraid of the South American market and South American politics. I read the Paul Gallico story, “Joe Smith, American,” and went to John Considine after the studio had said it wouldn't do Bolivar. I said, “John, I read a short story which will make a wonderful little movie and I want to direct it. I want to write it, and I think it’s important to do”—because this was just at the time of FDR’s preparedness program in 1940. So he said, “I can’t give you permission, Dore—the only guy who'll give permission for new directors is L.B. Mayer.” I had never met Mayer. I'd seen him a couple of times. So John took me up to Mayer's office, introduced me, told him what I had in mind. L.B. said, “Let me hear the story.” I told it to him, I had come up with an idea for the finish which was very exciting and very different, and stolen twenty times since. Then he said, “A beautiful story, beautiful story. John, you should buy that story.” He turned to continued on page 45