Time for another film connections post, in which I link films and cinema personalities together and tell a few interesting stories along the way. This week, I hope to connect Douglas Fairbanks to Marlon Brando — and maybe even back again.
During Hollywood’s silent‑film era, Douglas Fairbanks was arguably its greatest star. In 1922 he released his lavish version of Robin Hood, the first film ever to have a Hollywood premiere, held at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre. The production featured enormous sets, including a castle and an entire town built at Fairbanks’ studio on Santa Monica Boulevard, expanded on screen with hanging models and matte paintings.
Fairbanks, who performed many of his own stunts, famously rode down a huge curtain at Nottingham Castle, made slightly easier by a concealed slide. The film was directed by Allan Dwan, one of early cinema’s great pioneers.
Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Chaplin and DW Griffiths who together created United Artists.
Among the cast was Alan Hale as Little John, a role he reprised years later in the 1938 Technicolor version starring Errol Flynn.
Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood featured Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian and Basil Rathbone as Guy of Gisborne, who serves as the film’s main villain. The Sheriff of Nottingham, the traditional arch enemy of Robin is portrayed in this film as more of a comic figure. Much of the film was shot in California’s Bidwell Park, standing in for Sherwood Forest, with additional scenes filmed at the Warner Ranch in Calabasas.
The film began under director William Keighley, but producer Hal B. Wallis later brought in Michael Curtiz, who had previously made several films with Flynn, including Captain Blood, the film that made Flynn a star.
The highlight of The Adventures of Robin Hood is the climactic duel between Robin and Sir Guy, culminating in the famous moment when their shadows dance along the castle walls.
Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn later admitted they were in love during filming, but Olivia declined to pursue a relationship as Flynn was married to actress Lili Damita. Olivia’s relationship with her sister Joan Fontaine was far less affectionate. Their childhood rivalry carried on into adulthood: when Joan won an Oscar for Suspicion, she rejected Olivia’s congratulations, and when Olivia later won her own Oscar, she returned the favour. They reconciled in later years, only to fall out again over their mother’s medical treatment.
My favourite of Joan’s films, and perhaps her most well‑known, is Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Released in 1940, Rebecca was Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film. In Monte Carlo, a shy young woman (played by Fontaine) meets the English gentleman Maxim de Winter and believes he is about to jump off a cliff. They later fall in love and marry, but the new Mrs de Winter (her name is never revealed) feels overshadowed by Maxim’s late wife, Rebecca. Olivier apparently wanted his own wife, Vivien Leigh, for the role, but Hitchcock chose Fontaine.
In 1956 Laurence Olivier announced he would direct a film version of Terence Rattigan’s The Sleeping Prince, retitled The Prince and the Showgirl. That same year Marilyn Monroe, newly married to Arthur Miller, arrived in England to make the film. Her production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, had purchased the rights to Rattigan’s play, and she and Olivier would co‑produce.
Just as in Rebecca, Olivier wanted Vivien Leigh for Marilyn’s part, and tensions arose early. Marilyn looked to her acting coach, Paula Strasberg, after every take rather than to Olivier. He banned Strasberg from the set but soon had to readmit her. Marilyn was nervous and frequently late while Olivier and the rest of the cast were punctual. It was not a smooth shoot.
The fundamental clash was their acting styles. Olivier was classically trained and dismissive of the Method, the technique Marilyn had embraced. Yet in the finished film which I watched recently, Marilyn comes across far better than Olivier.
Marilyn studied the Method at the Actors Studio in New York under Lee Strasberg. The technique, rooted in the work of Konstantin Stanislavski, encourages actors to draw on their own emotional experiences to inhabit their characters fully.
Another famous Method actor (perhaps the most famous Method actor ever) was James Dean. His breakthrough came in 1955 with East of Eden, directed by Elia Kazan. Dean had also studied at the Actors Studio and, after theatre work and television roles, was cast in East of Eden while performing in the play See the Jaguar.
Kazan had previously directed Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront. Streetcar, based on Tennessee Williams’ play, was set in the Deep South. Kazan had directed the Broadway production and used the same cast for the film, with one exception: Vivien Leigh, who had played Blanche DuBois in the London stage version, was brought in for the film because of her star status.
In the story, Blanche, a former Southern belle, moves in with her sister Stella and Stella’s husband, Stanley Kowalski, after losing her home to creditors. Blanche finds Stanley loud and rough, and at one point he explodes in a drunken rage. Blanche and Stella hide from him, only for Stella to return to Stanley’s arms after his famous calls of “Stella!”
Brando was one of the great screen actors, but like Richard Burton, he sometimes questioned whether acting was a suitable profession for a man. Burton nevertheless gave his all to every role, knew his lines, and delivered superb performances. Brando, especially later in life, often did not. He refused to learn his lines and relied on “idiot boards” placed just out of shot.
When The Godfather was being cast, Warner Bros. refused to consider Brando, viewing him as too difficult. Director Francis Ford Coppola, however, was determined to have him as Don Corleone. The studio eventually agreed, but only if Brando accepted a reduced salary, posted a financial bond against potential misbehaviour, and completed a screen test.
Coppola filmed the test at Brando’s Mulholland Drive home. In the footage, which can be found online, Brando stuffed his cheeks with cotton wool, slicked back his hair, and muttered vague Italian‑sounding phrases. The studio was impressed, and Brando was cast.
Filming took place in and around New York in 1971, and the film was released in 1972. Brando won the Oscar for Best Actor but boycotted the ceremony, sending Sacheen Littlefeather to decline the award on behalf of Native Americans.
Earlier I wondered whether I could link back from Brando to Fairbanks. Here’s the admittedly thin connection.
In 1967 Brando starred with Sophia Loren in A Countess from Hong Kong, a romantic comedy written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film was a box‑office failure and turned out to be Chaplin’s last.
Chaplin had been heavily criticised after World War II for supposed communist leanings, and in 1952, when he left for a visit to England, the US Attorney General declined to renew his re‑entry permit. Chaplin did not appeal. Instead, he sent his new wife, Oona, to settle his affairs and moved permanently to Switzerland.
In 1972 Chaplin was invited back to Hollywood to receive a special Oscar for his contribution to cinema. It was an emotional return, and he was visibly moved as he accepted the award.
In the film Chaplin, directed by Richard Attenborough, we see Chaplin returning to the USA and taking a sentimental drive past his old studio lot, then the headquarters of A&M Records.
As he drove through Hollywood, I’m sure Chaplin might have thought for a moment about his best friend, Douglas Fairbanks, his partner in United Artists who, back in 1922, made his memorable version of the Robin Hood story.
As regular readers will know, I am a great fan of classic cinema and I do love making these posts in which I try to tell a story by linking together various films, actors and directors. My last connections post ran a lateral course linking the film 
Another modern classic. This film was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and is set in a small town in northern Texas in the early 1950s. The film has an ensemble cast but the two main characters are Sonny and Duane played by Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges. The two are teenagers and old friends and various things happen to them. They fall out over a girl called Jacy played by Cybill Shepherd. Ben Johnson plays ‘Sam the Lion’ who owns the bar and cinema in the town. Sam has a mentally disabled son who Sonny has befriended. Various things happen to the pair but towards the end of the film Duane enlists in the army and is due to leave town so the pair decide to visit the town cinema for the very last picture show as the cinema is about to close after Sam’s sudden death.
Like The Shining, this is another film based on a book by Stephen King. Tom Hanks plays the head of a death row section of an American penitentiary. One of the inmates is John Coffey, a huge black man who appears to have healing powers. He cures Tom Hanks’ bladder infection but the mood in death row is not good after sadistic Percy Wetmore joins the team and deliberately sabotages the execution of another inmate causing the prisoner to die in terrible agony. The warden’s wife is terminally ill and Hanks and his team wonder if John Coffey could cure her.
Liz and I are over here in sunny Lanzarote having exchanged the cold of the UK for the warmth of Lanzarote. Of course, it is still February and things aren’t perfect over here. It’s warm but there are plenty of days when gusty winds blow across the island as well as days when the sun has been obscured by clouds. Even so there are still plenty of bars to drink at, plenty of tapas to be eaten and of course we have plenty of books to read, two of which have inspired this week’s post.
The plot of the book and film are pretty complicated, although having read the book recently I think that the book is easier to follow. During the filming the director and his stars wondered who killed the character of Owen Taylor, the Sternwood’s chauffeur. They sent a cable to Raymond Chandler asking him. Chandler told a friend later ‘Dammit, I don’t know either!’
I’m not sure which came first for me, the book or the film but I actually think it was the book. The Godfather was written by Mario Puzo and is the story of Don Vito Corleone, the head of one of the five mafia families of New York. The book opens with the wedding of Don Corleone’s daughter and Puzo sets the scene and introduces the various characters.
Francis Ford Coppola was the director of the film version and was also the co-writer of the screenplay along with Mario Puzo. Coppola wanted Marlon Brando to play the part of Don Corleone even though Brando at the time was rather unpopular with the producers. He was expensive, his last few films had not done well and his time wasting attitude had added huge expenses to his pictures. After the director had made the producers understand how important Brando was, they set various conditions for his employment. He would have to work for a reduced salary and put up a bond to ensure he would not delay the production. Another was that he had to have a screen test. Coppola has told the story in various interviews how he and his film crew had entered Brando’s house like ninjas and quietly set up their equipment. Brando slicked down his hair with shoe polish and stuffed cotton balls into his mouth to make the transformation into the aging mafia boss.
Coppola decided that instead of finding the horse at the end of his bed like in the book, it would be better if Woltz awoke, was disturbed by something wet, pulls the bedclothes away to see blood and then uncovers the horse’s head. The head was the actual head of a horse, procured from a dog meat factory and Coppola mentions on the commentary to my DVD version that lots of animal lovers sent him hate mail about the horse, even though the horse had been condemned to its fate anyway.
As previously mentioned, the book does have some storylines which were not used in the film but one chapter was a look at the beginnings of Vito Corleone. Born Vito Andolini in the Sicilian village of Corleone, Vito’s father was murdered by a local mafia boss and the young Vito was smuggled away to America. In America he took the name of Corleone and seemed to slip quietly into the role of mafia Don by murdering Fanucci, a New York Sicilian Godfather who preyed on his fellow Italians. Although this element of the story wasn’t used, Coppola kept the storyline for use in The Godfather Part II. The follow up film was a film classic in its own way.
David was born in 1908 and spent his early life in Croydon (actually 38 Blenheim Crescent, Croydon) until his parents divorced. His father moved out and left the family in 1923 which must have been an upsetting moment in Lean’s young life. Another perhaps more significant moment was when an uncle gave him a camera when David was aged 10 and then Lean began to develop and print his own photographs.
The film did however win two Oscars for cinematographer Freddie Young and supporting actor John Mills. The poor reception of the film prompted David to meet with the New York critics at the city’s Algonquin Hotel. I’m not sure if David wanted to reason with them or just find out why they didn’t like the film but they spent two hours attacking his production. David came away devastated and would not make a film again until A Passage to India in 1984.
I was reading a post called The 10 Best War Films Ever the other day. It wasn’t a list I particularly agreed with and in fact I hadn’t seen or even heard of quite a few of the films mentioned so I thought I’d have a go at making my own list. Here we go! As this post went on a bit I’ve split it in two and I’ll post Part 2 next week.
The Colditz Story is another prisoner of war escape film also based on a true story. In WWII the Germans rounded up a bunch of the most prolific escapers and put them all together in an escape proof castle named Colditz. John Mills plays a British officer who is tasked with co ordinating escapes with various other groups of captives, French, Polish, Dutch and various others as previous escape attempts were failing due to a sort of free for all escaping culture. Various escaping officers are elected and the prisoners work together towards breaking out from the castle. Mills eventually escapes by using an idea suggested by a fellow soldier. It’s a simple idea involving dressing up as German officers. Not very original you might think but the officers plan to be leaving the Officers’ club which they hope will make them appear more natural. The chief British officer decides the plan is doomed to failure as the man who thought of it was a very tall officer who he thinks would be immediately recognised by the camp guards. I won’t tell you what happens but Colditz is a great British picture and well worth watching.
It’s time to move on from POW camps and escaping and to take a look at the war at sea. The Cruel Sea is a classic WWII film based on the book by Nicholas Monsarrat. Jack Hawkins is the commander of the escort vessel Compass Rose. The film follows the story of the ship from its handover in the shipyard to the navy all the way through to its final demise at sea. The crew are new to naval warfare but bind together through various incidents at sea guarding convoys in the north Atlantic. The outstanding cast are all stalwarts of 1940s and 50s British cinema, names like Donald Sinden, Denholm Elliott, Stanley Baker and Virginia McKenna.
I did a post a while ago about actors who came close to the role of a lifetime but 
Can music really make a good film? Can a really great theme lift a good or even mediocre film up into the lofty heights of the great films? I’m not sure but that’s today’s blog theme and here are a few examples.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 