Teresa Wright's Contract

While Teresa Wright was playing in “Life With Father” on Broadway, she was hired by Samuel Goldwyn to play Bette Davis’ daughter in “The Little Foxes.”

Her contract with Goldwyn contained the following unusual clause that showed Teresa Wright’s independence of thought, her serious attitude towards acting, and a sense of humor.

"The aforementioned Teresa Wright shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in the water. Neither may she be photographed running on the beach with her hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: In shorts, playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf; assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow and arrow."

She won an Academy Award nomination for that first movie role, and then two more for the next two movies she made, both in the same year. She won for one of them, a Best Supporting Oscar for “Mrs. Miniver.” No one to date has equaled that magnificent start to a film career.

But her independence of thought would later compromise her career when Goldwyn fired her for refusing to go on a publicity tour. She expressed no regrets at leaving the studio system, declaring, “We have no privacies which producers cannot invade, they trade us like cattle, boss us like children.” Her public declaration of independence was as famous as her contract had been.

Though her career did not end here, it never took on the remarkable ascent of its early years. That might have happened anyway, as Hollywood was always a difficult place to survive for aging female stars. Some of her best work in after years was on television, and back on the stage. She shows many qualities in her work which I admire, but foremost among them is that funny, and intelligent, contract clause.

Now Playing - 1954

This is a full-page ad from “Look,” March 23, 1954. The movie “Saskatchewan” was released the following week.

It’s a gushing full-color spread for the kind of swashbuckling adventure films they made in this period, boasting about the use of Technicolor and location filming. As movies go, this epic-wanna be about Mounties “standing alone against the fury of the Custer-massacring Sioux and the savage Cree nation” was not really historically accurate (big surprise), and not really geographically accurate, either. (Magnificent mountains, wrong province.)

What is especially interesting about this ad is it actually extends to three pages, and the 2nd and 3rd pages list by name the theaters that will be showing “Saskatchewan” in the coming month. This movie was made after the breakup of the studios’ monopolies on owning the theaters that showed their films. For instance, at one time, you could see an MGM movie only at an MGM theater. (First-run theaters, of course. Second-run theaters showed any film from any studio.) So, if you wanted to see an MGM film (Clark Gable), you could to go the Loew’s Poli in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Or, if you wanted to see a Warner Bros. film (Bette Davis), you could go to the Warner in Worcester, Massachusetts. If you wanted to see a Paramount movie (Bing Crosby), you could go to the Paramount in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

However, by the time this movie was made, that studio monopoly was over, as was the whole “studio system.” This film was made by Universal, but shown in the Paramount Theater of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and in the Fox Theater of Leadville, Colorado, the Loew’s Poli in Waterbury, Connecticut, and the Paramount Theater of Syracuse, New York.

Probably many of these theaters no longer exist today; possibly most. Can anyone out there tell us if some of these other theaters where “Saskatchewan” played still exist: the Dixie in Haleyville, Alabama?

The State in Modesto, California?

The Chief in Pocatello, Idaho?

The Orpheum in Marion, Illinois?

The Gila in Silver City, New Mexico?

The Ritz in Clarksburg, West Virginia?

The Cherokee in La Follette, Tennessee?

The Rialto in Casper, Wyoming?

The Astor in Reading, Pennsylvania?

The Regent in Cedar Falls, Iowa?

The Grand in Rutland, Vermont?

The Aztec in Albany, Texas?

The Star in Jamestown, North Dakota?

The Tivoli in Ardmore, Oklahoma?

The Empire in Lewiston, Maine?

The Liberty in Benton Harbor, Michigan?

Or the American on Roanoke, Virginia?

Gag reels and bloopers

For the huge number of films produced in this country in the early decades of the 20th century, there are very few bloopers that have been preserved, compared to that enormous mileage of footage that was kept.

What bloopers that do remain probably would not amount to a decent gag reel. How ironic that today sometimes the funniest parts of a film comedy are not the movie, but the bloopers. These segments are so entertaining to today’s audiences that sometimes a DVD release of a film will include among its extra features, a gag reel. Going one step further, a spoof, purposely-filmed set of made up “bloopers” was even attached to the end credits of the animated feature “Toy Story 2” (1999), which really was very funny.

Old Hollywood, for all its corn, would have been appalled at the idea of producing a gag reel. They wanted their products to be as glossy as they could make them. Mistakes were to be left on the cutting room floor. The film industry of the day and the studio system, run very much like a factory, was heavy into quality control. Our enjoyment of “Gone With the Wind” probably wouldn’t be much improved by clips during the end credits of Ashley cursing after a flubbed line, or Rhett dropping Scarlett on her head when he carried her up the stairs.

Nor did they spend much effort at merchandizing their films, as we do today, begun on a mass scale probably with the first “Star Wars” films and its toys. There were few merchandizing efforts in old Hollywood, at least when it came to toys. An occasional paper doll set or two, a few Snow White trinkets, nothing like what we come to expect today. Perhaps if McDonald’s had been around in 1939, there might have been a Rhett Butler Happy Meal toy, but I doubt it. Kitsch, like bloopers, was not dignified for a young industry desperately wanting to be taken seriously.