response; in matters of principle we play
High Noon
, in renunciation scenes
Casablanca
. (“Walter, Barton T. Keyes is a great man,” Edward G. Robinson says about himself to Fred MacMurray in
Double Indemnity
, and whenever I am feeling particularly pleased with myself, the linecomes back.) In pictures, there is no problem without a solution: the Mafia has been cut down to size at every studio from Burbank to Culver City; Gregory Peck has personally taken on anti-Semitism, the Bomb, and Southern bigotry, licked them all, and we all feel, however spuriously, the better for it.
Movies, moreover, have given most Americans their entire fix on how other Americans live. How many of us grew up thinking of the medical profession in terms of
Not As a Stranger
, of the literary life as
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
, of heroin addiction as
The Man with the Golden Arm?
The South was
Gone with the Wind
, and later
The Long Hot Summer;
the Catholic priesthood,
Going My Way
. For the socially mobile, movies have constituted an infinitely accessible, if infinitely inaccurate, primer in traditional social behavior. This very inaccuracy of social milieu in Hollywood pictures—the rich in Southampton do not wear white dinner jackets in the summer (
From the Terrace
), United States Senators do not drive Rolls-Royces (
Seven Days in May
), army officers do not salute as if they are hailing a cab, nor do they allow enlisted men to call them by their first names (any picture about the military)—seemed to suggest that Hollywood lives at a considerable remove from the rest of the society, lives and thrives entirely on its own myths. In some ways Hollywood seemed a perfect example of a closed and inbred society, and the Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, not long ago on the brink of ruin, now the most successful studio in Hollywood, itself shored up by all the basic tenets of the Industry, seemed the best place to observe it in action.
And so, some time ago, I arranged to follow the Studio’sactivities over the course of a single year, to see how some of the people there got along, got ahead, fell behind, stayed in place, and, above all, fabricated the myth. What I hoped to find at the end of that year was something of the state of mind called Hollywood.
The day I arrived in the small austere lobby of Fox’s administration building in Los Angeles, an elderly Studio policeman stood guard behind a glassed enclosure, examining each person entering the building before pressing a button opening the door into the Studio’s inner sanctum. Beside him was a clipboard on which was written:
North Reception
Pico Time Gate
Okays for Monday March 22
26 musicians Stage 1, 1 P.M .
Duke Goldstone Party to Peyton Place
New Gate Okays
Alex Cord—actor
Gila Golan—actress
Sonia Roberts TV writer will be in 22 Old Writers
Peggy Shaw TV writer will be in 21 Old Writers
The following will be pulled from files
Thomas, Jerry—TV writer
Richard Zanuck’s office is just across the hall from his father’s, but at that time, the elder Zanuck had not once returned to Hollywood since he had taken over the Studio. He preferred to remain in New York where the books are kept and the financial decisions made, leavingthe picture making to his son. The suite occupied by Richard Zanuck is cavernous. It is dark-paneled and on the wall hang art department sketches of forthcoming Fox productions. Behind his desk, in a gold frame, there is a color photograph of his ex-wife, Lili, and their two daughters, Virginia and Janet, as well as two pairs of bronzed baby shoes. There is no hint of show business in the office, no framed
Variety
headlines, no pictures of movie stars with fulsome messages of endearment, no sentimental props from old Fox films. On the mantel over the fireplace there is a four-clock console, showing the time in Los Angeles, New York, London and Paris, and in the adjoining bar-dressing room are leatherbound scripts of all the pictures Fox has
High Noon
, in renunciation scenes
Casablanca
. (“Walter, Barton T. Keyes is a great man,” Edward G. Robinson says about himself to Fred MacMurray in
Double Indemnity
, and whenever I am feeling particularly pleased with myself, the linecomes back.) In pictures, there is no problem without a solution: the Mafia has been cut down to size at every studio from Burbank to Culver City; Gregory Peck has personally taken on anti-Semitism, the Bomb, and Southern bigotry, licked them all, and we all feel, however spuriously, the better for it.
Movies, moreover, have given most Americans their entire fix on how other Americans live. How many of us grew up thinking of the medical profession in terms of
Not As a Stranger
, of the literary life as
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
, of heroin addiction as
The Man with the Golden Arm?
The South was
Gone with the Wind
, and later
The Long Hot Summer;
the Catholic priesthood,
Going My Way
. For the socially mobile, movies have constituted an infinitely accessible, if infinitely inaccurate, primer in traditional social behavior. This very inaccuracy of social milieu in Hollywood pictures—the rich in Southampton do not wear white dinner jackets in the summer (
From the Terrace
), United States Senators do not drive Rolls-Royces (
Seven Days in May
), army officers do not salute as if they are hailing a cab, nor do they allow enlisted men to call them by their first names (any picture about the military)—seemed to suggest that Hollywood lives at a considerable remove from the rest of the society, lives and thrives entirely on its own myths. In some ways Hollywood seemed a perfect example of a closed and inbred society, and the Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, not long ago on the brink of ruin, now the most successful studio in Hollywood, itself shored up by all the basic tenets of the Industry, seemed the best place to observe it in action.
And so, some time ago, I arranged to follow the Studio’sactivities over the course of a single year, to see how some of the people there got along, got ahead, fell behind, stayed in place, and, above all, fabricated the myth. What I hoped to find at the end of that year was something of the state of mind called Hollywood.
The day I arrived in the small austere lobby of Fox’s administration building in Los Angeles, an elderly Studio policeman stood guard behind a glassed enclosure, examining each person entering the building before pressing a button opening the door into the Studio’s inner sanctum. Beside him was a clipboard on which was written:
North Reception
Pico Time Gate
Okays for Monday March 22
26 musicians Stage 1, 1 P.M .
Duke Goldstone Party to Peyton Place
New Gate Okays
Alex Cord—actor
Gila Golan—actress
Sonia Roberts TV writer will be in 22 Old Writers
Peggy Shaw TV writer will be in 21 Old Writers
The following will be pulled from files
Thomas, Jerry—TV writer
Richard Zanuck’s office is just across the hall from his father’s, but at that time, the elder Zanuck had not once returned to Hollywood since he had taken over the Studio. He preferred to remain in New York where the books are kept and the financial decisions made, leavingthe picture making to his son. The suite occupied by Richard Zanuck is cavernous. It is dark-paneled and on the wall hang art department sketches of forthcoming Fox productions. Behind his desk, in a gold frame, there is a color photograph of his ex-wife, Lili, and their two daughters, Virginia and Janet, as well as two pairs of bronzed baby shoes. There is no hint of show business in the office, no framed
Variety
headlines, no pictures of movie stars with fulsome messages of endearment, no sentimental props from old Fox films. On the mantel over the fireplace there is a four-clock console, showing the time in Los Angeles, New York, London and Paris, and in the adjoining bar-dressing room are leatherbound scripts of all the pictures Fox has
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