THE
GOLDWYN YEARS
In
the 1930’s, Wyler began a long, productive and sometimes
stormy relationship with notorious producer Samuel Goldwyn.
Though Wyler often had to fight the producer, the films
he made for Goldwyn were striking. The first was THESE THREE
(1936), which, although it had to jettison the lesbian theme
of the Lillian Hellman play on which it was based, is a
fine drama. Then came DODSWORTH (1936), a beautifully achieved
work, with particularly fine performances by Walter Huston,
Mary Astor, and Ruth Chatterton. It remains a potent examination
of a disintegrating marriage more than 65 years after it
was made.
Another of their collaborations, THE WESTERNER (1940), is
a glittering black-and-white Western sparked by the vital
interplay between Walter Brennan (as that most attractive
of evil men, Judge Roy Bean) and the slow-speaking but quick-witted
Gary Cooper. The scenes between Cooper and Brennan have
an extraordinary naturalness.
Some commentators suggest the extensive use of deep-focus
images in Wyler’s movies originates with the great
photographer Gregg Toland. Toland worked on seven of Wyler’s
eight films for Goldwyn, and undoubtedly his photography
in them is superb. However, similar powerful diagonal, deep-focus
compositions can be found in THE LETTER (1940), photographed
by Tony Gaudio; and there are beautifully composed deep-focus
staircase shots in THE HEIRESS (1949), photographed by Leo
Tover, after Toland’s premature death.
The photography in THE GOOD FAIRY (1935) is even more telling.
This rarely seen gem was released well before Wyler worked
with Toland. A delightful comedy with a witty script by
Preston Sturges, it is acted with comic grace by Margaret
Sullavan, Herbert Marshall, Frank Morgan, and Reginald Owen.
Photographed by Norbert Brodine, it is filled with deep-focus
shots and Wyler’s trademark diagonal compositions—and
it features a beautiful receding mirror shot (even more
striking than that produced by Orson Welles and Toland,
five years later, in CITIZEN KANE).
Wyler was married twice — once, briefly, to Margaret
Sullavan, the star of THE GOOD FAIRY; then from October
23, 1938, until his death, to actress Margaret Tallichet,
with whom he had five children.
In the Goldwyn years, Wyler also made two non-Goldwyn movies.
The first, JEZEBEL (1938), is built around Bette Davis’s
bold, powerful, and, at times, subtle performance. The second,
THE LETTER, has an even more powerful performance by Davis
as she captures the underlying sexual desperation of an
unfaithful wife. It also has a riveting opening sequence
in which the still of a Malaysian night is shattered by
the sound of a shot, and a man stumbles onto the veranda
of a white house. The man is followed by Davis holding a
gun. She keeps firing until there are no more bullets, and
his body is still.
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