Oscars 1946: Selznick's Folly

With Duel in the Sun, producer David O. Selznick aimed to equal or exceed the artistic and commercial achievement of Gone With the Wind seven years earlier. He spent more than $1 million to advertise the $7 million production and ran teaser ads 18 months prior to the film’s release. He missed the mark by a mile. The turgid tale concerns one Pearl Chaves (Jennifer Jones)—charmingly referred to as a “half-breed”—who shakes up a Texas family, including younger brother Jesse (Joseph Cotten) and older brother Lewton (Gregory Peck). The men battle over Pearl in a lengthy gunfight that climaxes the film, which also sees an overheated Peck and Jones shoot each other and expire together in a ridiculously erotic clinch. The epic, dubbed Lust in the Dust by industry wags, received Oscar nominations only for Jennifer Jones as Best Actress and Lillian Gish as Best Supporting Actress.

BEST PICTURE
The Best Years of Our Lives

BEST DIRECTOR
William Wyler, The Best Years of Our Lives

BEST ACTOR
Fredric March, The Best Years of Our Lives

BEST ACTRESS
Olivia de Havilland, To Each His Own

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Harold Russell, The Best Years of Our Lives

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Anne Baxter, The Razor’s Edge

December 17

Jennifer Jones dies in Malibu, California, 2009. Born Phylis Isley, she married Robert Walker in 1939 while they were both struggling actors. Discovered that same year by David O. Selznick (who she would later marry), she was renamed Jennifer Jones and, in her third film, won the Best Actress Oscar for The Song of Bernadette (1943). She stayed in the spotlight with Since You Went Away (1944), Love Letters (1945), Cluny Brown (1946), Duel in the Sun (1946), Portrait of Jennie (1948) and Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). After a dip in popularity, she made a comeback of sorts in The Towering Inferno (1974) and, in the early 1980s, bought the rights to Larry McMurtry’s Terms of Endearment with the intention to star in it. Considered too old by director James L. Brooks, the part instead went to Shirley MacLaine, who took home the Best Actress Oscar for the 1983 comedy/drama.

Rebecca Screen Tests

"I want to make sure we have exhausted every possible means of getting Olivia de Havilland," David O. Selznick wrote on August 1, 1939, about casting the role of Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca (1940). In a letter to Daniel O'Shea, his chief aide, Selznick elaborated on the complexities of bringing about such a result: 1) Warner Bros. might not allow de Havilland to do it, 2) de Havilland was committed to film Raffles (1939) for Sam Goldwyn, and 3) Leland Hayward was de Havilland's agent at the time his wife, Margaret Sullavan, was being considered for Mrs. de Winter. Writes Selznick, "I don't think [Hayward] will do much about de Havilland while Sullavan is in the running, and if we spoke to him now about de Havilland he might think we were kidding about Sullavan." Another complication was de Havilland's hesitation about going after a role that her sister, Joan Fontaine, was up for. In all, more than 20 actress were tested for Mrs. de Winter. Laurence Olivier was selected as Maxim de Winter and pushed hard for Selznick to cast then-girlfriend Viven Leigh in the part.

Here are screen tests of Fontaine—who eventually won the role—and four of the actresses she was competing against. Comments are by David O. Selznick and taken from Rudy Behlmer's book, Memo from David O. Selznick.

"Most of the people in the studio who haven't studied the picture on its casting...were more enthusiastic about Margaret Sullavan than anyone else...Apparently, her voice and her personality are so appealing that they don't stop to think that there is practically not one scene in the picture the qualities of which would not be affected by casting Sullavan. Imagine Margaret Sullavan being pushed around by Mrs. Danvers, right up to the point of suicide! Imagine Margaret Sullavan wishing she were a woman of thirty in a long black dress!!"

"I feel Loretta Young is a very good bet, and that with a few good pictures, she is the logical successor to Joan Crawford—but we don't think she is right for Rebecca."

"[Vivien Leigh] doesn't seem at all right as to sincerety or age or innocence or any of the other factors which are essential to the story coming off at all...I am convinced that we would be better off making this picture with a girl who had no personality whatsoever and who was a bad actress but was right in type than we would be to cast it with Vivien."

"I had pretty well decided to forget [Joan Fontaine] for the role since I could't get anybody on the studio staff, excepting only Hal Kern, or anybody in the New York office, to agree with me that she was physically an ideal choice for the role and that, from a perfomance standpoint, she obviously (or, at least, so I thought) was the only one who seemed to know completely what the part was all about."

"I think [Anne Baxter] has more sincerety than Fontaine, and that she is much more touching, in the words of Cukor, in the scenes. I think she is a shade young, although it is entirely possible that this would turn into an advantage. She is ten times more difficult to photograph than Fontaine, and I think it is a little harder to understand Max de Winter marrying her than it would be for Fontaine."

August 23

Gene Kelly is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1912. "I never wanted to be a dancer," Kelly once said. "It's true! I wanted to be a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates." A handful of Hollywood studio moguls had other ideas after seeing the young hoofer's turn on Broadway in Pal Joey. Both David O. Selznick and Louis B. Mayer promised to sign him without a screen test. Mayer reneged; Selznick kept his word, so Kelly signed with Selznick. For lack of finding the proper role for the actor, however, Selznick ended up selling Kelly's contract to MGM. Tension between Mayer and Kelly lasted for years.