Producer

DIRECTORS AND STARS AS PRODUCERS

With the rise of auteur criticism in America in the 1960s—which argued that the best Hollywood studio-era films were the result of their directors' ability to impose their artistry and vision on studio films—classical Hollywood producers, whether studio executive, studio producer, or independent producer, were regarded as obstacles to (most often) the film director's personal expression. In certain cases, producers certainly were. At Universal, Thalberg notoriously refused to let Erich von Stroheim (1885–1957) complete Foolish Wives (1922) and drove him off the production of Merry-Go-Round (1923); at MGM, he refused to release von Stroheim's multi-hour version of Greed (1924), cutting the film down to two-and-a-half hours. Thalberg's implementation of systematic, efficient, and budget-conscious filmmaking at both Universal and MGM impressed the entire industry, and his assertion of authority over von Stroheim was emblematic of a shift in creative authority from directors to producers by the mid-1920s.

Other films suffered from producer interference in the studio era. MGM's production executives famously insisted that Fritz Lang (1890–1976) provide happy endings to Fury (1936), his social problem film about lynching, and the film noir The Woman in the Window (1945), casting the events of the film as a nightmare, even thought this latter film was produced for an "independent" company releasing through RKO. Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) was dramatically recut by then-RKO editor Robert Wise at the behest of studio head George J. Schaefer (1920–1997) while Welles was abroad shooting a never-completed film, "It's All True."

Yet the evidence of the Lewton and Freed units also demonstrates how the input and support of producers aided and improved the realization of particular films. Producer Hal Wallis (1899–1986) contributed the memorable final line ("Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship") to Casablanca (1942), a film whose ending was uncertain during principal photography. The degree to which an actively involved film producer helped or ruined a particular film depended on the production policies at the studio or "independent" company involved and the proclivities and personality of the particular producer. Studio-era producers also handled the challenge of negotiating with the Production Code Administration to keep controversial subject matter (illicit sexual relations, criminal behavior, and so on) in screenplays and finished films. This could be another arena in which the producer supported the aims and desires of the director, screenwriter, and cast.

Other producers secured the financing, hired the talents, and let them create their films with a minimum of interference. George J. Schaefer granted Orson Welles unprecedented creative freedom under a contract that led to the making of Citizen Kane (1941). Walter Wanger contributed only studio space and financing to one of his most famous and financially successful films, John Ford's Stagecoach (1939). Wanger did the same for one of Ford's most unusual box-office flops, The Long Voyage Home (1940). In such instances, Wanger in effect allowed Ford to function as his own producer. As these examples suggest, the same producer (Schaefer) could remain hands-off for one project and hands-on for another, and the same policy of granting a director complete autonomy (Wanger's) could result in box-office success or failure.

In the studio era, many directors craved the autonomy, creative authority, and responsibility that Wanger granted Ford. In the 1910s only the most successful directors and stars had gained such power; key examples were the director D. W. Griffith (1875–1948), the actor-director Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977), and the stars Mary Pickford (1892–1979) and Douglas Fairbanks (1883–1939), the quartet who owned their own studios and formed United Artists in 1919 to distribute their films. Beginning especially in the 1940s, some Hollywood directors and stars assumed the producer's role as well (in part because it was advantageous from an income-tax standpoint). Many directors (as well as stars) formed their own companies or negotiated with major studios for producing powers: Frank Capra (1897–1991), George Stevens (1904–1975), and William Wyler (1902–1981) created Liberty Films; Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) was a producer-director on all his films after his contract with David O. Selznick ended in the late 1940s; and screenwriter-directors like Billy Wilder (1906–2002) and Joseph Mankiewicz (1909–1993) had also assumed the function of producer on their own films by the 1950s. Stars such as James Cagney (1899–1986), Kirk Douglas (b. 1916), and Burt Lancaster (1913–1994) formed their own production companies, making important films for major studio distribution and claiming a share of their film's profits. As with Disney, Goldwyn, Selznick, and Wanger in earlier decades, these companies were considered "independent producers" despite their mutually beneficial relationship with the major distributors. For in all these cases, whether they had their own production company or not, directors and stars secured distribution and financing through the major studios.

Independent producers could do this by the mid-1950s in part because of the US Supreme Court's Paramount decision of 1948. This ruling forced the majors to sell off their theaters and thus lose their guaranteed income from ticket sales, in response to which the studios let go of hundreds of talents under contract. In this context, the way Hollywood producers worked changed significantly. Instead of drafting talents under contract at the studios where a producer worked or formed an affiliation, the producer during development and pre-production typically assembled talent from around the entire film industry: a bankable star or stars, a screenwriter, and a director for his or her property, as well as the crew. Under this new "package" system, which United Artists pioneered in the early 1950s, once the independent producer assembled the package, she or he would try to interest a studio, a distributor, or both in investing in the project. The studio could also help with providing or guaranteeing financing and providing or facilitating the rental of sound stages and equipment, as well as distribution and promotion. Stars themselves could more easily become their own producers. Warren Beatty (b. 1937), for example, produced and starred in the landmark gangster film Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 for Warner Bros. Agents also became packagers (albeit without producer credit) because of their representation of many types of talent whom they could easily package for a film. One such agent, Lew Wasserman (1913–2002), became head of the entertainment conglomerate MCA, which owned Universal Pictures.