Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Louise Brooks in publicity still for Pandora’s Box (1929, dir. G.W. Pabst) During the filming of Pandora’s Box, [G.W. Pabst] asked Louise Brooks, as Lulu, just emerged from taking a shower and coming into the living room to greet her lover, Alva (portrayed by Franz Lederer), “What do you have on under that robe?” “My slip,” answered Miss Brooks. “Go back in the bathroom and take it off,” said Pabst, which she did.  When she returned, wearing just the robe, she asked her director, “Mr. Pabst, why did you make me take my slip off? The audience won’t know that I have nothing on under my bathrobe.” “That’s right,” he replied. “The audience won’t know, but he’ll know,” he said, pointing at Lederer, “and he’ll play the scene with you differently, knowing that, than he would if he didn’t know it. And that’s what I want, that difference.” Miss Brooks told me this story and I think it underlines the point I’m trying to make that the director must do everything he can think of to feel that the scene is ready to be played to the maximum that he can feel. If he feels it, the audience will feel it. Ergo - the director as psychologist.” -Herman G. Weinberg, excerpted from The Complete Wedding March (1975)

Louise Brooks in publicity still for Pandora’s Box (1929, dir. G.W. Pabst)

During the filming of Pandora’s Box, [G.W. Pabst] asked Louise Brooks, as Lulu, just emerged from taking a shower and coming into the living room to greet her lover, Alva (portrayed by Franz Lederer), “What do you have on under that robe?”

“My slip,” answered Miss Brooks.

“Go back in the bathroom and take it off,” said Pabst, which she did. 

When she returned, wearing just the robe, she asked her director, “Mr. Pabst, why did you make me take my slip off? The audience won’t know that I have nothing on under my bathrobe.”

“That’s right,” he replied. “The audience won’t know, but he’ll know,” he said, pointing at Lederer, “and he’ll play the scene with you differently, knowing that, than he would if he didn’t know it. And that’s what I want, that difference.”

Miss Brooks told me this story and I think it underlines the point I’m trying to make that the director must do everything he can think of to feel that the scene is ready to be played to the maximum that he can feel. If he feels it, the audience will feel it. Ergo - the director as psychologist.”

-Herman G. Weinberg, excerpted from The Complete Wedding March (1975)

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly (1966, dir. Sergio Leone) (via)

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly (1966, dir. Sergio Leone) (via)

Ennio Morricone - The Trio (The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

“For me the music is fundamental, especially in a Western where the dialogue is purely aphoristic. The films could just as well be silent; one would understand all the same. The music serves to emphasize states of mind, facts and situations more than the dialogue itself does. In short, for me the music functions as dialogue.”

-Sergio Leone (via)

Margaret Hamilton in publicity still for The Wizard of Oz (1939, dir. Victor Fleming) (photo by Virgil Apger) “I was in a need of money at the time, and my agent called. I said, ‘Yes?’ and he said ‘Maggie, they want you to play a part on the Wizard.’ I said to myself, ‘Oh Boy, The Wizard of Oz! That has been my favorite book since I was four.’ And I asked him what part, and he said ‘The Witch’ and I said ‘The Witch?!’ and he said ‘What else?’”

Margaret Hamilton in publicity still for The Wizard of Oz (1939, dir. Victor Fleming) (photo by Virgil Apger)

“I was in a need of money at the time, and my agent called. I said, ‘Yes?’ and he said ‘Maggie, they want you to play a part on the Wizard.’ I said to myself, ‘Oh Boy, The Wizard of Oz! That has been my favorite book since I was four.’ And I asked him what part, and he said ‘The Witch’ and I said ‘The Witch?!’ and he said ‘What else?’”

Henry Mancini - Main Title (Touch Of Evil: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

“[The mixed reviews and poor box office for Vertigo] lessened my self-confidence. I always have this feeling that I’m supposed to do something, to mean something. My sense of that started to weaken, as if, ‘Oh, I thought this was a medium that I was supposed to touch people in and I’m not having an impact.’ As time went by, I thought, ‘This is not the right medium.’ It’s a wonderful medium and I enjoyed working in it but I started to think that this must have been a detour. This must not be my medium for doing something important and to touch people.  I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning. It was painful.” -Kim Novak (excerpted from 2004 The MacGuffin interview, photo via) 

“[The mixed reviews and poor box office for Vertigo] lessened my self-confidence. I always have this feeling that I’m supposed to do something, to mean something. My sense of that started to weaken, as if, ‘Oh, I thought this was a medium that I was supposed to touch people in and I’m not having an impact.’ As time went by, I thought, ‘This is not the right medium.’ It’s a wonderful medium and I enjoyed working in it but I started to think that this must have been a detour. This must not be my medium for doing something important and to touch people. 

I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning. It was painful.”

-Kim Novak (excerpted from 2004 The MacGuffin interview, photo via) 

Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Laurence Olivier & Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights (1939, dir. William Wyler) “My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”

Laurence Olivier & Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights (1939, dir. William Wyler)

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”

Miles Davis - Florence Sur Les Champs-Élysées (Elevator to the Gallows: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Salvador Dali’s proposed poster design for his unrealized film project, The Surrealist Mystery of New York (1935) [1]  “Dali adopted the violence, sexuality and criminality of popular gangster movies for his project, although - like so many of his scenarios - it remains fragmentary in nature. Scenes [are] located across the city…including Fifth Avenue, Radio City, and the Museum of Natural History, but begin in Harlem, possibly as a deliberate evocation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York (1930). Brief numbered and titled scenes then follow, including The Adorers of the New Fear, The Aging of New York, in which a Surrealist monument to the end of prohibition is erected, & The Cannibalism of American Films, in which a ‘severed arm pursues its cannibalistic desires.’” [2]

Salvador Dali’s proposed poster design for his unrealized film project, The Surrealist Mystery of New York (1935) [1] 

“Dali adopted the violence, sexuality and criminality of popular gangster movies for his project, although - like so many of his scenarios - it remains fragmentary in nature. Scenes [are] located across the city…including Fifth Avenue, Radio City, and the Museum of Natural History, but begin in Harlem, possibly as a deliberate evocation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York (1930).

Brief numbered and titled scenes then follow, including The Adorers of the New Fear, The Aging of New York, in which a Surrealist monument to the end of prohibition is erected, & The Cannibalism of American Films, in which a ‘severed arm pursues its cannibalistic desires.’” [2]

Salvador Dali - Study for the Scenario for The Surrealist Mystery of New York (1935)  “Outside his window, an anthropomorphic skyscraper is used for breeding hysterical mediums. One of these mediums escapes from the glacier and enters the head’s room and rushes towards him threateningly.  He prudently flees, but in her fury, the medium shuts the door, ripping off his hand. The medium is terrified to discover the horrible hole at the centre of the hand through which thousands of ants begin to emerge. The hand writhes in agony and now becomes a horrible ball crawling with ants and a swarm of bees that have also come out of the hole.”  -excerpt from the prologue of Salvador Dali’s unrealized film script for The Surrealist Mystery of New York (via)

Salvador Dali - Study for the Scenario for The Surrealist Mystery of New York (1935) 

“Outside his window, an anthropomorphic skyscraper is used for breeding hysterical mediums. One of these mediums escapes from the glacier and enters the head’s room and rushes towards him threateningly. 

He prudently flees, but in her fury, the medium shuts the door, ripping off his hand. The medium is terrified to discover the horrible hole at the centre of the hand through which thousands of ants begin to emerge.

The hand writhes in agony and now becomes a horrible ball crawling with ants and a swarm of bees that have also come out of the hole.” 

-excerpt from the prologue of Salvador Dali’s unrealized film script for The Surrealist Mystery of New York

(via)

Brigitte Bardot inThe Truth (1960, dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot) (via)

Brigitte Bardot inThe Truth (1960, dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot) (via)

Brigitte Bardot - Tu Es Venu Mon Amour

The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927, dir. G.W. Pabst)

The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927, dir. G.W. Pabst)

Vincent Price & Roy Roberts in The House of Wax (1953, dir. André de Toth) “When they wanted a director for [the first major studio 3-D] film, they hired a man who couldn’t see 3-D at all! André de Toth [who only had one eye] was a very good director, but he really was the wrong director for 3-D. He’d go to the rushes and say, ‘Why is everybody so excited about this?’ It didn’t mean anything to him. But he made a good picture, a good thriller. He was largely responsible for the success of the picture. The 3-D tricks just happened—there weren’t a lot of them. Later on, they threw everything at everybody.” -Vincent Price (via)

Vincent Price & Roy Roberts in The House of Wax (1953, dir. André de Toth)

“When they wanted a director for [the first major studio 3-D] film, they hired a man who couldn’t see 3-D at all! André de Toth [who only had one eye] was a very good director, but he really was the wrong director for 3-D.

He’d go to the rushes and say, ‘Why is everybody so excited about this?’ It didn’t mean anything to him. But he made a good picture, a good thriller. He was largely responsible for the success of the picture. The 3-D tricks just happened—there weren’t a lot of them. Later on, they threw everything at everybody.”

-Vincent Price

(via)