The making of Written on the Wind (1956) under the studio system
Without collective authorship, Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk 1956) would have been unable to be made under the hegemonic studio system, let alone undermine the generic, production and ideological constraints placed upon it. In a family-centric melodrama that uncovers the “ultimate degeneracy of the system” (Sirk 1997, 26), director Douglas Sirk, screenwriter George Zuckerman and producer Albert Zugsmith worked collaboratively to not only convince Universal Studios to make the film but to minimize the studio’s interference in the project. In a period of filmmaking dominated by the Hollywood star system, studios required major stars to be cast alongside relative newcomers to bolster box-office returns. Despite these production conditions, Sirk embraced the Hollywood star system by casting major stars to finance these films which added an ironic layer of star text to them. He even manufactured his own star power by the name of Rock Hudson who became a frequent collaborator. Finally, it is only when creative departments come together that ‘hidden meanings’ can be constructed through a combination of symbolic mise en scene and other filmic elements.
When considering the production context of Written on the Wind, the conditions which the film was made under cannot be overlooked. When he began making films in America, German director Douglas Sirk worked under a hegemonic studio system where directors were merely a part of the production apparatus (Regev 2016, 597). Directors who could have a high turn-out of quality pictures were seen as ‘hot commodities’ in an industry where studio executives and stars called the shots, much to the expense of the creative visions (Regev 2016, 595). From 1934 onwards, Sirk was signed to Universal Studios. In a 1979 interview, the director recounted how at Universal he would continually be attached to scripts that stuck to “family fair” and had happy endings (Harvey 1978, 97). Although he ostensibly played by the rules of the studio system, Sirk was only able to overcome these production constraints by drawing upon star power and collaborative filmmaking practices
Pictured: Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, Agnes Moorehead, and Douglas Sirk behind-the-scenes of All That Heaven Allows (1955).
Despite resistance from the studio, Sirk, producer Albert Zugsmith and screenwriter George Zuckerman worked collaboratively to get Written on the Wind off the ground. In a 1977 interview with Zugsmith, he referred to the trio as a “creative team-something exceedingly rare in the film world” (2009, 36). Zugsmith owned the rights to Written on the Wind and wanted Sirk to direct the film adaptation (Griffin 2018, 152). Zuckerman was hired to adapt Robert Wilder’s original novel which had previously been shelved by studios due to the unsavoury aspects of the narrative that would not bypass the Production code mandates. Not to mention the ongoing threats of a lawsuit from the tobacco family the text is based upon (Evans 2013, 14). The original novel ends on a sombre note, Lucy and Mitch don’t end up together after Kyle’s death and instead, Mitch kisses Marylee. However, Universal was adamant that the film’s ending be a happy one, yet Zugsmith was the “only producer [he] could persuade to reject a happy ending” (Sirk 1997, 129) and settled for an ambiguous ending instead. In addition to the ending, the novel’s explicit portrayal of Marylee’s nymphomania was met with disapproval from censors. In a memo from the Director of the Production Code Office Geoffrey Shurlock, he insistent that “such a detailed portrayal of a nymphomaniac would be, we believe, unacceptable from the standpoint of the code” and classified it as “sex perversion” (Evans 2013, 20). As a result, Marylee’s nymphomania is never explicitly mentioned in the film, it is merely implied. To get Written on The Wind made under the system, Sirk, Zugsmith and Zuckerman had to work as an ensemble to bypass the stringent production code and satisfy studio demands.
Pictured: Lauren Bacall, Rock Hudson, and Dorothy Malone
The Hollywood star system dominated the industry for over forty years. Under this star system, ensemble casts were assembled by studio executives, who sought to bolster box-office returns by casting major-stars. Between the 1920s and 60s studios cultivated and marketed star performers to sell their products (motion pictures) to audiences (Vanderploeg 2013, 24). These stars were under strict studio contracts where they were attached to projects (known as ‘star vehicles’) that would further cement their on-and-off-screen personas. Stars who were considered ‘box office draws’ had the power to attach directors and other actors to their star vehicles (Sirk 1991). When Sirk came to Hollywood, he was advised by studio execs that in order to receive an increased budget and improved script he had to attach star power (Sirk 1991). At the time Universal Studios had a lack of house-owned stars, which Sirk saw as an opportunity to manufacture his own star performer. Determined to make Rock Hudson a star, Sirk and the studio used Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk 1954) as a vehicle to do so, off the back of actress Jane Wyman’s stardom (Sirk 1997, 109). Hudson soon became the number-one box-office star in Hollywood. The actor was identifiable with Sirk as it was their collaborations that helped cement his star persona (Klinger 1994, 98). In his memoir, Rock Hudson: His Story, the actor recounts how when starting out in Hollywood “Sirk took me under his wing”, he goes on to provide insight into the nature of their partnership, likening the director to a father figure who he was “like a son to” (Hudson 1986, 71). At the time Written on the Wind was pitched to the studio, Lauren Bacall and Rock Hudson were considered “the real stars of the picture” box-office-wise (Sirk 1997, 130). However, Hudson’s stardom (like many of his star system peers) brought with it limitations to the roles that he could play. In a Universal-International press release, Vice President of Marketing and Publicity David Lipton revealed how Hudson had initially wanted to play the role of alcoholic rich kid Kyle (Evans 2013, 54). However, Hudson’s agent and the studio advised against it as “his fans won’t accept him doing anything shoddy” and the role went to Robert Stack (154). Bacall on the other hand was billed after Hudson, as she has recounted herself that her career was on a downward trajectory (Bacall 2006, 154). She agreed to the project as she received a substantial sum of money and would be working alongside the “hot new star” Rock Hudson (Bacall 2006, 252).
Whereas Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone were lesser-known names who “didn’t amount to much in terms of box-office” (Sirk 1991) yet were cast for their personalities (Sirk 1991). Studio policy at the time required two relative unknowns to be cast alongside two-star powers (Sirk 57). In his memoir, Straight Shooting, Stack noted that since he was a ‘second rate’ actor on loan from another studio, a major star like Hudson was in the position to have “used his influence to have the heart cut out of my part” (Stack 1980, 183). It ought to be mentioned that this was a common occurrence under the studio system, as a decade before playing rivals in Written on the Wind, Bacall and Malone had starred across one another in Howard Hawk’s noir classic The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks 1946), where Malone’s screentime was significantly cut to make way for Bacall, who, at the time was being groomed by Warner Bros to be the studios next star power (Evans 2013, 154-55). The star system fundamentally shaped the films that were being made by Hollywood during this period. Therefore, Sirk not only played into the studio system by manufacturing Universal Studios’ next star power (Rock Hudson) but used these star personas to ironize and assist in characterization.
Pictured: scene-stealer Dorothy Malone opposite Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946)
The driving force behind Written on the Wind’s narrative is its ensemble of characters, who are acknowledged in the film’s closing credits as the “The Players”. The ensemble cast is made up of four titular characters, Kyle Hadley; a playboy who is the heir of the Hadley oil empire, Mitch Wayne; Kyle’s oldest friend, Marylee Hadley; Kyle’s nymphomaniac sister and Lucy Moore; a secretary in an advertising agency. The plot revolves around a love triangle between Lucy and Mitch, one that is further complicated by Marylee’s unrequited love for Mitch. Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall play the unmovable leads, Mitch, and Lucy. A counterbalance to the supporting players, Kyle (Robert Stack) and Marylee Hadley (Dorothy Malone) are what Sirk called “split characters”-characters whose dual nature makes them the “secret owners of the picture” (Sirk 1997, 112). In the film, Hudson played into his on-screen type as the handsome, stoic, and morally upright love interest that audiences were meant to empathise with (Klinger 1994, 100). Mitch was a character designed by Zuckerman and Sirk to be an “ambiguous figure”, one that starkly contrasts his tormented counterparts (Harvey 1978, 56).
Pictured: the central love triangle between Mitch (Rock Hudson), Kyle (Robert Stack), and Lucy (Lauren Bacall)
Yet, when looking at the film in retrospect with the additional knowledge that Hudson was in fact a homosexual a layer of irony is added to his performance (Klinger 1994, 129). Sirk knew that although a homosexual, Hudson “exerted a powerful influence over women” and capitalized on his on-screen persona as a sex symbol (Sirk 1997, 107). Whether this was intended to be ironic or not, as Barbara Klinger argued in Melodrama and Meaning, this not only draws attention to the artifice of Hudson’s star persona but also the convention of heterosexual romance (1994, 129). Bacall on the other hand played against type. Known by audiences for playing dominant women, Lucy’s motives in the film are ambiguous alongside what she represents ideologically (Evans 2013, 45). According to Sirk, apart from her box-office draw, this aura was a key factor in Bacall being cast for the role, she was neither an American Girl prototype nor a lover. Bacall had “an ambiguity in her face” that captured the ambivalent nature of Lucy’s relationship with Stack’s character Kyle (Harvey 1978, 55). Unlike her on-screen character, Malone was considered a Hollywood ‘good girl’. In an interview with Michael Stern, Sirk was vocal about Malone’s “prudishness” during the Written on the Wind staircase scene. He recounts how Malone expressed that she was uncomfortable dancing scantily clad onscreen but after much convincing from Zugsmith, “finally she did” (2009, 28). Despite Sirk considering Malone as the film’s ‘real’ leading lady, at the end of the day she was a ‘second-rate’ actress on loan from Warner Bros. Like Stack, Malone was not in the position to “call the shots” (Sirk 1991) nor did she possess the same star power as the likes of Hudson or Bacall. Accounts like these reinforce the internal hierarchies at play within an ensemble cast, in particular, an ensemble cast operating under the Hollywood star system.
Pictured: Rock Hudson and his “wife”, Phyllis Gates visit Lauren Bacall on set.
However, the ensemble of characters would have not been able to take precedence over the plot without Written on the Wind’s non-linear narrative structure. Even though this decision was met with disapproval from the major studio (Sirk 1991), Sirk fought for the cold start as it “removed all elements of old-fashioned suspense” and meant that audiences could redirect their interest towards the characters as opposed to what would happen next (Sirk 1991). The film opens with the narrative’s climax- Kyle’s death on the steps of the Hadley mansion. What precedes is a montage of Kyle speeding across the Hadley oil town in a yellow hot rod car with a bottle of whisky in hand. When he pulls up to the mansion, Mitch is seen in the foreground of the mid-shot, peering through the window, whilst Lucy lays in bed behind him. The main overture starts blaring as the title cards listing the star performers’ names (Hudson, Bacall, Stack, Malone) appear over close-up shots of their reactions. The audience is privy to Kyle’s fate in the first three minutes of the film and are left intrigued not by how the narrative will unfold but why? Unlike Sirk’s previous films at Universal, Written on the Wind was not a narrative driven by an intricate plot but a character study. One that examined the neurosis, duplicity, and relationships between its ensemble of characters whether that be through acting, symbolic mise en scene or other filmic devices.
Under the studio system, collaboration amongst various departments was essential not only to work within the studio’s parameters but to “change things…in a hidden way that the studio won’t object” (Harvey 1978, 55). Sirk himself has said that a “director must listen” (2009, 31) when working with a creative ensemble. This notion of collective authorship stems back to Sirk’s work in German theatre where he worked in a troupe. One of Sirk’s many frequent collaborators was cameraman Russell Metty, who-according to Sirk “had the same way of seeing things” (Sirk 1997, 100). Metty would come to Sirk with suggestions for shot composition and Sirk would use them (2009, 31). In addition to camerawork, editing was another department that was often unscathed by studio interference (Sirk 1997, 97). Russell F. Shoengarth was the editor for Written on the Wind and Sirk’s follow-up Tarnished Angels (Douglas Sirk 1957). He was a member of the creative ensemble whom Sirk worked with closely, yet mainly out of the fear that a cutter could make or break a picture (Sirk 1991). For production design and art direction, Sirk would draw upon his past experiences as a set designer and spend several weeks before the filming commenced discussing sets, blocking, and how actors would move within them with the film’s art directors (1982). In a 1979 British interview, Sirk recalls how Written on the Wind was the first time he was able to draw upon his expressionistic stage style to visually convey a “drama of psychic violence” through the film’s mise en scene.
Pictured: Written on the Wind’s subtle subversion of the Hays Code’s “married couples in separate beds” guideline.
In a memo from Lou Jones on Julia Heron’s work (one of the two set decorators) on Written on the Wind, Heron would use pastel shades to compliment Malone’s blonde hair and green eyes, furniture and shapes that would highlight Malone’s beauty and not her height, yet simultaneously “pinpoint the dramatic moment of the story” (Evans 2013, 29). All these elements are on full display in the film’s most notorious scene entitled the “dance of death” (Mercer 2004, 50). A scene that was later added to the script, as Zuckerman and Sirk thought the picture was dragging and needed a climax mid-way through the narrative (2009, 29). The sequence commences after Marylee is escorted home by the police and ascends the staircase to her room where she changes into her pink negligee and performs a sexually charged dance whilst jazz music blares. What follows is a montage of match shots that intercut between Jasper’s (Kyle and Marylee’s father) slowed ascent up the stairwell and Marylee’s uninhibited dance. The use of rhythmic montage editing, was, as Laura Mulvey has pinpointed “rare in studio-system Hollywood” (1998). The series of match shots intercutting between two spaces places the characters in the same orbit and, therefore, suggests that it is Marylee’s ‘perversion’ that ultimately killed her father (Mercer 2004, 51). The sheer excess of the scene is a disruption of cinematic realism, one that reveals the stifled passions that lie beneath the surface of the Hadley’s traumatized household. Therefore, without the collaboration between the film’s director, cameraman, editor, and production designer, Written on the Wind could not have visually embedded meanings into a narrative tampered with by studios.
At its very core, Written on the Wind is a narrative driven by its ensemble cast, one that mirrors the ensemble filmmaking practices that brought the film into existence. As the film was made under the hegemonic studio system, compromises had to be made to fulfil the demands of Universal Studios, the production code, and the Hollywood star system. However, despite the creative constraints, Sirk, Zuckerman, Zugsmith and the cast, combined with the technical and creative crew were able to come together to undermine these conventions through collaboration.
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