by A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life;Films of Vincente Minnelli
Gigi (Leslie Caron) and Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan) come to terms. Gigi must have been one of the films that director Billy Wilder had in mind when he said, “I don’t shoot elegant pictures. Mr. Vincente Minnelli, he shot elegant pictures.” PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST
After some tightening and fine-tuning, there was a second preview, which to Lerner and Loewe seemed as uninspiring as the first. Clearly, something would have to be done. “We were determined that the picture not be released the way it was,” Lerner recalled.16 However, recalling the actors, reshooting entire sequences, and arranging for additional scoring would come with a hefty price tag. It seemed highly unlikely that the studio would open its checkbook for a production that had already gone over budget. Besides, Minnelli was already back in Paris preparing his next film, The Reluctant Debutante . Nevertheless, Lerner and Loewe insisted on changes.
“They wanted a lot of work to be done on the picture,” says Lerner’s former assistant Stone Widney. “As Alan tells it, it was going to cost three hundred grand to do the retakes. Vincente had already gone on to another movie and wasn’t available. But Alan and Fritz stuck to their guns and offered to buy the print back from the company themselves and finish it… . I think the scoring was totally incorrect as far as Fritz was concerned, even though André Previn had done it. Fritz felt that it was way overboard.”17
In a desperate ploy, Lerner and Loewe offered to buy “10 percent of Gigi for $300,000.” Later, they upped their offer to $3 million for the purchase of the film’s negative (even though they didn’t have that kind of money). The elaborate ruse worked. Metro executives Joseph Vogel and Ben Thau were so impressed with Lerner and Loewe’s commitment that they agreed to lavish an additional $300,000 on the picture—anything to make Gigi perfect. Although Minnelli would not be involved in the retakes on Gigi, Lerner felt an obligation to play messenger and relayed the news to the absentee director, who noted: “When you’re in another country and you hear that the picture you made didn’t go over well and that parts of it are being reshot, you tend to believe that the picture couldn’t have been any good,” Minnelli said.18
Chuck Walters was called back to oversee nine days of reshoots. “Gaston’s Soliloquy” was reattempted; Caron marched through “The Parisians” yet again; Hermione Gingold uttered her final line, “Thank heaven …” with the quiet contentment that Lerner was looking for. Now it was up to editor Adrienne Fazan to sort through the miles of footage and make some attempt at patching together the best of Minnelli and Walters, just as she had pieced together Paris and Culver City. Fazan found herself in a race against time as she attempted to incorporate innumerable changes (most of them Lerner-dictated) into the final edit.
At last, on May 15, 1958, Gigi was ready to make her grand entrance, and Freed made sure it was a luxurious red-carpet affair. Radio City Music Hall simply wouldn’t do for a cinematic event this prestigious. Instead, Broadway’s Royale Theatre would have the honor of presenting Gigi as though it were a legitimate theatrical attraction—white tie and hard ticket included. In Hollywood, splashy premieres were par for the course, but this was something unique. And the critics knew it. “Gigi, the delectable musical film that opened last night at the Royale, is a triumph of style over matter,” declared the New York World-Telegram’s William Peper: “Director Vincente Minnelli has taken his CinemaScope and color cameras on a ravishing whirl through Paris. And with the help of a refreshingly witty screenplay by Mr. Lerner, he has given the film a pace and sparkle that belie its tiny plot.” The New York Times saluted Gigi as the “Fair Lady of Filmdom,” with critic Bosley Crowther noting, “Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb.”
“Thank Heaven for Little Girls”: Oscar night, 1959. Minnelli receives an Academy Award for his direction of Gigi. “It’s about the proudest moment of my life,” Vincente declared in his acceptance speech. The presenter is actress Millie Perkins. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST
Variety would describe Leslie Caron as “completely captivating and convincing in the title role.” Although the actress was ably assisted from all corners, it is her endearing performance that is the centerpiece of the film: her mischievous expression as she reveals that the one thing she wants most is a “Nile green corset with rococo roses on the garters”; her maturing tone as she says, “It’s silly… . It’s absolutely silly” in response to the fuss over one of Gaston’s impulsive outbursts; her look of quiet command as she throws open the doors of her bedroom and emerges as a Beatonized bird of paradise.
But if the film really belongs to anyone it is Minnelli. “I don’t think of it as an MGM movie,” says writer Ethan Mordden. “It seems to be in its own style entirely.” The sumptuousness serves the story in a unique way. Scenes are so masterfully composed, they are like oil paintings come to life. All of this and an endearing message about trying one’s wings and flying against the flock.
IT WAS OSCAR NIGHT, APRIL 6, 1959, at the RKO Pantages Theatre, and after performing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” Maurice Chevalier was presented with his honorary Oscar by an admiring Rosalind Russell. Then it was time for Gary Cooper and Millie Perkins to announce the nominees for Best Director. Along with Minnelli, the contenders included Richard Brooks and Stanley Kramer, both nominated for provocative fare—Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Defiant Ones, respectively. “And the winner is … Vincente Minnelli.”
Vincente (who attended the ceremonies with Ginger Rogers) made his way to the podium and addressed his colleagues:
Ever since Gigi was written years ago by Colette, it’s been produced through the years in many mediums and many versions and many languages and it has a history of bringing wonderful things to the lives of people connected with these productions. I know personally of a great many of them and I’m sure there are a great many more. And it’s brought wonderful things to us connected with this movie and to me tonight. It’s about the proudest moment of my life. I want to give my deepest gratitude to you and to Gigi for this great honor.
As eloquent and heartfelt as Minnelli’s acceptance speech was, the audience was distracted by the fact that he picked an unusual moment to scratch his eye—with his middle finger. For a director so attuned to visual minutiae, it seems odd that Vincente didn’t realize how this would appear on camera. Or was this Minnelli’s own special tribute to all of the exasperating MGM executives he had tangled with over the years?
26
A Glittering Tiara
WHEN IT OPENED AT THE Cambridge Theatre in London in 1955, William Douglas Home’s play The Reluctant Debutante seemed to be the answer to the question most frequently asked by MGM executives: “Where can we find another Father of the Bride?” At first glance, Home’s very British high-comedy appeared to offer the same satisfying mix of good-natured satire with an endearing father-daughter relationship at its center. The high-society London setting succeeded in camouflaging the familiar plot just enough so that it didn’t seem too familiar.
Metro acquired the rights to The Reluctant Debutante and even financed the 1956 Broadway production of the play, but the studio decided that before its property reached the screen, it needed to be anglicized so that American audiences wouldn’t be put off by the ritzy tea-and-crumpets tone. Father of the Bride’s screenwriting team, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, were initially offered the opportunity to adapt Home’s play, but they passed, feeling that the scenario was in some ways too similar to the domestic predicament faced by Spencer Tracy and his brood.
As Debbie Reynolds was being considered for the debutante of the title, MGM next turned to one of the authors of Reynolds’s 1955 crowd-pleaser, The Tender Trap. Julius G. Epstein and his brother Philip had not only scripted the immortal Casablanca but had also been responsible for transplanting two of Broadway’s most inspired comedies, Arsenic and Old Lace and The Man Who Came to Dinner, to the screen. Julius (sans Philip) was tapped to work the same magic with The Reluctant Debutante,
but his An American in London approach was ultimately deemed wanting—and then some.
“We wouldn’t play one word of that lousy script!” prospective star Rex Harrison barked at producer Pandro Berman. The irascible “Sexy Rexy” and third wife Kay Kendall (also set to star) were none too pleased with Epstein’s fish-out-of-water scenario, in which an American father and daughter find themselves in the thick of London’s high season. Minnelli also found the Americanized approach contrived and “off kilter.” Epstein was out and William Douglas Home, author of the original play, was in. Home would crank out a completely new screenplay at breakneck speed even as cameras began to turn in February 1958. Due to the Harrisons’ complicated tax situation, the picture would actually be filmed in Paris, with a mere two days spent immersed in authentic London fog. Debbie Reynolds was replaced with Sandra Dee, and Angela Lansbury joined the cast as catty Mabel Claremont.
Although Rex Harrison was his usual impossible-to-please self (“He didn’t give a damn whom he offended,” Home observed), everyone—including Minnelli—fell in love with his vivacious new bride and the picture’s leading lady, Kay Kendall.1 Unbeknownst to Vincente, the crew, and even Kendall herself, the star was battling myeloid leukemia (but led to believe by Harrison and others that she was grappling with an iron deficiency). “Kay was really, really ill, having transfusions almost every day,” remembers Angela Lansbury:
I was with them a great deal during that period. We were living in the same hotel in Paris and I’d have dinner with them almost every night. It was extraordinary how she kept up her spirits and her energy. I don’t know how she did it. She was so lovely and such a dear, funny person. Rex adored her and took great care of her over that period, which was a new thing for Rex. He had such a rakish reputation with his amours and his failed marriages. With Kay, he really came into his own.2
Kendall was such a thoroughgoing professional that the effects of her illness were never evident during production, despite a physically demanding role.
In a sense, the glittering high-society swirl depicted in The Reluctant Debutante was not that far removed from the Holmby Hills cocktail-party circuit that Vincente knew all too well. In fact, Minnelli may have been a little too enchanted by the overdressed socialites he was supposed to be sending up in Debutante: Where the comedy should be biting (à la Cukor’s The Women), it is polite.
Lansbury also found her director well-mannered yet remote:
Kay Kendall, Angela Lansbury, and Rex Harrison in the thick of the London season in 1958’s The Reluctant Debutante. In reviewing this frothy comedy of manners, the Evening Standard said “Vincente Minnelli’s direction glitters like a tiara.” PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST
Vincente simply sat back and watched and waited. He didn’t interfere with an actor’s approach to how to play a character. His whole view was that of the picture that he was going to encapsulate in his film. And it was us in relation to the flowers on the table or the way the set was dressed and what we were wearing—all of those things… . I felt he was such a hesitant person. He didn’t exactly stutter but he was certainly very, very slow in framing his sentences. You know, there was nothing immediate about him. He had to think about it. He talked with his hands a lot and he visualized with his hands. I think that he was probably far more definite with the people that he was working with in the arts department than he was with the actors. As far as the acting was concerned, he did leave that to us.3
And it is the performances that make The Reluctant Debutante worthwhile. Kay Kendall is a madcap delight, twittering hypertensively and flitting about in her Pierre Balmain feathers, and Angela Lansbury is great fun as the acid-tongued Mabel. Despite the presence of teeny-bopper icon Sandra Dee, the picture was not the Father of the Bride-style cash cow the studio had hoped for. The reviews, however, offered some consolation: “Vincente Minnelli’s direction glitters like a tiara,” said the Evening Standard. “Lighter than air, entertaining as all get out,” Newsweek chirped.
Just before The Reluctant Debutante went before the cameras, Minnelli was served with divorce papers. In her statement to the court, Georgette charged Vincente with “mental cruelty.” During the hearing, she testified that “he said he was sorry he ever met me because he liked being alone better.”4
The sister of Miss Universe would emerge victorious. Georgette was awarded custody of three-year-old Tina Nina and a property settlement that provided her with $4,325 a month in alimony for fifteen months and an additional $1,700 a month as long as she remained single (according to Georgette, Minnelli’s MGM contract entitled him to $4,250 a week). When pressed for a statement about the proceedings, Vincente had no comment.5
27
Some Came Running
MADISON, INDIANA, may have been thrilled to see Frank Sinatra coming, but the feeling wasn’t exactly mutual. The city, which had once been selected as “the typical American small town” by the Office of War Information, was a far cry from the Chairman of the Board’s natural habitat. It certainly wasn’t The Sands in Las Vegas, where one could order hookers as easily as waffles from room service. If Madison was too low rent for Sinatra (he told the press it reminded him of skid row in Los Angeles), it was the perfect Parkman, the fictional Midwestern town of Some Came Running. In this sprawling character study, Minnelli would confront ’50s conformism and small-town repression head on. The cast, which included Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine, descended on Madison (population 10,500) in August 1958.
Although Vincente was thoroughly well versed in dealing with temperamental talent, Sinatra was in his own category. From the get-go, the working relationship between director and star was bound to be strained. Sinatra was a firm believer in getting his performance down in the first take. “If you want a second take, print the first one again,” the unpredictable star had informed one of his dumbfounded directors. Minnelli, the plodding perfectionist, had been known to proceed beyond take thirty in pursuit of some elusive effect—usually visual—that he wasn’t able to name. Although he was as much of an iconoclast as Sinatra, Vincente’s taffeta personality didn’t click with his male leads.
Sinatra and Martin “thought he was too precious and pursed his lips too much,” Shirley MacLaine recalled. “The two of them could dislike people because of small things that personally offended them.”1 With his tics, fidgety mannerisms, and Noel Coward-ish way with a cigarette, Minnelli gave them plenty of ammunition.
Despite all of his idiosyncrasies, however, Minnelli was clearly the man in charge. “When he would walk onto the set, there was almost like a hush,” says Peter Woodburn, who had a bit part in the film. “You’d hear people whispering, ‘Mr. Minnelli’s here. Mr. Minnelli’s here …’ and that was from the crew and that sort of spilled over to all the extras. Everybody straightened up when he came on the scene.”2
With so many strong personalities on board, the company braced for fire-works as the cameras began to turn. They weren’t disappointed. When hapless assistant director William McGarry interrupted Sinatra’s ’tini time with a reminder that they were behind with the shooting schedule, Ol’ Blue Eyes decided to make everybody’s life a little easier—by ripping out a twenty-page chunk of the screenplay. “There, pal,” Sinatra said, “Now we’re on schedule.”3 It wasn’t as though the story couldn’t have used a little pruning. The original James Jones novel weighed in at over a thousand pages—an epic length to tell the story of the prodigal Dave Hirsh returning to a hometown rife with hypocrisy (“Dave was back and the whole town knew that trouble—and women were close behind!”).
An ex-serviceman and frustrated novelist, Dave Hirsh is one of Minnelli’s most conflicted protagonists. Although his duffle bag is well stocked with William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and Thomas Wolfe, Dave spends his days playing poker or getting loaded at Smitty’s bar. Complex and unpredictable, Sinatra’s character even comes complete with polar-opposite love interests.
Martha Hyer’s Gwen French is a frigid, buttoned-up schoolteacher who
prefers engaging with Dave in affairs strictly literary; Shirley MacLaine’s amiable floozy, Ginny Moorehead, is a cheap souvenir Dave picked up at Gilly’s Green Room in Chicago. Throughout the film, Ginny is described as “a pig,” “a pushover,” and “a nobody,” though she is just about the only character in the film who is truly herself. Like night and day, the two women in Dave’s life embody his own identity crisis. Hirsh is torn between the cultured life of the intellectual and a neon-tinted world of bars, booze, and broads.
Accustomed to studio hacks or autocrats such as Otto Preminger, Sinatra seems to have been thrown by the have-it-your-own-way freedom that Minnelli offered his actors. For Sinatra, shaping his own portrayal may have allowed some familiar emotions to rise to the surface. His schizoid mix of brutality and sensitivity, his Madonna-whore complex regarding the women in his life, and his need to occasionally park his machismo and artistically express himself were all very much a part of his character.
