William Wyler (51 page)

Friendly Persuasion
's postproduction life proved to be more dramatic and contentious than its story. Because Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler had rewritten much of Michael Wilson's original script, Wyler suggested on February 8, 1956, that the screenplay credit should read, “Screenplay by Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler from the book by Jessamyn West.”
¹⁷
Wilson protested, and the dispute was submitted to the Writers' Guild. On March 9 the guild informed Allied Artists that the credits should read: “Screenplay by Michael Wilson from the book by Jessamyn West.” However, the guild also informed the studio that, according to its bylaws, if a screenwriter had ever lied about being a member of the Communist Party or invoked the Fifth Amendment—which Wilson had done—Allied did not have to give him screenplay credit. The studio then informed the guild that it had decided against giving screenplay credit to anyone. The dispute went public when Wilson received a Writers' Guild award for best screenplay and an Oscar nomination (the Academy subsequently disqualified him). Wilson then sued Wyler, Allied Artists, and Liberty Films over the denial of credit, asking for $250,000 in damages.

Wyler was angry and disgusted by this controversy. He urged Allied to appeal the guild's decision and offered a compromise that would give all three writers credit. The studio, however, was worried that if Wilson's name appeared onscreen, the film would be picketed by the American Legion, adversely affecting its profit margin.
Friendly Persuasion
thus became the only film in Hollywood history to be released with no screenplay credit at all—although, when the DVD version was released in 2001, Wilson was credited as the sole screenwriter, per the guild's ruling. Wyler, meanwhile, remained frustrated that West and his brother had been deprived of credit and of a potential Oscar nomination. (The script was indeed nominated, but with no names attached.) Wyler complained to Madsen: “If only the Guild had agreed to a three-way credit, Allied wouldn't have objected and perhaps the American Legion would have overlooked it. It was a damn pity because I think all three might have gotten Oscar nominations, because that was the year Dalton Trumbo won under a false name.”
¹⁸

As Wilson's lawsuit progressed, Wyler filed a deposition in which he defended his original position on the awarding of screenplay credit. He reiterated that Wilson's narrative emphasis had been wrong “and that in particular the second part of the script entirely avoided the issue by treatment in comedy terms and never bringing the principal character to his ultimate test, which is now the dramatic highlight of the picture.” This is an interesting statement in light of the changes Wyler made to the West-Wyler script, which kept the comic emphasis of the film as well as including a test for the hero. He went on to state, “I believe that a viewing of the so-called shooting script…would not actually show the proper results, since a good deal of the material that is in the final version of the picture was actually contributed during the shooting, by Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler.”
¹⁹
This is certainly true, because the final film, as discussed earlier, differs markedly from the final shooting script. Stuart Millar seconded Wyler in his deposition, stating that West and Wyler had essentially written the entire second half of the film, as well as many scenes in the first half.
²⁰

Wyler has been accused of appeasing the blacklisters by keeping Wilson's name off the screen, and his initial decision to do so is indeed puzzling. An examination of Wilson's scripts clearly shows that he contributed substantially to the finished film.
²¹
Numerous incidents and the lighthearted tone that dominates the first half of the film are derived from his script. Wyler is correct in asserting that significant changes were made, especially in the war sequences, but his refusal to acknowledge Wilson's contributions does not seem justified.

Wyler may have simply felt intimidated by the government's monitoring of his affairs and the attendant pressure to be more selective about the organizations he supported and the people he worked with. His correspondence with Y. Frank Freeman at Paramount (discussed in
chapter 14
) shows Wyler's more conciliatory mood and indicates a willingness to consider the consequences of his political actions. A note in Wyler's file on
Friendly Persuasion
indicates that he spoke with Freeman about the Wilson matter on April 8, 1954, and that the studio chief assured him that “no screen credit need be given Michael Wilson, even if his script is used.”
²²
In that same file is an article clipped from
Variety
detailing how the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals had criticized Samuel Goldwyn, Wyler's former boss, for purchasing the rights to
Guys and Dolls
. That hit musical had been coauthored by Abe Burrows, who was named in the alliance's publication the
Vigil
for his “vague testimony and for being identified as a Communist by two admitted former Communists.” This episode may have emboldened Wyler to deny credit to Wilson.

When Wilson died in 1978, his obituary in the
Los Angeles Times
mentioned the dispute, and Wyler wrote a letter, published in the paper, in which he recounted his revised opinion of the screen credit controversy:

The fact is that I only objected that Wilson be acknowledged as the film's only screenwriter. Wilson's screenplay…was written for another producer-director years before I undertook to make the film. Subsequently, two other writers, namely Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler together rewrote parts of Wilson's screenplay contributing significantly to the final picture and I felt their work should be acknowledged as well as Wilson's. So I proposed that all three names receive credit for the screenplay with Wilson's name in first place, thereby recognizing him as the “principal” screenwriter. When the Writers' Guild awarded Wilson exclusive solo credit, then the film's financiers and distributors—Allied Artists Corp—decided to release the film with no screenplay credit whatsoever, a decision I regretted but had no control over.
²³

Friendly Persuasion
opened at Radio City Music Hall on November 1, 1956, and like
Roman Holiday
, it received respectable but not glowing reviews. The film did well at the box office but was not the unqualified hit Allied Artists had expected. In 1957 Wyler took the picture to the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palm d'Or as the festival's best film.

The film had a curious afterlife. At the request of the Soviet Union, and with the blessing of the U.S. State Department, Wyler took
Friendly Persuasion
to Moscow in 1960, where it was presented as a symbolic remedy to the Cold War. Then, almost thirty years later—at the advent of glasnost—President Ronald Reagan (whose politics Wyler detested) gave a videocassette of
Friendly Persuasion
to Mikhail Gorbachev. In a toast, Reagan lauded the film for showing not only the horrors and tragedy of war but also “the problems of pacifism, the nobility of patriotism, as well as the love of peace.”
²⁴
When the
New York Times
printed the text of Reagan's remarks, it occasioned some letters noting the red-baiting president's hypocrisy in praising a film written by a blacklisted communist sympathizer. The final irony (apparently lost on Wilson's supporters) was, as Jan Herman points out, that Josh's agonizing decision—whether to go to war or stick to his pacifist beliefs—was Wyler's focus, not Wilson's.
²⁵

Wyler's next film would explore similar issues with the same muddled results, but within the generic conventions of the western. Wyler had not made a film in that genre since 1940's
The Westerner
with Gary Cooper. Now, in the spirit of the times, he would make a “big” western. By the mid-1950s, television had absorbed a substantial portion of the movie audience. In an effort to compete, theatrical films became bigger and more expensive as directors began experimenting with Technicolor, Cinerama, CinemaScope, and Technorama. To shoot
The Big Country
, Wyler hired Franz Planer, and together they decided to make the film in Technorama and Technicolor.

Wanting to retain full artistic control of his projects, Wyler decided to form a partnership with Gregory Peck, who had become a close friend since their work on
Roman Holiday
. Their first venture was supposed to be a comedy, however, not a western. In December 1957 Peck announced that they would make a film about an art heist from the Prado museum in Madrid, and they hired Michael and Fay Kanin (
Woman of the Year
) to write a script. The screenplay proved unsatisfactory, and the project was shelved—though Wyler would later make a similar film,
How to Steal a Million
, with Audrey Hepburn (Peck's
Roman Holiday
costar) in Paris.

While that first project was unraveling, James Webb, a prolific writer of westerns (
Vera Cruz
and
Apache
; he would later write
How the West Was Won
and
Cheyenne Autumn
) brought to Peck's attention a story by Donald Hamilton, “Ambush at Blanco Canyon,” which had been serialized in the
Saturday Evening Post
and later expanded into a novel titled
The Big Country
. Peck showed the story to Wyler, noting that it had at least six good parts and was “an anti-macho western.”
²⁶
Wyler liked the project, and the two friends divided up their responsibilities and formed two separate production companies—Wyler's was called World Wide Productions, and Peck's was Anthony Productions. Wyler would be in charge of artistic matters, while Peck, in addition to having casting and script approval, would choose the livestock, horses, and riders. Peck, who also had a development deal with United Artists, arranged for that studio to finance and distribute the film.

Again, Wyler had problems with the script. Five writers were listed on the final credits, including Robert Wyler and Jessamyn West; Leon Uris (uncredited) also worked on the script. Ironically, the Writers' Guild of America, successor to the Screen Writers' Guild, would be called on to arbitrate the credits on this film (as the latter had done on
Friendly Persuasion
), although Wyler claimed to have little recollection about who had written what. Donald Hamilton was originally hired to adapt his story, though he warned Wyler and Peck that he had no real screenwriting experience. When this proved to be a problem, the producers turned to Sy Bartlett, who had helped Wyler get into the air force and was now a screenwriter working with Peck. Robert Wilder, whose name is also on the credits, was a novelist (
Flamingo Road
) and a friend of Robert Wyler's.

Wyler assembled a big-time cast to complement the size of the picture. In addition to Peck, he signed Burl ives, fresh from his stage success as Big Daddy in
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(a role he would repeat in the film) to play Rufus Hannassey; Charles Bickford, who had not worked for Wyler since
Hell's Heroes
, to play Henry Terrill, patriarch of the family feuding with the Hannasseys; Carroll Baker as Pat Terrill, who is engaged to Peck's character Jim McKay; and Jean Simmons as Julie Maragon, who owns the water supply the two families are feuding over. The final important role, Steve Leech (McKay'a antagonist), was offered to Charlton Heston. Already a star and a leading man who had just triumphed as Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's
The Ten Commandments
, Heston decided to pass because, in his opinion, at least three parts in the film were better than the one being offered to him. In his autobiography, Heston elaborated:

I was still very preoccupied with the size and centrality of my part…. Is it better to have a good part in an important film, or the best part in an OK film? I know the answer to that now…. I didn't then. I called Herman [his agent], “Look I know this is a major movie, and it's a very good script, but my part isn't very good. We're getting a lot of offers now anyway. I'll pass on this one.”

“Kid,” he said, “you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You have an offer to work with Gregory Peck and for maybe the best director in film, and you're worrying the
part
isn't good enough for you? Don't you know that actors take parts with Wyler without even reading the damn script? I'm telling you, you
have
to do this picture!”
²⁷

Heston agreed, and Wyler had his cast.

United Artists agreed to a $2.8 million budget for the film. The shoot, which started in July 1958 and lasted four months, was done on two major locations. At one, near Stockton, California, Wyler built a ramshackle, minimal town and shot the range scenes. The other, used for the more remote scenes, was in Red Rock Canyon and the Mojave Desert, which he had used as backdrops for
Hell's Heroes
almost thirty years earlier.

The plot revolves around the feud between the families of two cattle barons. Both want to take over the Big Muddy, a spread with a bountiful water supply that is owned by the schoolmarm, Julie Maragon (Simmons). She inherited the land from her grandfather but lacks the money to work it. The Hannasseys, headed by Rufus (Ives), and the Terrills, headed by the Major (Bickford), have hated each other for as long as they can remember. Julie will not sell to either of them because she wants the water to be shared, not fought over. Within the generic plot structure of the western, the Terrills seem to be influenced by eastern values: they live in a grand, manor-like home with imported furniture, chandeliers, and carpets. The Major's daughter, Patricia (Baker), dresses well and flaunts ladylike airs; she has been back east, where she met Jim McKay (Peck), the scion of a family of ship owners. In contrast, the Hannasseys, though considerable property owners, are of a lower class; they live in a small, run-down home and dress like westerners. Rufus's son, Buck (Chuck Connors), is a drunken lout. Both Patricia and Buck are intimidated by their fathers—no mothers are evident—the difference being that Patricia worships her father to an unhealthy degree, while Buck mostly hates his.