In 1937, Louis B. Mayer, impressed with the way in which Miss Arzner had turned Rosalind Russell into a star in “Craig’s Wife,” talked her into an MGM contract in the hope that she could alter Joan Crawford’s no-longer-popular image.
“Joan had been a hey-hey girl and the public didn’t seem to want that anymore. But I thought I was going to direct Luise Rainer in ‘The Girl from Trieste,’ Molnar’s intimate case history of a young girl who is forced to take to the streets. I was out scouting locations when I got the news that Miss Rainer had been suspended for marrying a communist and that Joan would replace her in the movie, which was now being called ‘The Bride Wore Red.’ Right away, I knew that would be synthetic, but Mayer knelt down, with those phony tears in his eyes, and said, 'We’ll be eternally grateful to the woman who brings Crawford back.’ I never liked that man; he wasn’t honest and he didn’t keep his promises. He used to duck out the back door of his office when he saw me coming."
-New York Times, 1977
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| Behind the scenes on "The Bride Wore Red" with Dorothy Arzner and Joan Crawford |
6 comments:
Hi Felix! I've always heard differing reports on how Dorothy and Joanie got along on the set of TBWR (some say La Crawford was a bit skeezed out by Arzner's crush on her, others say by the end of filming they would only communicate through notes!)but then again in the 1960's JC hired DA to film Pepsi commercials...I guess time does indeed heal all wounds.
with the rumors about joanie, i'd imagine dot fucked her...at least once.
Hahaha! At LEAST once, Norma!
And in what can only be Karma, the word verification below is :"graze" (I'll have to chew on that for a while)
pass the floss, please.
Well Joan was known to fall in love with her directors, so.....
Joan was choosey. Franchot Tone, Phillip Terry and Alfred Steele! Of course Arzner looked like just another way to land a role.
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