Production
The pairing of Robert Cummings (on loan from RKO Pictures) and top-draw Olivia de Havilland appeared to be a good studio decision, but the production soon ran into problems. Feeling that being cast in a lightweight role was limiting her future in Hollywood features, de Havilland also began to have medical problems that compounded her anxiety. To complicate filming, Cummings often was unavailable, as he was simultaneously at work on Between Us Girls at Universal Studios, forcing de Havilland to deliver lines to a stand-in. Aged actor Charles Coburn also frequently forgot his lines, leading to many retakes which sapped her energy further.
As the production struggled on, tensions came to a head as de Havilland fought openly with Warner Bros. Tired and suffering from low blood pressure, the formerly steady and hard-working actress began reporting late for work, leaving the set abruptly and going home when her frustrations became too much. She would eventually sue the studio in a landmark case, known as the "de Havilland decision", that set a seven-year limit on studio-player contracts. The film was completed, 10 days behind schedule, and due to the legal squabbling, was eventually released a year after the production wrapped.
Read more about this topic: Princess O'Rourke
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)