The Great Gatsby (1949) - A Revival

[Reza]

latimes.com




Classic Hollywood: A dark 'Great Gatsby'




The 1949 version with Alan Ladd leaves the Jazz
Age behind. It will screen as part of Noir City:
Hollywood 14th Annual Festival of Film Noir.

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times

April 16, 2012


Noir City: Hollywood, 14th Annual Festival of
Film Noir opens Friday at the American
Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre with a rare
screening of the 1949 adaptation of F.Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."

"The Great Gatsby"?

Rarely have the words film noir and "The Great
Gatsby" been used in the same sentence.
Fitzgerald's 1925 masterwork set during the Jazz
Age on Long Island and New York revolves around
Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who gained
his wealth as a bootlegger and loves the
beautiful but married Daisy Buchanan. It doesn't
exactly sound like a film noir filled with dark
shadows, violence and gangsters.

The lavish 1974 version with Robert Redford
featured exquisite costumes, sets and
cinematography, and trailers and photos of Baz
Luhrmann's ("Moulin Rouge") upcoming adaptation
with Leonardo DiCaprio also seems to be focusing
on the romance and style of the Roaring '20s.

But this 1949 version starring noir icon Alan
Ladd as Gatsby leaves the Jazz Age behind for the
rat-a-tat-tat of tommy guns, thugs, fisticuffs
and dark shadows. ("Gatsby" was reportedly Ladd's
second favorite film after his 1953 western classic "Shane.")

"Film noir like beauty is in the eye of the
beholder," said film historian Alan K. Rode, who
will be presenting the film Friday with Eddie
Muller, founder of the Film Noir Foundation. Rode
said the 1949 "Gatsby" "is very interesting in
that it has the look and the feel of a film noir.
And any movie that you walk into a big home and
you have Elisha Cook Jr. playing a piano it has to be a film noir."

Rode and Muller work with studios to find prints
of old noir movies, fund restorations and get
prints made. That was the case with "The Great
Gatsby," which was released by Paramount.
Universal owns most Paramount titles from the
1930s through 1940s; the studio agreed a print
could be made for this festival as well as the
recent Noir City in San Francisco.

"We showed 'The Great Gatsby' in Noir City and it
was very well received," said Rode. David Ladd,
Alan's son, told the crowd that his father's life
paralleled Jay Gatsby's; they were both self-made
men who pulled themselves up out of poverty.

"Alan grew up with his mother and they were
really, really poor, living at one point in kind
of a tent situation," said Rode. "And like
Gatsby, Alan Ladd was very proud of his accomplishments."

So is there any wonder that Ladd loved the book?
In fact, he was the driving force behind getting
the film made. The green light to write the
script came as early as 1946, but the Motion
Picture Production Code rejected the draft of the
story because of its inclusion of "illicit sex
and adultery, without sufficient compensating moral values."

"Paramount at one point wanted to walk way from
the movie because it was too difficult to get
made, and Alan Ladd said you are going to make
this, if you don't make this I will go on suspension," noted Rode.

Finally, the script by Cyril Hume and Richard
Maibaum, which was less faithful to the book and
had more of a moral compass, was approved. But
Rode believes Paramount hired the wrong director
for the job Elliott Nugent who was known for
his comedy work on such films as Bob Hope's 1939
farce "The Cat and the Canary."

Had the film been directed by a strong dramatic
director like Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca,"
"Mildred Pierce") "that would have elevated the movie," noted Rode.

Still, he added, "Alan Ladd is front and center
as Jay Gatsby and Barry Sullivan, who I think is
a very underrated actor, as Tom Buchanan adds a lot of heft to it."

"The Great Gatsby" didn't do well upon release
"and kind of died," said Rode. "It has been
essentially laying fallow ever since. I think by
helping bring this film back to life we are
really bringing a piece of history from the classic noir era."

The second feature Friday evening is 1942's "This
Gun for Hire," the film that catapulted Ladd to
stardom as a killer who has a soft spot for cats.

The festival, which continues through May 6,
features some popular festival favorites such as
Anthony Mann's 1947 "T-Men" and 1949's "The
Window," and real rarities including some
pre-code thrillers 1932's "OK, America,"
starring Lew Ayres as a Walter Winchell type
radio personality, and "Afraid to Talk" that
looks at the corruption in big-city politics.