|
Tribute:
Stanley Kramer
Hollywood’s protest moviemaker
He swept studio floors when that was the only
work he could get in Hollywood.
He was stagehand at Fox Studio moving furniture
which he helped to make as carpenter. He unloaded
animals at out-door shoots. Anything to be in
the motion picture business. He knew that to score
in a game one had to be on court! A tribute to
Stanely Kramer...
HE was a mere unit hand at Fox Studios, before
graduating to write scripts and stories (that
was his goal since boyhood) for short films and
learnt film editing. He disliked the hot-house
air of big time studios where talent often withered.
He hated the arrogance of the mostly illiterate
movie moghuls, and interfering front office-Johnnys
and the lot. Yes. He would make movies as independent
producer. Movies of merit, message, and protest.
With inspiration lit by dreams, ambition, dash,
hard work and talent he made many such gems. Such
a freelance filmmaker was Stanley Kramer.
Of memorable movies, like High Noon, The Defiant
Ones, The Caine Mutiny, On The Beach, Inherit
The Wind, Judgment At Nuremberg, It’s A Mad
Mad Mad Mad World, Ship of Fools and Guess Who’s
Coming To Dinner. He directed many of them and
contributed to the writing too. “I am always
pursuing the next dream, hunting for the next
truth.” That was his motto.
Racial intolerance, prejudices of many a kind,
selfishness, greed and cowardice of the human
being, such were the themes of his films. Something
rare in Hollywood of his era. An odd man in, out
in the Mecca of Movies. That was Stanley Kramer.
Stanley E. Kramer was born in New York on September
29,1913. His family members had connections with
the distribution side of the movie business and
with his flair for writing even as lad at school
it was no wonder he dreamt of a career inmovies.
He took his BS degree from the New York University
in 1933 and went west to Hollywood soon after
graduation to work as junior writerat Fox Studio
on $80 a week. His writings in his college magazine
won him that job. But he got nowhere with nobody
bothering about his writing and soon he was fired,
“out of a job and on the town in Hollywood,”
as he recalled later.
It was then he worked at odd jobs as the studio
floor “Hey you-man” mainly to survive
and remain in Hollywood. “I gained some priceless
experience in production problems that a writer
never gets. If I hadn’t had that experience
I probably wouldn’t be a producer today,”
he was to say later.
One of his fellow workers struggling to live was
Mark Robson who later directed two of Kramer’s
early films. Before the Second World War he worked
as executive for an independent film company and
was involved in the making of films like, The
Moon And Six Pence (based on the best-selling
novel by William Somerset Maugham). When America
entered the War consequent to the bombing of the
Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, his Hollywood career
was interrupted though his war service was to
make training films for the US Army. Back in Hollywood
after the War he went about to promote his own
film unit with some pals like screenwriter, Carl
Foreman who would make a mark in more ways than
one. Two of Kramer’s movies of 1949 brought
him the attention he was seeking for so long.
The films were Champion and Home Of The Brave.
Made at a low budget of $600,000, Champion based
on a story by Ring Lardner, told the taut tale
of a tough boxer who broke rules not only in the
ring but also in life to have his way in the world.
He treated women like punching bags to be clobbered
and exploited. Kramer obtained private financing
from a wealthy lettuce-grower of Salinas in California
and also a garment-maker. The boxer was played
by an actor named Issur Daniclowitch Demsky struggling
to make his way in Hollywood and this film made
him a star who had earlier changed his name to
Kirk Douglas! The film had three women and the
lead role actress became a star. She was Ruth
Roman. Champion was a big hit and raked in a cool
$ 18 million! With this success Kramer had arrived
in Hollywood and guys who scoffed at him now smiled
sweetly! With his ambition and desire and inspiration
instilled in him by his idol, “the greatest
Roman of them all,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
he had made up his mind to make message and protest
movies, that made a statement and not merely entertained.
Kramer chose a controversial theme for his next
film, Home Of The Brave. Bigotry, racial discrimination
and intolerance formed the bedrock of the award
winning Broadway play of 1946 which Kramer acquired
for filming. In spite of the New York Drama Critics’
Circle Award the play was a flop because of its
content. Such issues were sought to be swept under
the carpet. And Kramer brought it to the screen
revealing his convictions and dash. “It was
unmentionable in the popular media and no major
film had yet been made about the type of prejudice
— against blacks,” he wrote later. Carl
Foreman wrote the screenplay based on Arthur Laurent’s
play. Kramer made an important and bold change
for his film. The hero is a Jew in the US army
in the play and Kramer made him a black. Kramer
was a Jew and had been a victim of discrimination
in the army, himself. Interestingly the playwright
originally had a black soldier as hero and due
to pressures of many kinds, he made him a Jew!
A fact which Kramer was not aware of when he bought
the play for $ 35,000.
To avoid problems Kramer decided to shoot the
film in secrecy and Foreman gave it a phony title
High Noon. Both of them would create film history
later with a film of the same title. Nobody except
the cast and crew - not even Laurents knew that
the play was being filmed! The film directed by
Mark Robson cost less than $ 400,000 and generated
shouts and screams of protest and also praise
and pats. All were welcome grist to the box-office
mill and made Kramer a happy man.
Kramer made history introducing Marlon Brando
to cinema with his film, The Men (1950). He got
him for a mere $ 50,000 and Brando played a paraplegic
who had fought for his country in the War. Indeed
it was the visit to the well known Veterans’
Hospital in Los Angeles which had inspired Kramer
to make the film and Brando spent weeks in hospital
with war veterans studying the disabled and maimed
which was reflected in his superb performance.
Kramer cast him in his next film, The Wild Ones
about motorcycle gangs overtaking a small town.
The film ran into censorship problems because
of its vitriolic content and was banned in England.
Both films fared badly and Kramer got only critical
acclaim and not much else. Kramer’s fame
and name rested mainly on his films, High Noon
(1952), The Defiant Ones (1958), Judgment At Nuremberg
(1961) and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967).
High Noon, hailed as a classic today, is of the
Western genre but in fact, is an allegory on the
American establishment of the infamous McCarthy
Era. Many noted writers and actors lost their
careers and the historic Hollywood Ten went to
prison. Carl Foreman who wrote High Noon had to
flee to Europe and work incognito because of his
political convictions.
The film was based on a magazine story, The Tin
Star and told a suspenseful and human tale about
a sheriff and his young lovely Quaker wife. He
and wife wish to leave town giving up the job
but he returns to deal with a notorious outlaw
just out of jail who is coming to town by train
to kill him for having put him in prison. Nobody
in town comes out to help him in the hour of crisis
and folks hide behind closed doors leaving him
alone to face the danger. In the shoot-out on
high street the sheriff wins the day with his
wife who has never held a gun in her hand due
to her religious beliefs shooting the outlaw fatally
to save her husband. Disgusted with human selfishness
and cowardice he throws up his job and leaves
town with his wife seeking new life elsewhere.
The lead roles were played by the inimitable superstar
and icon of cinema, Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly,
a new entrant to movies.
The film was brilliantly directed by the famed
filmmaker, Fred Zinnemann. The use of the clock
shot from many different angles and frame-sizes,
the shots of the train tracks, and the famous
high angle crane shot of Gary Cooper standing
alone and helpless in the deserted street, such
use of cinematic metaphor and idiom elevated the
film to a classic of cinema. The nail-biting tension
and suspense generated by such creative use of
the camera and editing kept the moviegoer on the
edge of the seat. The theme song, Do not forsake
me, oh my darling, used most effectively added
lilt and lyrical touch to the film. Not surprisingly
it won an Oscar for the best song. Gary Cooper
was already past fifty and not in good health
(he was suffering from problems with hernia but
that did not prevent him from having a rollicking
affair with 28-year old Grace Kelly! A Hollywood
insider told this writer in LA that Cooper’s
hernia troubled him more under Grace-ful pressure!).
Yet the pain he underwent helped him to emote
better, which added power and sensitivity to his
role. High Noon was a major success and won Oscars
for Best Actor (Gary Cooper), Best Editing and
Best Song. It received nominations for Best Picture,
Best Director and Best Screenplay without winning
any of them.
The next memorable movie of Kramer was The Defiant
Ones (1958). Kramer had turned director with Not
As A Stranger (1955, with Olivia de Havilland,
Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra, it was a bonanza
taking in $ 50 million). He chose to do a movie
about his favourite theme, racial prejudice in
America. It was all about two convicts, one white
and the other black with both chained together
in color conscious southern parts of USA escaping
from a bus carrying convicts in transit. To make
the cup full, the two are bitter racists.
Both were powerful roles and Kramer as producer-director
was eager to cast Sidney Poitier and Marlon Brando
as the two convicts, an excellent choice indeed.
Brando liked the script but due to prior commitments
he had to say “nay” much to the regret
of Kramer. Search for the next best choice began
and after much time, Kramer landed on Tony Curtis!
Many laughed at Kramer but Curtis came on board
with bells on. Curtis proved a surprise package
and a good match for the great Poitier. They say
in Hollywood that only good roles make good actors
and it proved right in this case. The film explored
in depth white-black relations and showed that
under the color of the skin all humans are the
same and have the same feelings, sensibilities
and emotions. The Defiant Ones proved a ringing
box-office hit and also critical success. The
film was nominated for many Oscars, for Best Actor,
(Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier), Best Supporting
Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director
(Stanley Kramer), Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography,
and Best Editing. It won the Oscars for Best Screenplay,
Story and Best Cinematography.
Even after forty and more years it is revived
often on TV and sustains interest as a human document
on racism. Kramer took up the same issue of racism
again in his Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner(1967),
his most popular movie and also highly successful
one at the box-office, raking in $ 80 million,
a mega buck fortune in the 1960s. It dealt with
interracial marriage between a white woman and
black man. A subject that was taboo in those days.
The girl’s rich parents are liberal minded
and their views and attitudes come under severe
inner scrutiny when their only daughter wishes
to marry a black and brings him home to meet them.
Kramercast the legendary star pair, Spencer Tracy
and Katherine Hepburn as the white parents and
the obvious choice for the black suitor was Sidney
Poitier. But he was reluctant to act with such
all time greats, Spencer and Kate! Kramer had
to persuade him strongly before he said “yeah.”
The biggest hurdle was the fast failing health
of Tracy and his understandable reluctance to
be involved in the project. But the theme interested
him immensely and he agreed, at last persuaded
by his longtime mate, Kate. (The two were lovers
for years but due to Spence being a Roman Catholic
with wife and sick child, he could not marry Kate
since divorce was impossible.) To play the girl
Kramer cast Kate’s niece Katherine Houghton,
her first role in cinema. She was on stage in
New York and with the New England aristocratic
background she shared with her famous aunt, she
suited the role very well. In spite of his health
which caused anxiety from day to day to Kramer
and the team, Tracy worked hard on his role shooting
for only half a day and taking rest on some days.
It inflated the budget but the film was completed
with no hitch. Tracy died soon after.
In spite of the controversial theme and its bold
stance and a shot of a black man kissing a white
woman, shown for the first time in American cinema,
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was a success
both financially and critically. Kramer was praised
for breaking new ground and old taboos. The film
was nominated for many Oscars, like Best Picture,
Best Actor (Spencer Tracy), Best Actress (Kate
Hepburn), Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting
Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Story,
Best Art Direction, Best Musical Score, and Best
Editing. Kate Hepburn won the Oscar and the film
won the Best Screenplay and Story Oscar. It is
often revived on television around the world and
is Kramer’s most popular movie.
Kramer’s other worthy movies include Judgment
At Nuremberg (1961, a star-studded movie about
Nazi war-mongering and human injustice), On The
Beach (1959, a film about nuclear disaster with
Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck), The Caine Mutiny
(1954, a bold film about the US Navy with Humphrey
Bogart, It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963,
a satire on human greed) and Ship Of Fools (1965).
His films acquired 85 Oscar nominations and won
many. He was given the prestigious Irving Thalberg
Award for excellence. “I wanted to be recognized
as someone who knew how to use film as a real
weapon against discrimination, hatred, prejudice
and excessive power,” Kramer wrote. Such
recognition came to him in ample measure. Stanley
Kramer passed away recently. He was 88. The man
may be gone but his movies shall live for ever.
Randor Guy
More
Stories...
 Two
women duel over a sword
Oscar-nominated
actress Ann Sothern dies at 92
Review:
Cast Away
Review:
Such A Long Journey
FROM
THE ACADEMY AWARDS FILE
U2
ACHTUNG BABY!
Mumbai’s
IMAX to open on March 25
OSCAR
HIGHLIGHTS
Click
for Nominations of the 73rd Academy Awards 2001
Films
that have got five Oscar nominations or more
The
making of Cast Away
|
