Fake Hollywood sets of Britian

[stuart.uk]

I was wondering about films set in Hollywood, but set in the U.K. In some cases it didn't bother me to much like with Random Harvest.

One I found hard to swallow was Do Not Disturb with Rod Taylor and Doris Day. It was set both in the country and in London, but IMO the country roads featured looked about 100 years out of date and was clear it was filmed on a Hollywood back lot. I was thinking to about camparing National Velvet and The Quiet Man. Both were set around the same time, but TQM had the advantage of being shot where the story was set, Ireland.

I recently bought a triple Lassie box set Lassie Come Home, Son Of Lassie and The Courage of Lassie. I've enjoyed all 3 films in the past, but thought the last one starring Elizabeth Taylor was the one that has stood the test of time the best. I think because I've watched a remake of Lassie Come Home with Peter O'Toole and Samantha Morton is the reason I've felt critical of the earlier movie, because I felt the remake did more to show the poverty excistance that Lassie''s family had to endure in a tennement building, whereas Donald Crisp and family lived in a cottage. Son Of Lassie I felt was a disjointed affair with airman Peter Lawford keeping one step ahead of the persuing Germans, reminding me of another war movie called The Victors.

I have felt often that if MGM had made more of an effort with Brigadoon it might have been a better movie than it actually turned out. By that I mean if they could fly over the likes of Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor and Deborah Kerr to film Ivanhoe at M.G.M British, couldn't they have done the same with Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse and Van Johnson and shoot the outdoor scenes in the Scottish countryside and cast Scottish actors in supporting roles

It's almost a pity Chaplin didn't make Limelight after he was deported from the U.S, as he could have shot some of the outdoor scences on location. It's a great film, one Chaplin's great works, but I have the scene in my head where he and Claire Bloom were walking arm in arm down the London streets, when in actual fact it looked like they were walking on a treadmill in from of piece of film at the Chaplin studios.

[moira finnie]

Hey, Stuart, I know that to a native the faux scenery allegedly set in Britain in films of the studio age will probably never ring true.

I was wondering about films set in Hollywood, but set in the U.K. In some cases it didn't bother me to much like with Random Harvest.

Well, Random Harvest (1942) was one of those consummately crafted films I think of whenever the studio era is mentioned. There was nothing like it before or since when MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox sought to create a world on their back lot. It didn't always work well, but when the material, actors, crew and cinematography was just right, it was magical, and still is, at least for this sap. They had (and Warner Bros. appears to still have) warehoused an enormous wealth of information, objects, and related material--though perhaps the alleged joys of CGI will make all that superfluous.

One I found hard to swallow was Do Not Disturb with Rod Taylor and Doris Day. It was set both in the country and in London, but IMO the country roads featured looked about 100 years out of date and was clear it was filmed on a Hollywood back lot.

I'm with you on Do Not Disturb (1965), which I don't consider as a good example of:
a.) romantic comedy
b.) romantic comedy set in Britain
c.) a film of the studio era since it really came after that system had fallen apart.
d.) a Doris Day film, since even Doris looked embarrassed to appear in this one, and poor Rod Taylor (one of the last of MGM's contractees) seems to be wondering where his career momentum went.

I recently bought a triple Lassie box set Lassie Come Home, Son Of Lassie and The Courage of Lassie. I've enjoyed all 3 films in the past, but thought the last one starring Elizabeth Taylor was the one that has stood the test of time the best.

You lucky dog! I have been hoping to snag that set too. I know what you mean about the Peter Lawford one. It just doesn't work entirely, though Courage of Lassie (1946) is charming in the early sequences and disturbing after Lassie comes back from the war with PTSD-canine style. I found that the beautifully made Peter O'Toole version of Lassie shot largely in Scotland and England, was much closer to Eric Knight's book than the brilliantly manipulative Lassie Come Home--though I can't help shedding a few tears whenever I see the end of the film with Roddy McDowell coming out of school to see--oh, hell, see if you can watch it without choking up--I sure can't!
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I have felt often that if MGM had made more of an effort with Brigadoon it might have been a better movie than it actually turned out. By that I mean if they could fly over the likes of Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor and Deborah Kerr to film Ivanhoe at M.G.M British, couldn't they have done the same with Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse and Van Johnson and shoot the outdoor scenes in the Scottish countryside and cast Scottish actors in supporting roles

Good point, though the corporate honchos for MGM weren't interested in spending much money on musicals by 1954--even potentially great musicals that would have been extraordinary if, along with Vincente Minnelli, they had asked Michael Powell to co-direct the story in Scotland with Jack Cardiff behind the camera. It would have been good for Gene Kelly too--though probably Moira Shearer would have taken the Cyd Charisse role. I have read that Scottish locations and arrangements had been made to film Brigadoon there, but the bean counters wouldn't hear of taking the film on location, due in large part to the changeable weather. I keep thinking that someday someone will find a way to remake Brigadoon on location, the way it should have been done (and with the entire original Lerner and Lowe score).

As I understand it, part of the reason Ivanhoe and The Knights of the Round Table were filmed in Britain was to use up the MGM money held there for arcane reasons of British tax laws regarding revenue earned in the UK by American film companies.

[charliechaplinfan]

Gene Kelly did spend time in England in the fifties and made a film here, I think he was trying to branch out after the success of his muiscals with Stanley Donen, it was expedient for MGM to release him to go to Europe, yet they didn't slot Brigadoon into this break. I would have to go along with the studio bean counters about the weather, it can't be guaranteed. Many films have racked up enormous costs on location due to bad weather, yet some of them, Ryan's Daughter, The Quiet Man etc, part of their charm is the outdoor locations. It's a pty that Brigadoon feels so studio bound, I always wondered why they didn't take it outdoors and dress up some surrounding country to look like the Scottish Highlands, that would have improved the look. If Selznick could create a desert oasis for Garden of Allah, what are a few trees and heathers?

Gene Kelly I believe was sent abroad because of his wife's political activities, something that he refused to distance himself from, although a couple of years later they divorced.

[knitwit45]

I was thinking about Brigadoon recently and the studio bound sets. In a way, they actually contribute to the movie, because they give the location of Brigadoon a dream-like quality. It would have been even more effective if, when he returns to Brigadoon, that sequence could have been filmed outdoors, as if to say it has become reality.

Yes? No?

[moira finnie]

Gene Kelly did spend time in England in the fifties and made a film here

He made a non-musical movie in Germany and then Britain, both of which I really liked. Below is a peek at his two movies in that period made in Europe. It's funny, but I like Kelly's non-musicals, especially Cross of Lorraine and Pilot #5, his very early work at MGM--but I loved him in another "demi-musical" later in the '50s, (my guilty pleasure # 946) Marjorie Morningstar! As the capsule description says of this movie, "he gives a first-rate performance as a second-rate entertainer, whose love for a young woman inspires him to ambitions beyond his abilities and nearly destroys him." Yeah! Have you had a chance to see it?

But I digress...as usual......and beg your tolerant indulgence.

Kelly made Crest of the Wave (1954) in Britain for the Boulting brothers, with no music or dancing--or girls!
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He had also appeared in The Devil Makes Three (1952) made in West Germany about neo-Nazis stealthily lurking in post-war Germany. Kelly made a nice half of a couple with the underrated Pier Angeli, who was very appealing. Only a bit of incidental dancing occurred in a nightclub scene. The only one who sang was Margot Hielscher, who was "one hot tomato" (as Richard Egan commented in the movie).
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...it was expedient for MGM to release him to go to Europe, yet they didn't slot Brigadoon into this break.

According to Cyd Charisse and Vincente Minnelli's accounts they were all set to try to make Brigadoon on location, and MGM actually lost money trying to save it by cancelling the filming abroad almost at the last minute! While he was far from perfect, once Mayer left the studio and decisions were finalized in New York by MGM's financial investors, the creative and practical running of the studio really seemed to suffer from calcification, trying to do things cheaply, a foolish lack of planning and a general lack of vision. At least that's how it looks from here.

Gene Kelly I believe was sent abroad because of his wife's political activities, something that he refused to distance himself from, although a couple of years later they divorced.

I think that there were personal, financial and political reasons for the Kellys move to Europe. Actually, Gene Kelly did distance himself from the political situation by adopting a discreet silence publicly, privately warning his more vulnerable friends and colleagues of impending trouble coming (for example, Marsha Hunt was cautioned by him to be careful when dealing with SAG and MGM, advice she appreciated later, though she hadn't heeded it), and helping financially when possible. Privately he found McCarthyism abhorrent and used his star clout to get his wife work in Marty (1955) and The Halliday Brand (1957), even though the couple were going through a protracted divorce at the time. In Europe, Blair could easily find work based on her own worth as an actress, not her personal connections or the direction of the political wind. In Betsy Blair's lovely memoir, The Memory of All That, she suggests that their marriage was already under a strain when they went to Europe in 1951, not just because of politics, but because "it was also clear that the growing up was still to be done. So what were we doing, Gene and I?" They were trying to save their marriage, which had changed as he became an enormous star, as he tried to figure out how to transition from a performer to a filmmaker since his years as a dancer were almost over, and after his child-bride had grown up to be quite radical (Blair was more to the Left than her husband, and, by her own admission, more likely to act impulsively on political issues).

In the book Transforming the Screen (1950-1959) by Peter Lev, the author points out that money was definitely a factor in the decision to go to Europe too:

Gene Kelly, MGM and Hollywood's most prominent musical star, abruptly left for England in late December 1951 and stayed away until August 1953. Biographer Claude Hirschorn explains that Kelly went to Europe for tax reasons, and that his agent Lew Wasserman had originated the plan of spending 18 months abroad and thus avoiding U.S. income taxes.

Critic/filmmaker Peter Wollen has suggested an alternate motivation: that the liberal Kelly went abroad with MGM's blessing to avoid being connected with the second wave of blacklisting in 1951-1952. Kelly's wife, Betsy Blair was blacklisted between 1949 and 1955, but she was able to find work in Europe. ...Kelly himself...had been threatened with blacklisting by an article in American Legion Magazine, and he may have decided to leave the country rather than face further harrassment. Kelly's own explanation for the long stay in Europe was that "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is my employer. They decide what I am to do."

By living in Europe for that time, Kelly was not at the studio to film The Band Wagon, (Fred Astaire really believed he was too old to play the part he aced so brilliantly in that musical) and a musical version of Huckleberry Finn. Maybe more importantly, Kelly missed critical time as a dancer on film--though he did devote his attentions to Invitation to the Dance after his exposure to the innovative dance being developed in Europe. This project was his baby, and MGM was never enthused--though they did make him perform in some of the dances featured in order to secure financing of the project. He was never happy with his work in the movie, and phased out of musicals as soon as contractually possible. I read an interview with him once in which he said that he was really over the hill as a dancer by the time he got to Hollywood in the early '40s!

[stuart.uk]

Though not a Hollywood film I felt the one thing lacking in Hitch's The 39 Steps was location shots. The only outdoor scene I can recall was when Robert Donat, or more likely a stuntman, was being chased by the Police in the countryside. One of the assets from Robert Powell's version was its spectacular Scottish location shots

[charliechaplinfan]

Moira, thank you for your informative article regarding Gene Kelly and Betsy Blair. I have Betsy's book sat here still waiting to be read, to many books too little time to read them. Gene Kelly sounds like a very moral man, willing to stand up for his friends and beliefs but discreet enough to know when to say nothing or tow the company line. If he was past his peak as a dancer when he started appearing in musicals, I'd love to have seen him at his peak.

You're not the only one to get a guilty pleasure out of Marjorie Morningstar, I love it too. I've recently watched Cross of Lorraine and thought he gave a very well rounded performance amongst that stellar cast. Only in Christmas Holiday did I find him not quite believable, I had a more diffcult time believing in Deanna Durbin's character.

[Ann Harding]

To stay a little bit more off-topic, I really recommend Betsy Blair's book. I found it a very honest account of her life and career. I enjoyed the book enormously because it shows you Hollywood seen by somebody who was nearly 'an outsider', or more exactly a young girl discovering goggle-eyed a glitter world of stars without being totally swallowed by it.

[moira finnie]

Though not a Hollywood film I felt the one thing lacking in Hitch's The 39 Steps was location shots. The only outdoor scene I can recall was when Robert Donat, or more likely a stuntman, was being chased by the Police in the countryside. One of the assets from Robert Powell's version was its spectacular Scottish location shots

Stuart, I apologize for diverting from your original question about the fake versions of Britain in the movies. I don't think I've seen the Robert Powell version of The 39 Steps in its entirety, but your mention of the brief outdoor scenes in the original reminded me of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). In the opening scenes of the original movie, I have always loved the fake but completely charming miniature Alpine village that shows "the eye of God" view that the director loved to put in his movies in the clip below between 1:20 and 1:47. It's only a moment, but the people (who don't move) and the toy car (which does move in a jerky fashion) seem to be an apt way of drawing us into a kind of fairy tale atmosphere which was deliberately unsettled later in the story as it brought elements of the political situation in Europe in the late '30s into the center of the story.
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By contrast, while some have accused Hitchcock of favoring studio-bound films where he could control everything, (which became glaringly noticeable by the time of some of the scenes in The Birds in the '60s), he was quite capable of filming very effectively on location, even early in his career, as he did in his first talkie Blackmail (1929). In that powerful movie, the director filmed all over London, particularly in Bloomsbury, and featured several images of the British Museum using his camera in a very fluid way in a transitional period that is usually thought of as the era of the static camera. I believe that he also used huge blown-up photographs of the interior of the museum that fooled me completely the first time I saw it. The massiveness of these settings added a lot to the sense of the victim's vulnerability against enormous forces. I find it very hard to believe that this chase scene wasn't all on location!

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[stuart.uk]

Moira

I see what you mean by Blackmail

I'm also interested in the film Hitch made with Brit silent and early talkie star Betty Balfour.

It's funny becuase I'm watching the first episode of thee new series of cop show New Tricks. Some of it was actually filmed in the Natural History Museum. Star Amanda Redman said it was a night shoot, filming while it was closed to the public

Check out the Adventure section for the whole 1978 39 Steps movie