Great Day

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Movie
Original title Great Day
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1930
Rod
Director Harry Pollard
production Irving Thalberg for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
music Vincent Youmans
camera Charles Rosher
occupation

Great Day is a film adaptation of the operetta of the same name by Vincent Youmans, which was filmed in 1930 but has not been completed . Joan Crawford was supposed to star, but was dissatisfied with the script and her own portrayal. The shooting was stopped after a while. Only a few set photos of the film exist.

Production history

Joan Crawford had come to fame in the last days of silent movies thanks to a number of films showing her as a boisterous young woman from better society. She made the leap to sound film without any problems , but gradually her flapper image seemed out of date. While the studio regularly presented Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer in prestigious roles in elaborately staged melodramas, Crawford was seen in inexpensive films such as Untamed or Montana Moon .

Against this background, the appearance on Great Day was a turning point in her career. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the rights to the less successful operetta of the same name by Vincent Youmans at the end of 1929. The Singspiel only got 29 performances, but two of the songs, with texts by Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu , became very popular nonetheless: Without a Song and More Than You Know . With the advent of the sound film, operettas and musicals enjoyed great popularity. The studio already had two popular singers under contract with Grace Moore and Lawrence Tibbett and is now trying to launch Joan Crawford as a vocal artist. Preparations for production began in the spring of 1930. The film was to be shot mainly on location in the southern United States. After extensive investments, filming started in September of that year. After some time - the figures differ between ten days and several weeks - the shooting was stopped.

There are different versions of why this decision, which was unusual even for MGM, came about: The studio was known for subjecting its films to extensive previews and, depending on the reaction of the test audience, re-shooting entire parts, as happened in the case of Laughing Sinners or Die Sin of Madelon Claudet . Sometimes Louis B. Mayer even decided not to distribute completely wacky films. In 1930, for example, two Marion Davies musicals were never released: The Five O'Clock Girl and Rosalie . In the case of Great Day , however, for all that is known, things were fundamentally different. One explanation is based on what Joan Crawford said in her biography, A Portrait of Joan . After that, the actress was dissatisfied with the script and its portrayal of a light-hearted Southern Belle . She then turned directly to Louis B. Mayer and asked to be released from the obligations. Despite considerable investments of so far $ 280,000, Mayer granted Crawford's request. Another theory evaluates Crawford's advance and Mayer's approval as a deliberate act of revenge on Irving Thalberg . Thalberg was then in high regard in Hollywood . At MGM he had almost unlimited access to all projects and almost completely free hand in casting the films he personally supervised. His omnipotence benefited primarily his wife Norma Shearer , who rose from a moderately talented actress to the first lady of the screen under his guidance . Joan Crawford in particular had suffered from Shearer's favor for years. Whenever she wanted to play a role that had prestige and dramatic potential, she had to compete with Shearer, who through Thalberg had virtually the first access to all scripts. Crawford lost in this way both the leading roles in The Trial of Mary Dugan and in The Divorcee , for which Shearer received the Oscar . Joan Crawford only got the role in Paid when Shearer became pregnant just before filming began.

At the same time, the relationship between Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer had deteriorated. The latent dispute arose mainly from the different understandings about the direction of the studio. While Thalberg saw film as art and therefore only aimed for first-class productions with high quality standards, Mayer was more concerned with reducing average costs and thus maximizing profits. According to the representatives of this statement, the dispute escalated during the filming of Great Day . As far as is known, the production was not a good star. The script was often rewritten, the direction was uninspiring, and those involved were dissatisfied with their dialogues. This mess is said to have been reason enough for Mayer to comply with Crawford's request to be released from engagement. In the long term, Mayer wanted to remove Thalberg from power.

Regardless of this, the market for operettas and revue films collapsed completely from mid-1930 due to an oversupply. Like the other studios, MGM quickly took action and stopped shooting the film The Hollywood Revue of 1930 , among other things . It was not until the end of 1931 that Ernst Lubitsch was to bring the entire genre back to life with new, innovative ideas with The Smiling Leutnant . Against this background, Louis B. Mayer's decision not to pursue the Great Day project was also motivated by economic interests.

literature

  • Roy Newquist (Ed.): Conversations with Joan Crawford . Citadel Press, Secaucus, NJ 1980, ISBN 0-8065-0720-9 .
  • Lawrence J. Quirk , William Schoell: Joan Crawford. The Essential Biography . University Press, Lexington, KY. 2002, ISBN 0-8131-2254-6 .
  • Alexander Walker: Joan Crawford. The Ultimate Star . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1983, ISBN 0-297-78216-9 .

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