Dore Schary(1905-1980)
- Autor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Isadore Schary had a long and checkered history in motion pictures. He
was first employed as a screenwriter at then-lowly Columbia after a
story editor was struck by the crispness of a writing sample. The
editor also happened to think that the writer was a woman, mistaking
Dore for Dora. By 1933 he'd been lured away to the first of a number of
writing stints at MGM at $200 per week working under producer
Harry Rapf. Schary and Rapf (known as "the
anteater," he'd prove to be his lifelong nemesis), then in charge of
MGM's B-productions (although
Louis B. Mayer frowned on the term),
didn't see eye to eye on a number of issues and fought continually.
Schary soon left for work as a hired gun with a typewriter but found
himself back at MGM writing a
Spencer Tracy vehicle,
Big City (1937), when he became
intrigued in the story of Father Flanagan's Nebraska Boy's Town,
envisioning Tracy for the role. But Tracy was weary at playing a series
of priests and the script was shelved. On top of that he was unable to
escape the irritating presence of Harry Rapf and he quit again.
Boys Town (1938) was resurrected after
Tracy reconsidered, becoming one of it's biggest hits of the year and
co-writer Schary nailed an Oscar for best original screenplay.
E.J. Mannix dangled more money at the
now-hot property and he was back again at MGM developing
Joe Smith, American (1942)
with Mayer offering him a dream job as a producer, except that he'd be
back working for Rapf. Sensing he could do more as a producer across a
wide range of projects and undoubtedly drawn to a whopping salary
increase, Schary accepted. He definitely favored scripts with liberal
allegories, which represented the very antithesis of the
ultra-right-wing Mayer. But even Mayer was impressed by the man's
versatility and ability to deliver hits such as
Lassie Come Home (1943) and
Journey for Margaret (1942)
which introduced the biggest box-office draw the studio ever had in a
child: Margaret O'Brien. But a planned
return to liberal allegory with a proposed project with Nobel prize
winner Sinclair Lewis called "Storm of
the West" failed to win Mayer's final approval and he quit once again
in protest. At the end of 1943 Schary accepted an offer with
David O. Selznick's new independent
division, Vanguard. He soon moved to RKO where he enjoyed a brief
period of total autonomy prior to it's purchase and ultimate ruination
by eccentric millionaire
Howard Hughes. Schary's textbook
liberalism was called into question after he made a vigorous appeal on
the behalf of the brilliant writer
Edward Dmytryk and producer
Adrian Scott, both RKO employees,
before HUAC in 1947, but seemed to back pedal after helping draft the
so-called Waldorf-Astoria declaration (the result of which, ironically
would affect writer Maurice Rapf, his
nemesis' son, profoundly), denouncing employment of known Communists.
Coincidentally, it was during the HUAC hearings that he ran into Loew's
Inc. (and MGM's parent) chief Nicholas Schenck on a train bound for New
York. MGM itself had begun to feel the financial effects of changing
public tastes by 1947, which could rightly be laid on the lap of the
Victorian-minded Louis B. Mayer. While other studios were booming in
the immediate post-war era, MGM's releases were rapidly losing their
appeal. It truly was a dismal period for the studio, highlighted by the
recent flops
The Sea of Grass (1947),
Lady in the Lake (1946) and what
many film historians consider the nadir of big-budget MGM releases,
Desire Me (1947), a film so awful it
was released without a directorial credit (the two assigned directors
disowned the film). The Tiffany of Studios had fallen into 4th place in
profitability and the prospects for 1948 were decidedly mediocre (and
would prove to be so, suffering a whopping $13.8 million slide from
their peak in 1946). Schenck, who had ascended to his position after
founder Marcus Loew's death in 1926 never
enjoyed an ideal relationship with Mayer but tolerated their rancor in
light the studio's enviable financial record. As a reward for its
remarkable profitability during the Great Depression, Mayer became the
highest paid executive in the country year after year. Schenck may not
have initially envisioned Schary as Mayer's replacement, but he wanted
to reinvigorate the studio with new (or at least, recycled) blood.
Mayer first proposed his son-in-law, Selznick, who flatly refused to
work for him. Schary, by then at RKO, was having his own troubles. His
latest pet project,
Battleground (1949) had been
rejected by an increasingly invasive and erratic Howard Hughes, who
felt the public was weary of war pictures. Schary, sensed his career
had hit another brick wall and opted to jump back to MGM as production
chief and took the project with him, purchasing the rights from RKO.
Mayer's position at MGM by this time was considerably weakened but he
counseled Schary against producing the picture, reiterating the opinion
of the public's distaste for war stories, predicting it was doomed to
failure. Mayer's veto of the project was overridden by Schenck,
irritating Mayer to no end. Battleground came in under budget, largely
thanks to casting numerous then-unknown contract players and became a
huge hit. Schary's stock grew enormously in Schenck's eyes and
undoubtedly further infuriated the aging Mayer. Schary announced a huge
increase in MGM's 1949-50 production schedule, detailing some 67
projects, compared to it's meager 24 the previous season (many of which
proved to be outright flops). With this new sense of vitality, the
studio's profits rose 50% in 1949 but faced the looming threat of
television. Like nearly every major studio in Hollywood (with the
exception of Columbia and Paramount) MGM chose to fight TV's burgeoning
popularity--- MGM reverted to what the box couldn't: provide spectacle.
The result would become Mayer's last greenlighted hit,
Quo Vadis (1951) and the cause of
another one of many fissures in his relationship with Schary, who
wanted to interject an anti-fascism allegory into the biblical plot.
Innumerable production delays would mean it's success would be an empty
victory for Mayer; he was ousted prior to it's release. One of the
final straws would involve the production of
The Red Badge of Courage (1951),
when Mayer appealed to Schenck regarding his disapproval of the picture
(Mayer's instincts here proved correct; the picture, although now
considered a minor classic, failed financially). Inevitably Schary was
played as a pawn by both Mayer and Schenck in a power gambit. Mayer, in
a repeat of his 1934 falling out with
Irving Thalberg, was irate over Schary
being awarded 100,000 shares of stock without his consultation and
threatened to quit. Schenck called his bluff and accepted his
resignation on June 22, 1951 and the 46-year old Schary found himself
in charge of MGM. At this point Schenck sought to solidify his position
of overall control by reviving the old executive committee, his early
concept of centralizing corporate management. But he oddly chose to
retain Mayer loyalists within the command structure, who considered
themselves higher up the Loew's corporate ladder than their new studio
chief. This committee held MGM's purse strings and many of Schary's
requests for production funding would be nixed by Benjamin Thau, whose
office dealt with all of the studio's contracts. Athough MGM would
appear to again thrive in 1952, the actions of the executive committee,
the impending Supreme Court ruling demanding theater divestment (a
subject worthy of a book itself), and the external threat of TV would
ultimately threaten MGM's future. MGM/Loew's had fought theatrical
divestment for over a decade but failed to take advantage of this
temporary reprieve by corporate political in-fighting and a severe lack
of industry vision. In retrospect, it should have embraced television
production and re-invented itself as a media conglomerate in the later
mold of Warner Brothers. Instead, austerity measures were enacted, UK
production was increased (due to lower labor costs) at the expense of
it's Hollywood operations and the studio drastically cut its roster of
talent. The undeniable fact was that MGM was in irreversible decline,
based primarily on the actions of Mayer, Schenck and Rapf in the
preceding decade. But even Schary failed to grasp both the threat and
promise of television and backed the board's decision to withhold it's
massive film library from broadcast licensing. Schenck himself rebuffed
NBC chief David Sarnoff's repeated offer
of a MGM-NBC alliance. The studio finally approved a foray into
television with
MGM Parade (1955) on ABC, then
an also-ran network. The series, featuring the somewhat bland career
MGM contract star, George Murphy
and largely consisting of old film clips, and gratuitously promoting
upcoming MGM releases, was no great success. Another power struggle
occurred within Loew's in late 1955 when Arthur Loew opted to assert
familial control over his father's company. Schenck was kicked upstairs
and the film library was finally made available to TV, bringing in an
infusion of cash that glossed over worsening problems within the film
industry and MGM in particular. Arthur Loew's tenure proved brief; he
held no particular fondness for corporate politics and abruptly quit,
reverting to his previous position as head of Loew's International and
chairman of the board. Schenck's tenure as President of Loew's Inc. was
marked by one pronounced gross oversight: he never groomed a
replacement. A search for a new company president resulted in the
ascendancy of career company man
Joseph Vogel, who viewed Dore Schary as a
plausible scapegoat for the under performance of MGM in the mid-1950's
(among other things, the disappointing performance of the $1.9 million
Forbidden Planet (1956)---originally
conceived as a modest B-picture--- rankled the board). Vogel asked for
Schary's resignation, which was refused; he wanted to be fired. Schary
left his 20+ year on-again, off-again employment at MGM for the final
time, pocketing $100,000 in cash and another $900,000 in a deferred
salary package. In retrospect, Schary was probably ill suited for
corporate world; too creative to effectively macro-manage and
possessing a genuine desire to be liked even by those he disagreed
with. Unlike Mayer, Schary had a second career after life at MGM. He'd
wind down his career as a successful Broadway producer, director and
playwright focusing much of his attention on the life of his personal
hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (see "Other Works"). He died in 1980.