kind of part in that kind of a story. That’s it.”
As long as I had him on the subject, I asked, “And what about Crisis ? You remember that?”
“Do I remember it? I wish to Christ I could forget it. Crisis . Oh my God!”
“What happened?”
“Well, Cary Grant, you remember what hot stuff he was? I mean, in some ways, he was as hot as Gable. He’d had a string of hits you could hardly believe, The Philadelphia Story , Suspicion , Once Upon a Honeymoon , Destination Tokyo , Mr. Lucky , None But the Lonely Heart , Arsenic and Old Lace , Night and Day , Notorious , The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer , Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House . I mean I’m talking about a string of hits. So this story comes up and it’s a beaut. Everybody at the studio is jumpin’ up and down. It’s about a terrific brain surgeon, see? And about this South American dictator, a Fascist or a Communist or something, and he’s threatening the peace of the world. And what happens? He develops a brain tumor. So they send up to the States and they kidnap the brain surgeon and they bring him down and they make him perform the brain operation on the son of a bitch. What a spot, huh? If he pulls it off, maybe he screws up the peace of the world. And if he doesn’t do it, I mean the brain operation, they may think he’s screwed up on purpose and they’ll probably remove his head, right? A very strong story. I forgot how it came out. But we had José Ferrer around, who was also hot as a pot at the time, and, of course, perfect for the South American dictator, right? But he wasn’t all that kind of a box-office attraction. So, for insurance, they started looking around for the brain surgeon and somebody came up with the idea of Cary Grant. So everybody thought, ‘Oh, sure, Cary Grant. Great. But how do you get him?’ Well, a lot of pressure, a lot of money, a lot of conditions. Next thing you know, we’ve got him. And everybody thought the whole quarter was saved, just with that one picture. So they made it. And what happened? It went out and e-g-g. I’m talking about capital E, capital G, capital G. And this was when Cary Grant couldn’t make a wrong move. They didn’t care who the other people were, or who the leading lady was, just give ’em Cary Grant. Except give ’em Cary Grant in Crisis . I want to tell you we could’ve made more money with that picture if we’d cut the film up and sold it for mandolin picks. It was a full disaster. So what does it prove? It proves that no matterhow big a star is, the public is only going to accept him in certain kinds of parts. In the kind of parts they want to see that guy in. Cary Grant, they wanted to see him with a broad. They didn’t care what broad, so long as it was a broad. I mean—now—looking back on it, when I tell you that Cary Grant played the part of the greatest brain surgeon in the world, I can hardly keep from laughing myself. And that’s what the public did. They bust out laughing. They thought it was ludicrous. So here’s another question: Why did we go with him? All right, here’s the answer: If you can get Cary Grant to say, ‘Yes, I’m going to come over to your studio and make a picture,’ you don’t say, ‘No’; you say, ‘Yes.’ In fact, you say, ‘ Hooray , yes.’ And here’s a last question: How come that public that’s supposed to have the mentality of a twelve-year-old, how come they knew more than all these six-thousand-dollars-a-week executives at Metro? Can you answer me that?”
Once, in the middle of a Goldwyn casting conference, when any number of leading ladies had been suggested and rejected, I suddenly jumped up and cried, “I’ve got it!”
“You have?” asked Goldwyn eagerly. “Who?”
“Anna Sten,” I said.
The joke laid an egg, as it should have done.
In the early 1930s, Goldwyn was considering a production of The Brothers Karamazov . He heard about a German film, called Der Mörder Dmitri Karamazov , and arranged to
As long as I had him on the subject, I asked, “And what about Crisis ? You remember that?”
“Do I remember it? I wish to Christ I could forget it. Crisis . Oh my God!”
“What happened?”
“Well, Cary Grant, you remember what hot stuff he was? I mean, in some ways, he was as hot as Gable. He’d had a string of hits you could hardly believe, The Philadelphia Story , Suspicion , Once Upon a Honeymoon , Destination Tokyo , Mr. Lucky , None But the Lonely Heart , Arsenic and Old Lace , Night and Day , Notorious , The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer , Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House . I mean I’m talking about a string of hits. So this story comes up and it’s a beaut. Everybody at the studio is jumpin’ up and down. It’s about a terrific brain surgeon, see? And about this South American dictator, a Fascist or a Communist or something, and he’s threatening the peace of the world. And what happens? He develops a brain tumor. So they send up to the States and they kidnap the brain surgeon and they bring him down and they make him perform the brain operation on the son of a bitch. What a spot, huh? If he pulls it off, maybe he screws up the peace of the world. And if he doesn’t do it, I mean the brain operation, they may think he’s screwed up on purpose and they’ll probably remove his head, right? A very strong story. I forgot how it came out. But we had José Ferrer around, who was also hot as a pot at the time, and, of course, perfect for the South American dictator, right? But he wasn’t all that kind of a box-office attraction. So, for insurance, they started looking around for the brain surgeon and somebody came up with the idea of Cary Grant. So everybody thought, ‘Oh, sure, Cary Grant. Great. But how do you get him?’ Well, a lot of pressure, a lot of money, a lot of conditions. Next thing you know, we’ve got him. And everybody thought the whole quarter was saved, just with that one picture. So they made it. And what happened? It went out and e-g-g. I’m talking about capital E, capital G, capital G. And this was when Cary Grant couldn’t make a wrong move. They didn’t care who the other people were, or who the leading lady was, just give ’em Cary Grant. Except give ’em Cary Grant in Crisis . I want to tell you we could’ve made more money with that picture if we’d cut the film up and sold it for mandolin picks. It was a full disaster. So what does it prove? It proves that no matterhow big a star is, the public is only going to accept him in certain kinds of parts. In the kind of parts they want to see that guy in. Cary Grant, they wanted to see him with a broad. They didn’t care what broad, so long as it was a broad. I mean—now—looking back on it, when I tell you that Cary Grant played the part of the greatest brain surgeon in the world, I can hardly keep from laughing myself. And that’s what the public did. They bust out laughing. They thought it was ludicrous. So here’s another question: Why did we go with him? All right, here’s the answer: If you can get Cary Grant to say, ‘Yes, I’m going to come over to your studio and make a picture,’ you don’t say, ‘No’; you say, ‘Yes.’ In fact, you say, ‘ Hooray , yes.’ And here’s a last question: How come that public that’s supposed to have the mentality of a twelve-year-old, how come they knew more than all these six-thousand-dollars-a-week executives at Metro? Can you answer me that?”
Once, in the middle of a Goldwyn casting conference, when any number of leading ladies had been suggested and rejected, I suddenly jumped up and cried, “I’ve got it!”
“You have?” asked Goldwyn eagerly. “Who?”
“Anna Sten,” I said.
The joke laid an egg, as it should have done.
In the early 1930s, Goldwyn was considering a production of The Brothers Karamazov . He heard about a German film, called Der Mörder Dmitri Karamazov , and arranged to
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