readingthethings's review
1.0
❀ In which I use the phrase, “I had heard Selznick and the other two locked themselves in a room mid-film when Fleming took over the set, but I was unaware that while in the room, they actually became cartoon characters without any visible intelligence, and acted out strange scenes as if they were, in fact, the three stooges.”
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☹️☹️☹️ ˳✧༚˚ Moonlight & Magnolias is a play about the time David O. Selznick (producer), Victor Fleming (director), and Ben Hecht (screenwriter) locked themselves in a room for five days on a diet of bananas and peanuts to try to push out a revised screenplay for the 1939 adaption of [b:Gone with the Wind|819699|Gone with the Wind|Margaret Mitchell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347389987l/819699._SY75_.jpg|3358283]. The title comes from a dismissive remark made by Ben Hecht (the character) early in the play: he is disinterested in writing a screenplay about a “moonlight and magnolias” novel. (He has never read the book.)
Proceed from there to Neanderthal jokes, fist fights, and more fist fights. I half-liked the parts where Fleming and Selznick act out Gone with the Wind so Ben Hecht (who doesn’t know the story) can write the screenplay based on their mimes as they perform. But I only liked those parts because I was able to pretend I was watching Gone with the Wind rather than reading the play.
I had heard Selznick and the other two locked themselves in a room mid-film when Fleming took over the set, but I was unaware that while in the room, they actually became cartoon characters without any visible intelligence, and acted out strange scenes as if they were, in fact, the three stooges. This play suggests that on no sleep for five days, Hecht just whipped out a version of the screenplay based on Fleming and Selznick acting out scenes from the novel. I’m thinking they probably made use of the countless other versions of the screenplay to develop their version? This play also puts the onus for the five-day venture on Selznick, when I believe he halted filming because Fleming didn’t like the current screenplay & wanted to go back to an earlier version.
The play lost me entirely when one of the characters (Hecht, if I recall) calls Ashley Wilkes a very ugly name early in the work. There seemed to be no point to the name; it was simply in poor taste and disinterested me in any of the play from that point forward. Fleming and Hecht make jokes about Gone with the Wind throughout, as if it’s a moronic story & it’s all they can do to present it on film — which is naturally off-putting to me. It felt like a “good old boys laugh at the silly novel” performance, and it ruffled me! Quite a bit.
Hecht and Fleming make flippant reference to Fleming (apparently) punching Judy Garland in the face while filming The Wizard of Oz, and the impression is left that he might punch Vivien Leigh in the face during the filming of Gone with the Wind. If this is supposed to be amusing, whether realistic or not, I just don’t get it. Hecht is supposedly scolding Fleming for this behavior, but by bringing it up, a vehicle is created for the actors, as well as the readers, to chuckle hardily about the physical abuse of the director against his female actors. I don’t understand the humor, though in this day and age, I’m guessing (hoping) it was supposed to be ironic and that I’m just not good at reading humor. It only made me roll my eyes.
At one point, someone in the play mentions that Selznick has never even been to Atlanta, so how is he going to achieve accuracy in the film? I found this sloppy. Selznick was a fastidious producer. He had sent former director George Cukor and set designer Hobe Erwin to Atlanta in 1937. They went all over Atlanta before filming. Margaret Mitchell personally took them to see old houses in the area, which was important to her especially because she so didn’t want Tara of the film (or Twelve Oaks) to look as grand as Hollywood tended to make plantation houses. She wanted it to look like a North Georgia house which had been patched many times over the years and lacked pillars or grandeur. She also suggested a historical expert (Wilbur Kurtz) during that trip who was working on the set throughout.
Near the end of the play, Selznick announces to his father-in-law Louis B. Mayer that he is making a movie (Gone with the Wind), as if in 1939 this would be news. I didn’t even know what to make of that. I think the play is supposed to be set when filming has already started. Since he’d bought the rights in 1936, all of America knew Selznick was making Gone with the Wind. He’d put on an elaborate search for Scarlett to drum up publicity.
I believe the script was written, not in Selznick’s office, but Hecht’s apartment. And I remember reading that the several days spent locked up working on the screenplay actually knocked Selznick out for a week or something. No sign of that in this play.
I’ve read that Moonlight & Magnolias was heavily influenced by Ben Hecht’s autobiography, which is apparently believed to be unreliable. (I only read snippets on this, while I was leafing through my copy of Selznick’s Vision to see what in the world this play was based on – page 50, if I recall).
I did not enjoy this one. I have not read a great deal about the scene depicted within this play, so I can’t fairly judge the accuracy, but I didn’t find it funny. I am guessing that the point was to showcase the divide between what goes on behind the scenes when a film is made, and what we actually see in the final presentation, but I found the characters two-dimensional and cartoon-like. The fact that Selznick (incredibly thorough as a producer) is presented as ditsy and unprepared, makes me doubt the veracity of the other characters. I did like a few of Selznick’s lines about how filming is like Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave: you’re not really seeing reality. But then the stooge stuff would begin again, & I was lost, lost utterly! ˳✧༚˚
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
☹️☹️☹️ ˳✧༚˚ Moonlight & Magnolias is a play about the time David O. Selznick (producer), Victor Fleming (director), and Ben Hecht (screenwriter) locked themselves in a room for five days on a diet of bananas and peanuts to try to push out a revised screenplay for the 1939 adaption of [b:Gone with the Wind|819699|Gone with the Wind|Margaret Mitchell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347389987l/819699._SY75_.jpg|3358283]. The title comes from a dismissive remark made by Ben Hecht (the character) early in the play: he is disinterested in writing a screenplay about a “moonlight and magnolias” novel. (He has never read the book.)
Proceed from there to Neanderthal jokes, fist fights, and more fist fights. I half-liked the parts where Fleming and Selznick act out Gone with the Wind so Ben Hecht (who doesn’t know the story) can write the screenplay based on their mimes as they perform. But I only liked those parts because I was able to pretend I was watching Gone with the Wind rather than reading the play.
I had heard Selznick and the other two locked themselves in a room mid-film when Fleming took over the set, but I was unaware that while in the room, they actually became cartoon characters without any visible intelligence, and acted out strange scenes as if they were, in fact, the three stooges. This play suggests that on no sleep for five days, Hecht just whipped out a version of the screenplay based on Fleming and Selznick acting out scenes from the novel. I’m thinking they probably made use of the countless other versions of the screenplay to develop their version? This play also puts the onus for the five-day venture on Selznick, when I believe he halted filming because Fleming didn’t like the current screenplay & wanted to go back to an earlier version.
The play lost me entirely when one of the characters (Hecht, if I recall) calls Ashley Wilkes a very ugly name early in the work. There seemed to be no point to the name; it was simply in poor taste and disinterested me in any of the play from that point forward. Fleming and Hecht make jokes about Gone with the Wind throughout, as if it’s a moronic story & it’s all they can do to present it on film — which is naturally off-putting to me. It felt like a “good old boys laugh at the silly novel” performance, and it ruffled me! Quite a bit.
Hecht and Fleming make flippant reference to Fleming (apparently) punching Judy Garland in the face while filming The Wizard of Oz, and the impression is left that he might punch Vivien Leigh in the face during the filming of Gone with the Wind. If this is supposed to be amusing, whether realistic or not, I just don’t get it. Hecht is supposedly scolding Fleming for this behavior, but by bringing it up, a vehicle is created for the actors, as well as the readers, to chuckle hardily about the physical abuse of the director against his female actors. I don’t understand the humor, though in this day and age, I’m guessing (hoping) it was supposed to be ironic and that I’m just not good at reading humor. It only made me roll my eyes.
At one point, someone in the play mentions that Selznick has never even been to Atlanta, so how is he going to achieve accuracy in the film? I found this sloppy. Selznick was a fastidious producer. He had sent former director George Cukor and set designer Hobe Erwin to Atlanta in 1937. They went all over Atlanta before filming. Margaret Mitchell personally took them to see old houses in the area, which was important to her especially because she so didn’t want Tara of the film (or Twelve Oaks) to look as grand as Hollywood tended to make plantation houses. She wanted it to look like a North Georgia house which had been patched many times over the years and lacked pillars or grandeur. She also suggested a historical expert (Wilbur Kurtz) during that trip who was working on the set throughout.
Near the end of the play, Selznick announces to his father-in-law Louis B. Mayer that he is making a movie (Gone with the Wind), as if in 1939 this would be news. I didn’t even know what to make of that. I think the play is supposed to be set when filming has already started. Since he’d bought the rights in 1936, all of America knew Selznick was making Gone with the Wind. He’d put on an elaborate search for Scarlett to drum up publicity.
I believe the script was written, not in Selznick’s office, but Hecht’s apartment. And I remember reading that the several days spent locked up working on the screenplay actually knocked Selznick out for a week or something. No sign of that in this play.
I’ve read that Moonlight & Magnolias was heavily influenced by Ben Hecht’s autobiography, which is apparently believed to be unreliable. (I only read snippets on this, while I was leafing through my copy of Selznick’s Vision to see what in the world this play was based on – page 50, if I recall).
I did not enjoy this one. I have not read a great deal about the scene depicted within this play, so I can’t fairly judge the accuracy, but I didn’t find it funny. I am guessing that the point was to showcase the divide between what goes on behind the scenes when a film is made, and what we actually see in the final presentation, but I found the characters two-dimensional and cartoon-like. The fact that Selznick (incredibly thorough as a producer) is presented as ditsy and unprepared, makes me doubt the veracity of the other characters. I did like a few of Selznick’s lines about how filming is like Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave: you’re not really seeing reality. But then the stooge stuff would begin again, & I was lost, lost utterly! ˳✧༚˚
birdmanseven's review
3.0
A lot of things would have to land just right for this play to work. It feels a little manic and rushed. It's a little crude and almost campy. Still, I liked it.
lizzicrystal's review
2.0
The comedic telling of how they wrote [b:Gone With the Wind|18405|Gone With The Wind|Margaret Mitchell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166913011s/18405.jpg|3358283], but as I'm not a fan of the movie it was boooring.
blueeye217's review
3.0
I enjoyed all the references to Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. Interested to see how it would translate to the stage.
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