Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [297]
“The ‘Screen Guide for Americans’ did it”: Song of Russia, p. 176.
Plain Talk, whose editor: Letter to William Duce, October 1, 1949 (LOAR, p. 457).
The Sunday New York Times picked up the story: Thomas F. Brady, “Hollywood Don’ts,” NYT, November 16, 1947, p. X5.
“all the points I made”: Song of Russia, p. 176.
preferred to sell screen rights outright: Thomas F. Brady, “Hollywood’s Uneasy Labor Truce,” NYT, November 2, 1947, p. X5.
finally able to get hold of a print of the film: She first saw the film in May 1947 (letter to John C. Gall, May 28, 1947 [LOAR, p. 368]). She also sat for a viewing in New York (letter to William B. Duce, October 1, 1949 [LOAR, p. 458]).
From Valli: R. W. Bradford, “The Search for We the Living,” Liberty, November 1988, p. 24, citing AR’s friend Erika Holzer.
opened to packed theaters: The 1942 movie apparently also “had a big box office” in Nazi Germany and Vichy France (unpublished letter from Donald Downes to Armitage Watkins, May 16, 1946; A. Watkins Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 80).
ordered the film to be withdrawn: Letter to John C. Gall, July 12, 1947, LOAR, p. 370.
and prints and negatives destroyed: “The Search for We the Living,” p. 22, quoting Massimo Ferrara, legal counsel to Scalera Films in 1942. Based on additional interviews with experts and historians, Bradford goes on to argue that the film wasn’t banned and that (1) the actors Alida Valli and possibly Rossano Brazzi lied to Rand, or (2) that Rand made the story up herself for publicity purposes, or (3) Rand and the actors misunderstood each other based on difficulties with English.
on the grounds that it was anti-Fascist: Ironically, according to documents in the A. Watkins Collection, AR had been just about to sell Italian film rights to a production company headed by Mussolini’s second son, Vittorio Mussolini, in March 1940. The war intervened; otherwise it might have been Vittorio’s production that his father’s troops would allegedly have seized.
This proved the kinship: Letter to John C. Gall, July 12, 1947 (LOAR, p. 370).
Rossano Brazzi: In R. W. Bradford’s chronicle of the film in Liberty, Brazzi is quoted as saying that he and Rand became “very good friends.” Brazzi went on: “She was a funny woman, very strong. Difficult woman. She was bisexual. She loved women. But … what a mind!”
Rand contacted Jack Warner: Letter to Jack Warner, February 14, 1948 (LOAR, p. 385).
paid her $35,000: “The Search for We the Living,” p. 24.
buy a new mink coat: TPOAR, p. 317.
It was not until 1972: Rand reportedly obtained her own print of the film but lost it sometime in the 1950s. In 1968, Henry and Erika Holzer, both attorneys, set out to find a copy. Unable to obtain one from Brazzi or Valli, in August 1968 they located the original negative and a print through a vintage film dealer in Rome, purchased it, and, with film producer Duncan Scott, re-edited it and added subtitles. Since then, Scott has offered occasional screenings of the film (“The Search for We the Living,” pp. 25–26).
item in a Hollywood gossip column: Hedda Hopper, “Looking at Hollywood,” Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1948, p. 18, and February 16, 1948, p. 14.
Cooper was welcome news: Gary Cooper was AR’s favorite film actor. But according to AR’s second cousin FB, AR wrote the family a letter saying she expected FO to get the part of Howard Roark and “was livid” when Gary Cooper got it; taped interview with FB, Minna Goldberg, and MS, conducted by BB, February 20, 1983.
she fired her Hollywood agent: Unpublished telegram from Alan Collins to H. N. Swanson, March 10, 1948, and unpublished letter from H. N. Swanson to Alan Collins, March 30, 1948 (H. N. Swanson Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, box 27).
She “went through hell”: BBTBI.
back in a Warner Bros. office: Letter to John B. Williams, March 27, 1948 (LOAR, p. 393).
hinted that Lauren Bacall had accepted the part: Hedda Hopper, “Looking at Hollywood,” Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1948, p. 14.
Margaret