![]() ![]() ![]() Her original treatments for Blondie of the Follies and The Prizefighter and the Lady had much more complexity and many more characters than ever made it to the screen, and adapting The Good Earth had served as a nagging reminder of the inherent restraints of film. “Her disillusionment with the business had intensified as the need to simplify her stories increased. Lillian would later say that Irving “told me that Frances Marion and I could adapt it,” but it was hardly that simple.” Griffith’s sensitivity to atmosphere.” And so the ban was lifted from The Scarlet Letter, Lars Hanson was coming from Sweden, Victor Seastrom was assigned to direct, and now it was Irving Thalberg’s problem. Lillian agreed Hanson was “perfect” and was enthusiastic when Thalberg suggested the experienced Swede Victor Seastrom (Sjöström) direct, for she believed he had “Mr. The studio boss had seen Mauritz Stiller’s film in Berlin the previous December and he immediately put the director and the film’s three stars, Hanson, Mona Martenson, and Greta Gustafsson, all under contract. Lillian turned her attention to finding the consummate Dimmesdale and Mayer suggested she watch Lars Hanson in The Saga of Gosta Berling. Even with Hays’s assistance, no other actress had the personal and professional reputation pure enough to garner the response she received: the ban would be lifted if she was “personally responsible” for the film. He told Lillian that the major source of objection was “the Protestant Church, especially the Methodists,” and directed her to the heads of several church and women’s organizations where she forcefully presented her case. While he would occasionally publicly chastise the studios, Hays never forgot that the full name of his office was the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America and worked to smooth the path any and every way he could. The very idea of a blacklist was ridiculous to Lillian and she took up the matter directly with Will Hays. Mayer informed her there was a much larger issue at stake The Scarlet Letter was on the Hays office “blacklist” of books that could not be filmed. “Lillian was determined that her next role would be Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and assumed she only needed to find the right actor to play opposite her as Reverend Dimmesdale. With few taking moviemaking seriously as a business, the doors were wide open to women.” And Cleo Madison, Gene Gauntier, Lois Weber, Ruth Ann Baldwin, Dorothy Arzner, Margaret Booth, Blanche Sewall, Anne Bauchens, and hundreds of other women flocked to Hollywood, where they could flourish, not just as actresses or writers, but also as directors, producers, and editors. ![]() They were drawn to a business that, for a time, not only allowed, but welcomed women. For Frances and her friends, a virtue was derived from oppression with so little expected of them, they were free to accomplish much. Women had always found sanctuary in writing it was accomplished in private and provided a creative vent when little was expected or accepted of a woman other than to be a good wife and mother. “While Photoplay mused that “Strangely enough, women outrank men as continuity writers,” it wasn’t strange to them. Without Lying Down: Screenwriter Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood She was struck by how thoroughly exhausted the Europeans were after four devastating years of war.” Toward the end of the war German propaganda films left behind by the retreating army became a prime attraction.30 Frances traveled to and from Paris for a few days at a time, usually arriving on or near the front after a battle to witness doctors and nurses doing what they could for the injured in the shattered villages and burying the dead. “Charlie and Doug” were the two favorites, but anything showing familiar sights from home-the Statue of Liberty, a Chicago department store, or San Francisco’s Golden Gate-created a sensation and bolstered morale. Frances witnessed the popularity of movies time after time they were shown in warehouses, airplane hangars, on battered portable screens, or projected against the wall of a building in the village square where townsfolk crammed in around the soldiers. “When live entertainment was not available, women delivered the film and ran the projectors for the hundreds of movies that were shown to the soldiers.
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