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279 13 The american Scene ii Carrie (1952) Carrie, Wyler’s film of Theodore Dreiser’s 1900 novel Sister Carrie, is in theme and outlook a logical successor to The Heiress. There is a moment early in Dreiser’s novel when eighteen-year-old Carrie Meeber, a poor girl from a small town, is escorted to a posh Chicago restaurant by Charles Drouet, a salesman and “masher” she has met on the train. Carrie is dazzled by the selection of food, the clothing of the patrons, and the décor— much as Morris Townsend is overwhelmed by the Slopers’ richly appointed Washington Square home. “She felt a little out of place but the great room soothed her and the view of the well-dressed throng outside seemed a splendid thing. ah, what was it not to have money! What a thing it was to come here and dine!”1 Sister Carrie, which was condemned and then almost suppressed by its publisher because its central characters defy conventional morality, appeared only twenty years after Washington Square. and though the worlds of James and Dreiser are far apart, both share an interest in their characters’ preoccupation with money and position. Like Morris Townsend, Carrie Meeber is motivated by a powerful desire for security , money, and pleasure. Wyler was no doubt attracted to the property because, like many of his earlier projects, it focused on social problems that were still prevalent in american society. Wyler first expressed interest in Sister Carrie in 1947, when he asked Lillian Hellman if she would be interested in writing a screenplay based on the novel. She was enthusiastic about undertaking the adaptation, but other projects intervened, and she began to lose interest. at one point, robert Wyler suggested Julius and Phillip epstein as possible screenwriters, and in 1949 Wyler asked for Hellman’s help in interesting arthur Miller in the project, but Miller was too busy with other work. Hellman also suggested Norman Mailer, whose first novel, The Naked and the Dead, had made 280 William Wyler him the newest literary sensation, but Wyler preferred to work with an older writer and a dramatist rather than a novelist.2 Finally, he decided to rehire ruth and augustus Goetz—signing them up before The Heiress even opened—and he had a treatment in hand by the end of May 1949. by the end of that year, Wyler was sufficiently satisfied with the script to begin looking for a cast. Hoping to engage Laurence Olivier to play Hurstwood, he cabled his brother robert in London and had him deliver a copy of the script to the actor. Since starring in Wuthering Heights for Wyler in 1939, Olivier had become a considerable presence in films—his screen version of Hamlet won him an Oscar for best actor in 1948, as well as a best Director nomination, and the film was named best Picture. He had recently been named director of the St. James Theatre in London, where he was preparing to direct and star in Christopher Fry’s Venus Observed. He cabled Wyler his regrets, citing his commitment to the play, which would be one of the hits of the London season. Wyler, however, refused to take no for an answer and offered to change his schedule to accommodate the actor . Paramount even had Dreiser’s widow, Helen, write to Olivier, calling him “the greatest dramatic intellect of his time” and praising his film versions of Henry V and Hamlet.3 When Vivien Leigh was offered the lead in A Streetcar Named Desire, Olivier, not wanting to be separated from his wife, accepted Wyler’s offer to come to Hollywood. He was paid $125,000 for the role, and Paramount agreed to pay him an additional $1,000 a week to cover the costs of, among other things, a chauffeur, a car, and a maid. For Carrie, Wyler wanted elizabeth Taylor. She was eighteen—the right age for the role—and she possessed the arresting beauty that would justify the character’s appeal. Taylor had just completed George Stevens’s A Place in the Sun (an adaptation of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy), opposite Montgomery Clift. Wyler asked Olivier to meet her and convince her to take the role. but MGM, which owned Taylor’s contract, would not release her. While working on the script with the Goetzes in 1949, Wyler had sent a copy to David O. Selznick, seeking his input, and thereupon found himself inundated with memos, both...

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