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335 15 The Pacifist Dilemma Friendly Persuasion (1956), The Big Country (1958), Ben-Hur (1959) Wyler was ready to leave Paramount after his five-picture deal ended in 1955. The studio had retained veto power over many of his decisions, and Wyler felt that he was never allowed the artistic control he had been promised . Paramount pressed to keep him, offering profit participation, but Wyler decided, while still shooting The Desperate Hours, to move to allied artists. He had been courted for some time by allied’s vice president Harold Mirisch, whom he had met in 1952. Originally part of Monogram Pictures, a b-picture unit that released Thunderbolt after the war, allied had been restructured in 1953 and was now ready to produce high-quality films. in pursuit of that ambition , Mirisch signed not only Wyler but also billy Wilder, who would direct Love in the Afternoon, starring Gary Cooper and audrey Hepburn. Mirisch then completed his “hat trick” in early 1955, signing Wyler’s close friend John Huston, who was planning to reunite with Gregory Peck and follow up their adaptation of Moby Dick with another Herman Melville project, Typee. Huston was also considering filming Stephen Crane’s The Blue Hotel. (He had already filmed Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, in 1951.) in the end, however, Huston never made a film for allied, and Wyler and Wilder completed only one film each—both starred Gary Cooper—in their short-lived association with the studio. Wyler decided which film he would make for allied while still editing The Desperate Hours. Friendly Persuasion, based on Jessamyn West’s series of interrelated stories about an indiana Quaker family during and after the Civil War, had been published to some acclaim in 1945, and the screen rights were purchased by Liberty Films for Frank Capra a few months later. Capra then hired Michael Wilson, who had worked on It’s a Wonderful 336 William Wyler Life, to write the screenplay as a vehicle for bing Crosby and Jean arthur. Wilson, having returned from World War ii a pacifist, was drawn to West’s portrayal of the testing of the Quaker family’s nonviolence in wartime. He completed a script for Capra, but the director decided that the political climate in 1946–1947 made the story’s antiwar message too dangerous, and he shelved it. When Wyler decided to do the film some ten years later, he inherited Wilson’s script. Wyler’s assistant, Stuart Millar, loved Wilson’s script. He was impressed that the screenwriter had adhered closely to West’s stories, and he called the script “the most incredible job of construction.”1 but Wyler had problems with it: he felt that it lacked dramatic focus and needed extensive revisions. Wilson had paid too much attention to peripheral characters, Wyler thought, and he especially disliked the treatment of the Civil War theme in the second part of the script. Wilson concentrated his adaptation on West’s story “The battle at Finney’s Ford,” which centers on the decision of Josh birdwell, the son of the protagonists, to join his neighbors in battle because he believes that his duty to country and home supersedes his commitment to nonviolence. after focusing on Josh’s intense internal conflict as he reaches this decision , West’s story ends with the Confederate army bypassing Finney’s Ford and Josh going home without being fully tested. in Wilson’s script, Josh does join the battle, but when he discovers Confederate soldiers at the river crossing near his land, he cannot fire at them and shoots into the air instead . He then gets into a fight with his brother Labe, who has followed him. (Wyler cut this character from the final script.) Gardner Overby, who is the son of a friend and engaged to the birdwells’ daughter, breaks up the fight, and the boys go home. at the end of Wilson’s script, Josh decides to become a stretcher-bearer —thus serving his country while maintaining his pacifist principles. Wilson , who would be blacklisted in 1951 for refusing to inform on others, wanted to emphasize that in america an individual can remain loyal to his principles. He even included a scene in which a Union major comes to the church to recruit volunteers, only to find himself ignored. The officer angrily shouts that there “appears to be an organized violation of the law.” He then backs off, stating, “i am not charging you with treason! President...

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