The Bennetts: An Acting Family

Chapter Sixteen. 1945–1947

1945–1947 281 ⟈ Chapter Sixteen 1945–1947 The Woman in the Window signaled the beginning of Joan’s most rewarding period as an actress. She always gave Lang all the credit for the fact that Hollywood suddenly began to take her more seriously . No matter that he obsessively dictated every detail of her performances. If being treated like a puppet was the price of doing quality work, then she was happy to pay it. Lang, for his part, had no illusions about her limitations. If Joan lacked the emotional range and imagination of a Barbara Stanwyck, she still brought plenty to the party, and Lang knew it. Not only did her name provide a boxoffice boost to the films he made, her brooding, sexy personality was perfectly suited to the shadows-and-fog atmosphere of his films. It was an ideal meeting of director and actress, and for the time being, everyone was happy. So happy that they decided to go into business together. Independent productions were becoming a fixture in Hollywood by the time World War II neared its end. Initially the practice had appealed primarily to directors such as Frank Capra, who wanted to work without interference from the moguls. But as the 1940s progressed , independent production became equally attractive to actors . By this time, the studio system was beginning to crack around the edges. In a landmark case in 1944, Olivia de Havilland took Warner Bros. to court and won an important victory for all film actors. From that point on, studios could no longer tack extra time onto actors’ contracts to cover periods when they had been placed The Bennetts 282 on suspension. As a result, the studios’ power over actors was weakened , and many of the top stars began to form independent companies . One of the earliest had been James Cagney, who launched Cagney Productions in 1942, but with war’s end, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Fontaine, and many others established companies of their own. Walter had been at the forefront of independent production for years, and he was the first to point out that an independent producer was actually dependent on many entities: banks, the press, distributors, and most of all, the public. Nevertheless, through his association with Paramount and United Artists, he had achieved a status in Hollywood rare for an independent. In 1941, his arrangement with UA was canceled by mutual consent, and he began one of the most commercially rewarding periods of his career, in association with Universal Pictures. When the first film he brought them, Eagle Squadron (1942), turned out to be a hit, he signed a longterm deal to function essentially as an in-house independent. He came up with the properties and developed them, then saw them through production without studio interference. It was a lucrative deal for Walter, who was paid a weekly salary and received 50 percent of his pictures’ net profits. Many of his Universal films, like Gung Ho! (1943) and Ladies Courageous (1944), featured war themes, and while they may have been routine entertainment, they pulled in big grosses. He also favored exotic escapist films set in the Middle East. One of his pictures, Arabian Nights (1942), the first of the studio’s Technicolor Maria Montez vehicles, posted net profits of $1,851,921. He was at his peak, but obviously, none of these films came close to satisfying his artistic ambitions. In the spring of 1945, while renewing his arrangement with Universal as an independent unit producer, he cut a separate deal with the studio that established an independent production company. The result, Diana Productions— named for Joan’s daughter—would make pictures for Universal distribution. Although it was not stated, it was understood that Diana pictures would strive for a higher degree of quality than the gaudy crowd-pleasers Walter had been turning out for the studio. 1945–1947 283 His partners in the new venture were Fritz Lang and Joan; she provided one-third of the start-up money, and received a salary of $75,000. Because she wanted to maintain her upgraded status in Hollywood, her investment was as much emotional as it was financial . The same was true for Lang, who was eager for a situation that would allow him to be his own boss without intrusion from the studio heads; the contracts for Diana Productions spelled out that Walter was to handle all financial arrangements...