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15. "We're the front office" ever did Capra have it so good again. His twelve years at Columbia, which ended in October 1939, were the most productive of his life. The freedom he craved would turn out to be a subtle trap. At the time his options seemed unlimited. In his last months at Columbia , there was great competition in Hollywood for Capra's services, studio offers in which "the financial obligations run into millions," as his would-be partner David 0. Selznick put it. The most attractive offers were the ones that seemed to promise the most creative freedom and independence within the Hollywood system—offers from Samuel Goldwyn, Selznick, and United Artists. There also were suggestions, from Goldwyn and Selznick, of possible partnerships involving Howard Hughes in a new production-distribution company similar to UA. There was talk of Capra being financed independently by Doc Giannini of the Bank of America, and there even was talk of Capra, Selznick, and Gianninibuying Columbia Pictures. But Capra cautiously bided his time. He was reluctant to enter into a long-term contract again, but he knew that he was risking everything by striking out from Columbia on his own. He considered approaching Sidney Buchman to become his partner, but Buchman was happy at Columbia in his new role as Harry Cohn's heir apparent. Capra turned to Robert Riskin. Riskin had not found the creative power he expected to have with Goldwyn, receiving only two associate producer credits, and less than a year into his five-year contract was "weary of the constant harangues that working for Mr. Goldwyn entails," Time reported. With a little distance from Capra, he had begun to look back on their years together more fondly, and he surprised Capra by accepting the offer. "It was the sense of freedom, rather than actual freedom, which led us to do it," Riskin explained. "Also there was the adventurous side to it, A 4 2 6 F R A N K C A P R A which one doesn't feel when workingon a stated salary. We were just a pair of dice-shooters at heart." Capra and Riskin talked with UA about becoming partners in the company, but after those negotiations stalled, Riskin left Goldwyn to join Capra in July 1939 as vice president of Frank Capra Productions, Inc. (FCP), which tentatively planned to release its pictures through UA. Capra owned the controlling 65 percent of FCP's stock and Riskin the other 35 percent. So, as Time put it, "baldish Robert Riskin" was reunited with "hairy little Frank Capra." Even after Capra announced he was forming the new company, Cohn made a last-ditch attempt to persuade him to stay on the lot. He summoned Joe Walker and said, "You see Frank. Tell him we'll give him a fifty-fifty deal. We'll pay the costs and split the profits." But Capra was in no mood to listen, even to such a stunning and unprecedented offer. He was determined to prove he could make it without Harry Cohn. "The day I left, everybody, the least person in the studio, came to my office to say good-bye," Capra remembered, "except for Cohn and the five or six guys he had running the place—they locked themselves behind their doors and never came out. After everybody else had said good-bye, I still waited in my office. I waited another half hour, hoping that he would come out and say 'Good luck' or something. And then I realized that I was persona non wanted. "I went by the alley and saw that everything was locked. I walked across the street, got in my car, and that was my good-bye." It was in early April, around the time Mr. Smith began shooting, that Capra fulfilled his father's failed dream and bought himself a ranch. He asked his father-in-law, Myron Warner, to scout property for him. "Pop" Warner traveled around Southern California and found what they were looking for in Fallbrook, a small agricultural community fifty miles from San Diego and a hundred miles from Los Angeles. A quiet, isolated area of low, rolling hills and valleys, with a dry but temperate climate, Fallbrook closely resembled the land in Sierra Madre where Salvatore Capra had died. The historic Red Mountain Ranch was one of the oldest and largest ranches in Fallbrook. Established in 1879 by William Hicks, it covered 536 acres, includingpart of the...

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