GLOSSARY ITEMS: Shakespeare in Hollywood
Pg. 1: Grauman’s Chinese Theater
Known for its prestigious history, elaborate architecture, and the footprints and
hand prints of various celebrities on its sidewalk, the theater operates as a regular
cinema and has since 1927. The theater was built by Sid Grauman with architect
Raymond Kennedy, and is modeled after a Chinese pagoda. The decoration on
the interior also features Asian motifs—a Chinese chandelier, dragons, and
various statues and friezes. The auditorium seats 2,200 and has four opera boxes
for celebrities and other VIP's. The name of the theater was changed in the 1970s
to the Mann Chinese Theater, when Ted Mann purchased it, but was changed
back to the original name when it was purchased by Warner Brothers and
Paramount. It hosted many movie premieres, and was home to the Academy
Awards in the 1940s.
Louella Parsons
In 1914, Louella Parsons wrote the first movie gossip column in the United States
for the Chicago Record-Herald. Ahead of her time, Parsons lost that job, moved
to New York to write a similar column, and was soon working for the William
Randolph Hearst paper New York American. She moved to Los Angeles in 1925
and began writing for the Los Angeles Examiner, another Hearst paper. She
gained quick success, and her column ran in over 600 newspapers across the
country, with a readership of over twenty million people. She also hosted radio
programs promoting stars and their upcoming projects. By 1935, Parsons had
become an enormous influence in Hollywood, with an uncanny ability to scoop
other columnists. In 1937, however, struggling actress Hedda Hopper was hired as
a gossip columnist for a rival paper, and although Parsons and Hopper had
previously been friendly, their new rivalry deteriorated into an all-out feud. Still,
Parsons continued writing her column until 1965. She died at the age of 91, and
now has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and
one for radio.
Dick Powell
At the time he appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dick Powell was a
boyish tenor usually featured in Warner Brothers musicals, often opposite Ruby
Keeler. He joined Warner Brothers as a contract actor in 1932, and quickly filmed
a number of “backstage” musicals including 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, and
Gold Diggers of 1933. He was a true “crooner” of the time, generally playing the
part of a handsome, innocent and well-intentioned youth. Just prior to
Midsummer, Powell had appeared in Broadway Gondolier, a film about a cab
driver (Powell) who dreams of becoming a radio singer. However, Gold Diggers
of 1935, a bigger movie, was also released earlier that same year. Frustrated by
the monotony of his type-cast roles, Powell was thrilled with non-singing parts
like Lysander in Midsummer. As he aged, he managed to broaden his range to
include film noir, thrillers and crime films, portraying the tough-guy leads in
movies like Murder, My Sweet and Johnny O’Clock. He also became a director
and a producer in his later years, and was the head of Four Star Television, before
dying of stomach cancer in 1963.
Anita Louise
Born Anita Louise Fremault, Anita began her film career as a child, appearing
with Walter Hampden in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson, followed by
silent films like The Sixth Commandment (1924) and Square Shoulders (1929).
She later graduated to wide-eyed innocents and ingenue roles in the early 1930s,
before playing her first ‘adult’ role as Marie Antoinette in Madame Du Barry
(1934). After Midsummer, she played secondary female leads in a string of films,
including The Story of Louis Pasteur, in which she played Pasteur’s daughter, but
never become a top ranked star. She joined Columbia in the 1940s (the studio’s
head Harry Cohn noted “we get them going up and coming down”), and in the 50s
turned to television, starring in My Friend Flicka as Johnny Washbrook’s mother
Nell McLaughin.
James Cagney
Raised in Yorkville, New York, Cagney started off his career as a song and dance
man in vaudeville and on Broadway, before getting his big break in the Warner
Brothers film The Public Enemy (1931), playing gangster Tom Powers. Cagney
was instantly launched into stardom, and was featured as a hoodlum in a chain of
hugely popular gangster movies. He appeared in over 20 pictures before being
cast as Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a decision critics disagreed on:
some believed Cagney completely miscast, while others considered it a surprising
but inspired choice. Immediately prior to Midsummer, Cagney had appeared in
Frisco Kid, in which he played Bat Morgan, an opportunist who rises to fame and
wealth on the Barbary Coast after killing a famous crime lord. Cagney’s appeal
was broad. Joan Blondell described him this way: “His hair was a Van Gogh,
Renoir, Titian red, with blobs of gold weaving through. His eyes were delft blue,
fringed with the longest, thickest lashes I’ve ever seen,” but Darryl Zanuck
thought differently: “Women love bums,” he explained. Cagney was not always
happy at Warner Brothers; he and Jack Warner constantly fought over work
conditions, roles and paychecks. But he stayed with Warners for many years,
going on to make many non-gangster films, like Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1942.
Cagney was never truly able to shed his “tough guy” image, however. He died of
a heart attack at the age of 86.
Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt was one of the first major directors in the current sense of the
term, and undoubtedly the most famous in the world in 1935. His first great
success was a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Berlin in 1905. This
became his favorite play: he called it “an invitation to escape reality, a plea for the
glorious release to be found in sheer fantasy" and directed it 29 more times, in 18
cities in Europe and the U.S., in addition to filming it for Warner Brothers.
Nicknamed “The Great Magician” for his stagecraft, Reinhardt has been called
“perhaps the most versatile director the theatre has seen” for the ease with which
he moved between styles of plays and stagings that ranged from the intimate
(Ibsen’s Ghosts with a stage design by Edvard Munch) to the epic (Everyman at
the Salzburg Festival – which he founded – or Midsummer in the Hollywood
Bowl). He had an immense influence on stage and theater design, created the
contemporary notion of repertory theater and the idea of theaters housing multiple
stages of different sizes and configurations for different styles of plays and
productions, and helped create the 20th century standard of Shakespearean
production and acting. His Berlin theaters were confiscated by the Nazis after
they took power in 1933; he worked in his native Vienna for a year before moving
to the U.S. While his film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is star-studded, it does
not compare to the “dream cast” he initially wanted, which included Charlie
Chaplin as Bottom, Greta Garbo as Titania, Joan Crawford as Hermia, Fred
Astaire as Puck, and (perhaps most enticing to imagine) W.C. Fields playing Flute
and, of course, Thisbe.
Pg. 2: “I’m young and healthy, and you’ve got chaaaarm!”: Dick Powell is singing
“Young and Healthy” from 42nd Street. Powell was in the film version in 1933, in
which he played the role of the male ingenue in the musical being directed by
Warner Baxter. In the film, he repeatedly helps the heroine, a newcomer to show
business, get through her audition and champions her as a replacement when the
star breaks her ankle the night before the show opens.
Pg. 3: Jack Warner and Warner Brothers Pictures
The Warner Brothers story begins in 1903, when Sam, Jack and Rose Warner,
using a moving picture projector Sam bought off of his old employer, first showed
moving picture entertainments between the acts of traveling shows in New Castle,
Pennsylvania. Children of impoverished parents, the Warner siblings tried
numerous stints to help support the family, but nothing suited them like moving
pictures. During these early motion picture showings, gaps between pictures were
often filled by Jack, singing and dancing in his young soprano voice, under the
name Leon Zuardo. Sometimes the siblings used Jack’s less-than-stunning act to
clear out the house between shows. Brothers Sam, Jack, Albert and Harry moved
on from Pennsylvania, gradually claiming their place as legitimate Hollywood
producers. With the help of dog turned pop-culture icon Rin-Tin-Tin, by the mid1920s Warner Brothers had became one of the major, but still second tier,
Hollywood movie studios.
What really launched Warners, and established its place alongside Paramount and
Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), was the talking picture. Sound was long
regarded as a pipe dream by movie makers, but in 1927, Warner Brothers
announced the first major talking picture: The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson.
Tragically, Sam Warner, one of the major champions of sound, died the day
before the movie's premier. Jack, dominant in the company from the beginning,
took an even more authoritative position after Sam’s death, solidifying his
reputation as an unrelenting boss. Actors, writers, cameramen, musicians and
directors worked long hard days and at least six days a week. Employees and
artists were hired and fired almost as quickly as movies were turned out. The
success that Vitaphone brought Warner Brothers, along with Jack’s tough but
superb management, allowed the company to buy First National studios in 1929.
By the 1930s, Warner Brothers was a major player in Hollywood, with a distinct
style both on and off the screen. The studio pushed through the Depression with a
furious work ethic, tough management, and brilliant writers, actors and directors.
Under the dominant direction of Production Head Darryl Zanuck, and, after 1933,
Hal Wallis, Warner Brothers movies were turned out at an astonishing pace.
Employees were paid less and worked longer hours, and budgets for movies were
relatively small; it was “the only major lot that was run on a quickie lot's budget,”
according to Ethan Mordden. Still, the company paid attention to the quality of
its films; Warners wasn’t content producing the king of flashy, sensational
pictures that other studios were known for. Its movies were consistently more
honest, cynical and intelligent.
Warners specialized in gangster movies. While other studios realized the
popularity of the genre and produced them as well, only Warners had the true grit
and the city smarts to make first-class movies like Little Caesar and The Public
Enemy (both in 1931). James Cagney, who engaged in frequent arguments with
Jack Warner over the low pay and long hours typical at Warners, was the
foremost star of this genre: a tough, streetwise hoodlum. Like most other studios,
Warner Brothers also made musicals. Featuring crooners like Dick Powell and
elaborate choreography, often by Busby Berkeley, films like 42nd Street (1933)
and Gold Diggers (in three versions: 33, 35 and 37) were some of Warners’
biggest hits of the 30s. Finally, Warners was known for its “prestige pictures”:
biographical films, epic adventure stories, and screenplays adapted from
literature. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, under accomplished directors Max
Reinhardt and William Dieterle, was among the earliest of these prestige pictures,
which also included films like the costume adventure Caption Blood (1935) with
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland and The Life of Emile Zola (1937), with
Dieterle directing.
Darryl: The producer Darryl Zanuck began his career at Warner Brothers, where
he became Head of Production in the late 20s, earning as much as $5,000 per
week. He was Jack Warner’s right-hand man in terms of keeping directors within
budget, but seems to have been anything but a “yes man,” and had quit Warner’s,
in a dispute over salary cuts, in 1933.
Pg. 4: Adolph Zukor at Paramount: (1873-1976) Born in Hungry, Zukor became one
of the most important movie moguls of all time. He formed Famous Players
Studio in 1912, which then merged with Lasky Feature Play Company to become
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation: finally the name Paramount was acquired.
Zukor served as President until 1935, at which time he became chairman of the
board, and then chairman emeritus, until his death at 103. For some reason, his
nickname was "Creeping Jesus."
Pg. 5: Photoplay Magazine
Founded in Chicago in 1911, Photoplay was one of the first film fan magazines
and was one of the most popular in the country by the early 1920s. Articles had
titles like “Certainly It’s True That a Chorus Girl Learns a lot About Acting,” and
“Ladies in Hades.” Photoplay also gave out awards, first called Medals of Honor
and then Gold Medals, which were given out for best movie and favorite stars.
(See pictures of Photoplay covers in this packet)
Warner starlets: Among them: Joan Blondell, who made her debut in the 1930
Warners movie Sinner’s Holiday with James Cagney. She was later married to
Dick Powell for ten years. Redhead Anne Sheridan played small roles in
Paramount movies before signing with Warner Brothers in 1936. Warners’
publicity machine called her the “Oomph” girl. Bette Davis, who regularly fought
with Jack Warner, was a major Warners star who played a great variety of roles.
Olivia de Haviland, who played Hermia in Midsummer, was cast as the beautiful
heroine in such Warners movies as Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light
Brigade, and The Adventures of Robinhood. Ann Dvorak played a variety of
roles—conventional heroines, ill-fated ladies, dancers—for Warner features in the
1930s. The stoic, throaty-voiced Kay Francis played opposite William Powell in
One Way Passage, and was cast as Florence Nightingale in The White Angel.
Ruby Keeler was the sweetheart of Warners’ 1930s musicals, often playing
opposite Dick Powell in such movies as 42nd Street. Jean Muir, who played
Helena in Midsummer, was the leading lady in many 1930s Warner films,
including Son of a Sailor with Joe E. Brown and Stars Over Broadway. Barbara
Stanwyck was known for her no-nonsense demeanor and played the wronged girl
in many 1930s Warner films. Loretta Young was a major Warners star in the early
30s, before leaving the studio for Fox in 1933.
Warner historical action pics
Warners was known for its epic adventure movies and costume dramas, often
starring Errol Flynn. These included Captain Blood, a 1935 adaptation of Rafael
Sabatini’s novel about Pirate Captain Peter Blood, starring Flynn and Olivia de
Havilland (fresh from her debut in Midsummer), and featuring duels and the
commandeering of a ship. The next Flynn picture was The Charge of the Light
Brigade (1936), about British soldiers in India during in the mid-nineteenth
century, also with de Havilland and loosely based on the Tennyson poem. Both
Caption Blood and Light Brigade featured elaborate battle scenes and even more
elaborate period costumes. Flynn and de Havilland once again starred in The
Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938
French Foreign Legion pics, and Lydia’s quote “Oh Major Waverly… How
will I ever get back to my ancestral home in Dundee, Scotland?”: ex of a
French Foreign Legion film: Beau Geste (1939) Although Lydia says it’s a
“French Foreign Legion” film, the dialogue and names sound more appropriate to
the action films glorifying the British colonials in India that starred Errol Flynn:
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936, with Olivia de Haviland as the enperiled
White Woman) and Gunga Din (1939, with Joan Fontaine).
Gangster pics (in the style of “Gun Moll Mama,” “Hold My Pistol”): Warner
Brothers was “the” studio for gangster films in the 30s, having pioneered the
genre with Little Caesar and The Public Enemy. (see more info above, in the
Warner Brothers entry)
Madame Curie/Dr. Mendel: There were two major Mendels that Lydia could be
referring to: Felix Mendel (1862-1925), who came up with the test for TB
sensitivity, and Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), famous for his experiments in
genetics. Neither worked with Curie (1867-1934), who is best known for her
work on radium. Penicillin was discovered by the team of Alexander Fleming,
Ernst Chain and Howard Florey. (If you’re interested, you can play the
“Discovery of the Penicillin Game” at
http://nobelprize.org/medicine/educational/penicillin/ )
MGM actually made a movie called Madame Curie in 1943, directed by Mervyn
LeRoy and starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon.
Louis Pasteur/bio pics
Warner Brothers picture The Story of Louis Pasteur, released in 1936. Directed by
William Dieterle, starring Paul Muni as Pasteur, Josephine Hutchinson as Marie
Pasteur and Anita Louise as Annette Pasteur. Produced in 1935, it won the 1937
Oscars for best original story, best screenplay and best actor (Paul Muni) as well
as being nominated for best picture. Dieterle/Muni also directed/starred in The
Life of Emile Zola, produced in1937.
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist famous for developing the
process of pasteurizing, as well as for his work on germ theory and inoculation.
Pg.8: Warner Brothers (Jack, Sam, Albert, Harry)
From left: Harry, Jack, Sam and Albert
The personalities of the four brothers were described by Jack Warner, Jr. in the
following way:
“It is difficult to think of these men as having been brothers, so different were
they one from the other. Harry, the oldest, so serious, moralistic, hopeful that
movies would be used primarily to educate and uplift humanity. Sam, full of fun
and ever seeking to win friends and be where he could make things happen. His
early death, and that of Harry's son, Lewis, changed the brothers' course. Abe,
easygoing and calm in storms, was perhaps the brother who most enjoyed life…
Then there was Jack, the most complex and confounding of all the brothers… His
was the anguished story of a man driven by fear, ambition, and the quest for
absolute power and control-the little brother telling the big boys he saw as his
tormentors to go to hell.”
“Stick to your last”: "[Shoemaker,] stick to your last"-apparently equivalent to
Latin "ne supra crepidum sutor," found in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia,
book 35, chapter 36, in which a shoemaker is reprimanded for criticizing another
man's leg while his area of specialty is shoes/feet. A way of paraphrasing would
be “stick to what you know.” A “last” was “a shoemaker's block shaped like a
foot.” Edward Moore was an 18th century English playwright, the above quote
comes from The Spider and the Bee, fable x.
Pg. 10 Mankiewicz/Morrison: There were two Mankiewicz brothers: Herman and
Joseph. Herman (1897-1953) was a legendary screenwriter, having won an Oscar
with Orson Welles for the screenplay of Citizen Kane. He was also known for his
work on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Pride of the Yankees. Joseph L.
Mankiewicz (1909-1993) was also a well-known screenwriter, as well as a
director and producer. He wrote over forty-eight screenplays: his most memorable
work is his Oscar winning screenplay for All About Eve. In 1953, he did try his
hand at cinematic Shakespeare, directing a film version of Julius Caesar starring
James Mason, John Gielgud, and Marlon Brando as Mark Antony.
Morrison is an invention of Ken Ludwig’s.
Pg. 11 Puck: “swift as shadow, brief as lightning in the collied night:” a paraphrase
of something Lysander says to Hermia in Midsummer 1.1. “Swift as a shadow,
short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night”
Oberon: Wither wander you, spirit?
Puck: “Over hill, over dale”: Opening lines of Midsummer 2.1. In Shakespeare
in Hollywood, Oberon speaks Puck’s line, while Puck speaks the First Fairy’s.
Pg. 12 Johnny Weissmuller
Austrian-born American swimmer and actor. He won 5 Olympic gold medals and
one bronze in swimming, and 52 US National Championships, and played Tarzan
in 12 motion pictures in the 30s and 40s.
Oberon’s “we are such stuff as dreams are made on”: The Tempest, 4.1 (“and
our little life is rounded by a sleep”)
Pg. 13 Puck’s “aye, there’s the rub”: Hamlet, “to be or not to be” speech
Oberon’s “coddle-pated, lack-brained, thick-eyed…”: This plays upon
Shakespeare’s fondness for piling insults upon each other. “Three-suited” appears
in King Lear, in what is supposed to be the longest Shakespearean insult: "A
knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, threesuited, action-taking, whoreson glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; onetrunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art
nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and
heir of a mongrel bitch, one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou
deniest the least syllable of thy addition.” No more brain than a Christian is a
paraphrase of Andrew Aguecheek’s “no more wit than a Christian” in Twelfth
Night, used to describe himself.
Pg. 14 Oberon’s “But who comes here?”: Midsummer, 2.1 (Oberon says this as
Demetrius and Helena enter)
Pg. 15 Laurence Olivier: In 1935, Olivier had just had his breakthrough stage
performance in the West End production of Romeo and Juliet. His film career did
not pick up until 1939 with Wuthering Heights. Prior to this, Olivier’s American
film debuts in Friends and Lovers and The Yellow Ticket (both 1931), were not
well received. He also played Orlando in the 1936 film version of As You Like It,
which was re-released in 1949 under the tagline “today’s most lauded and
applauded star…” He spent most of the 1930s in England as one of the leading
stage actors. Beginning with Henry V in 1944, Olivier produced, directed, and
starred in a series of films of Shakespeare plays which were the benchmark until
the revival of Shakespearean cinema in the 1990s following Kenneth Branagh’s
film of (ironically?) Henry V.
Pg. 17 Oberon’s “O brave new world…”: The Tempest, 5.1
Puck’s “I go, I go”: Midsummer, 3.2
Pg. 19 Olivia’s bio: Here Olivia almost parallels Olivia de Havilland’s experience. De
Havilland played Puck in a production with the Saratoga Community Players
(where Reinhardt discovered her), and she wanted to play Puck in the Hollywood
Bowl production, but was cast instead as Hermia’s understudy there, taking over
the part when the first actress, Gloria Stuart, dropped out of the production.
“until this century, Puck was always a girl”
While in the earliest productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream Puck was
played by an adult male, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the role was
generally played by a female. In Charles Kean’s 1856 production, a very young
Ellen Terry played Puck, making her first entrance sitting cross-legged on a
mushroom. The German writer Theodor Fontane found Terry “an altogether
intolerable, precocious, spoiled, unchild-like child, raised in an English manner to
be old before her years.” But it was not unusual for an adult woman to play the
role of Puck either: Frederic Reynolds’s 1816 operatic Midsummer at Covent
Garden used a woman in the role, as well as the famous 1840 Lucia Elizabeth
Vestris production. Although boys had appeared as Puck in several 19th century
productions, Granville Barker’s 1914 production was unusual in that Donald
Calthrop, an adult male, played Puck.
Also, after Vestris took on the role of Oberon in 1840, the part “was played by a
woman in every major English and American production of the play until 1914,
with one exception,” according to Gary Jay Williams in Our Moonlight Revels.
Pg. 20 Victor Jory
Jory was born in Yukon Territory in 1902, attended high school in California, and
then joined the Coast Guard. He toured with theater troupes and appeared on
Broadway before making his film debut in 1930 in Renegades, a film about a
desert patrol fighting off villains among the sand dunes. Before Midsummer, Jory
mostly appeared in Westerns, usually playing villains, which makes it appropriate
that he usually appears on horseback in the film.
Oberon’s “When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees” Merchant of Venice,
5.1, Spoken by Lorenzo to Jessica
Pg. 21 Oberon’s “Just speak the speech” Hamlet’s instruction to the actors, 3.2
Pg. 22-24 Midsummer lines, 1.1, lines spoken by Hermia: first to Theseus, and then to
Lysander.
Pg. 24 Oberon’s “Upon your words…” Antony and Cleopatra, 1.3, Spoken by
Cleopatra to Antony. Actual text is “upon your sword…”
Pg. 26-28
Will Hays/Production Code/Legion of Decency
The end of World War I and controversies over Wilson’s League of Nations left
Americans bitter, disillusioned, and longing for diversion. In Hollywood, which
became known as the country’s “movie capital” in the early 1900s, stars and
producers were misbehaving on and off the screen, much to the delight of
newspaper moguls, tabloid writers, and their loyal readers. Off screen,
Hollywood gained a reputation for partying, drinking and bacchanalian behavior
of every kind, with cases such as Fatty Arbuckle’s trial for rape and manslaughter
of a young actress and the murder of director William Desmond Taylor grabbing
the headlines. While the “new morality” of the Jazz Age was present in American
culture, its spirit seemed particularly pronounced in the movie industry. On
screen, sex and violence took up a new prominence in films such as Exclusive
Rights (1926) a crime story that ends with an execution, and The Dancer of Paris
(1926) which includes a strip scene (The New York Times called star Dorothy
Mackaill “fetchingly underdressed.”)
While Hollywood’s reaction to the turmoil of war was moral abandon and
escapism, other sections of American society wanted to defend traditional values.
Warren G. Harding won the Presidency, promising the country a “return to
normalcy.” Working for Harding was a wiry Hoosier named Will H. Hays, an
unusual figure who asked photographers to use an “ear-reducing lens” when
taking photos of him, and who in 1922 became the first President of the newlyformed Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America. Government and
religious institutions were making it clear that they would not stand for what they
perceived as a moral landslide in Hollywood, and this new organization was
formed by the movie industry for the purposes of self-censorship, to avoid
imminent regulations from outside forces.
During the 20s, Hays was mostly ineffective in enforcing self-censorship on the
movie studios. While he tried to claim that the movie industry was “cleaning up,”
filmmakers of the time weren’t willing to abide by the “Don’t and Be Carefuls”
that the Hays Office promoted, especially with the advent of talking pictures. And
although Harding’s administration and the “Ohio gang” were roiled in actual
scandal and corruption worse than much of the fictional corruption seen in the
movies, an explosion of public anger was aimed at the new talkies. “Silent smut
had been bad, vocal smut cried to the censors for vengeance,” claimed Jesuit
Priest Daniel Lord.
With various states drawing up their own censorship bills, making wide
distribution difficult, Hollywood needed a more effective tool to enforce industrywide standards and satisfy those clamoring against “smut.” In 1930, a new
Production Code was announced, with Daniel Lord as one of the main authors.
Due to pressure from the Catholic Legion of Decency (which called on all
Catholics to boycott the movies), the code was followed by an agency meant to
enforce it—the Production Code Administration, headed by the Hays Office and
led by Catholic Journalist Joseph Breen, a Philadelphian hired in 1934. The
Production Code (later known as the Hays Code) had no legal authority, but
because studios agreed that they would not distribute a non-approved movie, a
picture without the seal of the Hays Office had no hope of success.
Among the code’s strict stipulations:
 “no picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those
who see it”
 “law—divine, natural, or human—shall not be ridiculed”
 “the sanctity of the institution of marriage and home shall be upheld”
In a possibly inaccurate but certainly amusing story, Jack Warner was supposedly
very upset when he first read about the Production Code. During an argument
about it with brother Harry, Jack read a section from the code: “Authority to
exhibit films in America will be denied if there is any long tongue-involved
kissing”. Jack's response: “Hell, I know, I'll just fire every actor with a long
tongue.”
The code held sway over movie producers for years, until the mid-1960s, when it
was replaced by the modern movie rating system. While the Production Code
greatly restricted movie-makers, its effects were not entirely negative. Among the
code’s outcomes: the genre of screwball comedy.
Oberon’s “Have patience and endure” Much Ado About Nothing, 4.1. Spoken
by the Friar to Hero
Oberon’s “Do you insult me? Call me villain?” Hamlet, 2.2
Pg. 27 “Selling apples”: In 1930, several men in the produce business gathered together
a fund of $10,000 so that they would be able to sell apples to unemployed people
at a rate below the market value, so that these people would be able to resell the
apples and earn a bit of a living. The apples were sold to the unemployed for $2 a
crate, typically on credit. There was a lot of sympathy for these new apple sellers,
although a vendor’s license was normally required to sell on the street, the cases
of 7 apple sellers were dropped and no one else would be found guilty for selling
without a license.
Taken from: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/us_history_1929_1945/113591
Oberon: “like Niobe, turned to stone”: A mortal woman in Greek mythology,
Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and either Euryanassa, Eurythemista, Clytia, Dione,
or Laodice, and the wife of Amphion, boasted of her superiority to Leto because
she had fourteen children (Niobids), seven male and seven female, while Leto had
only two. Apollo killed her sons as they practiced athletics, with the last begging
for his life (Apollo would have spared his life, but had already released the
arrow), and Artemis, her daughters. Apollo and Artemis used poisoned arrows to
kill them, though according to some versions a number of the Niobids were
spared (Chloris, usually). Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, either killed
himself or was killed by Apollo after swearing revenge. A devastated Niobe fled
to Mount Sipylus in Asia Minor and turned into stone as she wept, or committed
suicide. Her tears formed the river Achelous. Zeus had turned all the people of
Thebes to stone and so no one buried the Niobids until the ninth day after their
death, when the gods themselves entombed them.
Mount Sipylus has a carving of a female face on it that the locals claimed was
Niobe, though it was probably originally intended to be Cybele. The rock appears
to weep because it is porous limestone and rainwater seeps through the pores.
Shakespeare mentions Niobe twice in his plays: Hamlet, in his “O, that this too,
too solid (or “sullied”) flesh would melt” soliloquy, refers to “Niobe, all tears,”
but we haven’t found a more direct corollary to this speech.
Pg. 28 Mickey Rooney
Born in 1920 to two actors in Brooklyn, Rooney was only fifteen when he played
Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Between 1927 and 1933 he became well
known as a child actor for a series of silent comedies in which he played Mickey
McGuire, a comic book character. He was the first child star to reach greatness
playing a brat instead of a sweet kid. As a boy he often played the young version
of the main character—for example, he played Clark Gable as a boy in Manhattan
Melodrama (1934). He appeared in a number of movies with Spencer Tracy and
Judy Garland, and starred in the popular Andy Hardy series. Rooney was cast as
Puck in Reinhardt’s movie after playing the part in the Hollywood Bowl
production, along with Olivia de Havilland. During the filming of the movie he
broke his leg and delayed completion of the film for several weeks. His
popularity peaked with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1939 and National
Velvet in 1944, but he was then drafted into the war. After returning, his
popularity declined, and a production company he began in the late 1940s was a
failure. However, in the mid-50s he managed to revive his acting career, and
began appearing regularly in films, on television and stage, making his Broadway
debut in Sugar Babies in 1979. He has had eight wives and has made over 200
movies.
Pg. 31-32 Oberon’s speech “Thou rememb’rest…” Midsummer, 2.1
Pg. 34 The Birth of a Nation: (1915) a controversial, highly influential and innovative
silent film directed by D.W. Griffith, based on Thomas Dixon’s novels The
Clansman and The Leopard’s Spots. The film glorifies the Ku Klux Klan and
portrays them as saviors of the war torn South.
Pg. 36 Putting on the Dog
“Put on the dog” does indeed mean “to get dressed up,” but the meaning has
changed slightly since it first appeared in the late 19th century. The original
phrase was “to put on dog” (note the lack of “the”), and the sense was more
negative: someone “putting on the dog” was being pretentious or “putting on
airs.” P.G. Wodehouse wrote in 1940, for instance, of “An editor's unexampled
opportunities for putting on dog and throwing his weight about.” Today this
condemnatory connotation is largely gone, though no phrase associating fancy
dress with dogs will ever convey much dignity.
(from www.word-detective.com)
Pg. 37 Lydia’s lines as Helena: paraphrased from Midsummer 2.2
Pg. 40 Oberon’s “Think of a world that’s full…” After the first three lines, this speech
paraphrases Titania, speaking of the activities of her train in Midsummer 2.1
Joe E. Brown
Known for his mile-wide smile and long, loud yell, Joe E. Brown joined Warner
Brothers in 1929 after performing as an acrobat with circuses and traveling
burlesque shows. He was an avid baseball fan and participant (he played on a
semi-professional team and was partial owner of a Minor League team), and made
a trilogy of baseball movies with Warners: Fireman Save My Child (1932), Elmer
the Great (1933) and Alibi Ike (1935). He perfected his comic persona in such
movies as Hold Everything (1930) and Circus Clown (1934), which also used his
acrobatic skills. After appearing as Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Brown
ended his contract with Warner Brothers and began appearing in low-budget
comedies and B movies. During WWII he traveled all over the world entertaining
troops, and after the war he returned mostly to the stage. However, Brown is
often remembered for his role in Some Like it Hot (1959), in which he uttered the
famous last line, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Before Midsummer, Brown worked on one of his baseball movies, Alibi Ike, and
Bright Lights, about a married vaudeville team threatened by an eccentric heiress
who falls in love with the husband (Brown). Both were released earlier in 1935.
Pg. 44 Olivia: “To answer by the method, you may indeed, sir. With all my heart.”
Echoes Twelfth Night, 1.5:
Viola: To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.
Oberon’s “we shall go coupled” paraphrase of Celia in As You Like It, 1.3
Oberon: “If there be dancing, shall we rock the ground?” echoes MND, 4.1
Obe. Sound, music! [Still, music. ] Come, my queen, take hands with me,
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
Now thou and I are new in amity,
And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,
And bless it to all fair prosperity.
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
Pg. 45 the Big Apple (dance): The Big Apple originated in South Carolina and was
wildly popular in the late 1930s. It was a circle dance consisting of jazz steps, set
to swing music and performed in response to a caller (one would think sort of a
square dance for cool kids). The presence of a caller suggested that each time the
Big Apple was performed, it would be a slightly different dance.
Oberon’s “I would live in her heart…” Paraphrase of Benedick’s “I would live
in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes” at the end of 5.2, Much Ado
About Nothing
Pg. 48 Oberon’s “Welcome wanderer…” Midsummer 2.1
Oberon’s “Mark me, Robin, take this herb…” This speech parallels Oberon
instructing Puck to find Demetrius at the end of Midsummer 2.1
Pg. 50 Lydia’s “You draw me…” Midsummer 2.1, 195-8
Pg. 51 Powell’s “My Hermia, if thou lovest me” and Hermia’s “I swear to thee…”
Midsummer 1.1
Hermia’s “God speed, fair Helena” and Helena’s “Call you me fair?”
Midsummer, 1.1
Pg. 54 Puck’s “nicely done, Mad Spirit:” a paraphrase of Midsummer, 2.2, when Puck
mistakenly places the flower oil on Lysander’s eyes.
Olivia’s “never so weary…” Midsummer, 3.2, before she falls asleep and Puck
sets everything aright.
Pg. 56 Brown’s “O Wall, full often…” Midsummer 5.1
Cagney’s “I see a voice…” Midsummer 5.1
Pg. 57 Puck’s “Up and down…” Midsummer 4.1
Powell’s “tide life, tide death!”, Midsummer, Thisbe’s line in the play-within-aplay, 5.1, 202
Powell’s “Goddess, nymph, divine creature!” paraphrased from Midsummer
3.2, Demetrius’ speech upon waking up and seeing Helena with the flower oil in
his eye.
Irene Dunne
Born in 1898 in Louisville, Dunne made her Broadway debut in 1922, and her
screen debut in 1930 in the movie Leathernecking. She appeared in many movies
throughout the 1930s, including both musicals and screwball comedies, and her
career continued well into the 40s. She is now best remembered for an
uncharacteristically madcap and hilarious performance opposite Cary Grant in
The Awful Truth and as Anna Leonowens in the original non-musical film of
Anna and the King of Siam. She was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, but never
won.
Pg. 58 Powell’s “send me to the Antipodes…”
Paraphrased from “Much Ado About Nothing”, II.i.229-235, when Benedick asks
his friends during the masked ball to send him to the far corners of the earth
instead of spending one more minute with his nemesis Beatrice.
Pg. 60 Olivia’s “love looks not with the eye…” From Helena’s soliloquy, Midsummer,
1.1
“Moth! Peaseblossom! Mustardseed!” Titania’s fairies in Midsummer
Pg. 62 This scene parallels Midsummer 3.2, when Oberon and Puck discover that Puck’s
enchanted the wrong Athenian.
Puck’s “The barge she sat in…” Antony & Cleaopatra, 2.2 Enobarbus reporting
on Cleopatra
Pg. 63 Olivia’s “Love and reason keep little company nowadays” Midsummer 3.1, the
transfigured Bottom speaking to Titania
Olivia’s “O spirit of love…” Twelfth Night, 1.1
From Orsino’s opening speech
Olivia’s “O that I were a glove upon that hand”, Romeo and Juliet, 2.2
Pg. 64 Oberon’s insults sound Shakespearean but are really Ludwigean.
Pg. 65 Claudette Colbert
Born in 1903, Colbert was a French-American actress best known for her Oscarwinning performance in the screwball comedy It Happened One Night, opposite
Clark Gable.
Pg. 66 Hays’ speech to his mirror
Hays concocts a heady stew of Shakespearean quotes and paraphrases that also
seems to parallel Malvolio in Twelfth Night, after he reads the forged letter from
“Olivia.”
“But soft! What light from yonder window breaks!”…paraphrased from
Romeo’s speech, Romeo and Juliet 2.2
“’Tis beauty truly blent!” 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on. Viola, Twelfth Night, 1.5
“Is this a swagger I see before me?”…paraphrased from Macbeth 2.1, “is this a
dagger that I see…”
“My person beggars all description…” The first of several more quotes or
paraphrases from Enobarbus’ description of Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra,
2.2 “For her own person, / It beggar'd all description"
“I could hop forty paces through the street and make defect perfection”
Again paraphrased from Enobarbus, Antony and Cleopatra, 2.2
I saw her once
Hop forty paces through the public street,
And having lost her breath, she spoke and panted,
That she did make defect perfection,
And breathless, pour forth breath.
“I could make me a willow cabin at my gate…cry out ‘Will Hays! Will
Hays!’” paraphrased from Voila’s speech to Olivia in 1.5 of Twelfth Night
“To be or not to be me, That is the question!”…paraphrased from Hamlet’s
soliloquy 3.1
“I’ll smile and smile and be a villain” My tables, - meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark. (1.5.105)
“There shall be no more compromises!’ if the comparison with Malvolio holds
true, might echo Sir Toby’s comment to Malvolio in Twelfth Night, 2.3: “Sir, ye
lie. Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there
shall be no more cakes and ale?”
“Lead on, MacDuff!” Common misquotation of Macbeth’s penultimate line:
“Lay on, Macduff! And damned be he who first cries, ‘Hold, enough.’”
Pg. 70 Hays’ “He walks in beauty” paraphrases Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty:”
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Pg. 70-71 Lydia/Louella parallel to Midsummer parallels the fight between Helena and
Hermia in 3.2
Pg. 72 Louella’s “Age cannot wither me…” modeled off Enobarbus’ next speech
following “hop forty paces . . . “Antony and Cleopatra, 2.2:
Never; he will not:
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her: that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.
Pg. 74 Oberon’s “Be as thou wast wont to be…” Midsummer 4.1, spoken to the
sleeping Titania
Pg. 74-75
Oberon’s “In such a night” From the opening of The Merchant of
Venice, 5.1, when Lorenzo and Jessica pledge their love. (also on page 20). The
entire exchange runs:
Lor. The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees
And they did make no noise, in such a night
Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,
And sigh’d his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.
Jes. In such a night
Did Thisbe fearfully o’ertrip the dew,
And saw the lion’s shadow ere himself,
And ran dismay’d away.
Lor. In such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
To come again to Carthage.
Jes. In such a night
Medea gather’d the enchanted herbs
That did renew old Æson.
Lor. In such a night
Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
And with an unthrift love did run from Venice,
As far as Belmont.
Jes. In such a night
Did young Lorenzo swear he lov’d her well,
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
And ne’er a true one.
Pg. 77 Cagney’s “I have had a dream past…” Midsummer, 4.1 Bottom, on awakening
without his ass’s head.
Pg. 82 Oberon’s “a meddling monkey or busy ape”
From Midsummer, 2.1 (180-1). Spoken by Oberon when discussing the power of
love-in-idleness, and how when Titania awakens, she will pursue the first thing
she sees, whether it be “lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, on medding monkey or on
busy ape”
Pg. 87 Hays’ “I’ll be revenged upon the whole pack of you!” Malvolio’s parting line
in Twelfth Night, 5.1
Pg. 89 Puck’s “What fools these mortals be…” Midsummer, 3.2
Pg. 91 Oberon’s “I know a bank…” paraphrased from Midsummer 2.1