Our system must be an ideal one

During the 1920s, Darryl F. Zanuck worked as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers before becoming head of production in 1931. Around the same time Edward G. Robinson, one of Warners' contract players, was having his big breakthrough with Little Caesar (1931) and eventually became one of the studio's biggest stars. Growing increasingly unhappy with the scripts that were submitted to him, Robinson wrote to Zanuck in the fall of 1932, uttering his grievances. Unfortunately I don't have Robinson's letter to show you, but Zanuck's reply —in which he told Robinson that he had nothing to complain about and to just have faith in "the system"— can be read below. 

Mr. Edward G. Robinson

Essex House

New York, N.Y.

October 26, 1932

Dear Eddie:

To start with the last paragraph of your letter first and then go backward, you accuse me of not submitting to you some of the pictures that we have made recently with other people which have turned out to be outstanding hits, and you state that you are certain that anyone of them would have been acceptable to you.

In the first place, you have no complaint as you have received absolutely nothing but the best in stories and, in the second place, you have repeatedly rejected stories that later turned out to be successful pictures...

As I see it, Eddie, the whole fault lies in the fact that you want to be a writer. By this I mean that you want to put your views into whatever subject we purchase rather than to accept the views of the men I engage here who are specialists at a high salary in this specific work.

When I submit you a Grand Slam [1933], you say we have taken the wrong slant on the story —the idea is good but it should be something else. When I submit you a Lawyer Man [1933] or an Employees' Entrance [1933], you say the same thing.

By the way, Lawyer Man is the best picture [William] Powell has ever made and it would have been a perfect vehicle for you. It will be previewed in a week or so and I will send you the preview notices.

I have always wanted and asked for your suggestions and the suggestions of every star, as to story, etc., and those suggestions you made as to dialogue, etc., have, to my knowledge, for the most part been very effective and certainly appreciated by me.

The point I am trying to make is that when we submit a Lawyer Man or whatever it happens to be, you must have some faith in us. After all, our record of successes and box-office hits places us as the A-Company in the industry today, recognized thus everywhere. Our system, therefore, must be an ideal one. You can't make a lot of hits with a lot of different directors and a lot of different stars and some of them with no stars at all unless "the system" is a perfect one as, in our studio, it isn't just a case of one director or one star continually making a hit and the other ones flopping. This should be the greatest assurance in the world to you that our judgment is more or less correct, especially on the selection of stories and if I were in your shoes, I would be greatly guided by this "system."

After all, our sole interest is getting great pictures out of anything we select and we will accept anybody's ideas or suggestions, but the treatment of the subject in script form should be left largely to the judgment and intelligence of our "system", at least until the day comes —if it ever does— when our flops are more numerous than our hits ...

Sincerely,

Darryl Zanuck

Source: Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951) (1985), selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer. 

Edward G. Robinson in Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar (1931), the gangster film that made him a star.

Controversy on the set of Manpower

In April 1941, production of Raoul Walsh's Manpower was held up by two incidents involving the film's principal actors Edward G. Robinson and George Raft. During the first incident on 18 April, Raft verbally abused Robinson following a disagreement about a line of dialogue. A week later, on 26 April, Raft again engaged in verbal abuse and also pushed Robinson around on the set, this time witnessed by a photographer from Life magazine whose photo of the incident appeared in Life's May 1941 issue. Raft's feelings of animosity towards Robinson reportedly stemmed from his being third billed —Robinson received top billing and leading lady Marlene Dietrich second billing— despite having the largest role in the film. Also, Raft was infatuated with Dietrich and believed he had a rival in Robinson.

This is the picture that appeared in the Life magazine issue from 12 May 1941 under the headline Robinson & Raft Stage Impromptu Fight On Set. Alan Hale (behind Robinson) tries to break up the fight while Ward Bond (sitting left) looks on.

On 30 April 1941, Roy Obringer (head of Warner Bros.' legal department) wrote the following letter to the Screen Actors Guild, giving a detailed description of the two incidents as mentioned above. The dispute between Robinson and Raft was eventually settled by SAG, after which the film was completed. While the two men buried the hatchet years later —they would star in one more film together, A Bullet For Joey (1955)— in his 1973 autobiography All My Yesterdays Robinson maintained that Raft was "touchy, difficult and thoroughly impossible to play with."

 

Screen Actors Guild
care, Kenneth Thomson, Executive Secretary,
1823 Courtney Avenue
Los Angeles, California 

April 30, 1941

Gentlemen:

On or about March 24, 1941, the undersigned corporation commenced photography on its motion picture entitled Manpower, with Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, and George Raft, as principal players... As production on this motion picture progressed it became apparent to a number of persons engaged in and about the production that a feeling of hostility was being evidenced by Mr. Raft against Mr. Edward G. Robinson... The situation culminated in an unusually heated and disagreeable verbal attack by Mr. George Raft upon Mr. Edward G. Robinson on 18 April, 1941, on the premises of the undersigned Company at Burbank, California, and immediately outside Stage No. 11, on which the production was then being photographed... The controversy at that time appeared to arise over the inclusion or deletion of a certain line of dialogue in the final script covering said photoplay. Apparently, Mr. Raft was of the opinion that the line should not be spoken, although assigned to Mr. Robinson, whereas Mr. Robinson took the view that the line was in the script and was satisfactory to him, and that inasmuch as he considered the line an important one, he preferred to speak the line. Mr. Robinson then said, in substance, to Mr. Raft, "Look, George, you may think the line does not make any sense, but I have to speak it and it is all right with me." Thereupon, in the presence of the persons above named, and perhaps in the presence of other persons engaged on said production, Mr. George Raft directed toward Mr. Robinson a volley of profanity and obscene language with the express purpose and intent of embarrassing and humiliating Mr. Robinson and lowering his professional dignity and standing in the eyes of all those persons with whom he was obliged to work and come in contact in connection with the production of said photoplay.

In the opinion of those persons to whom representatives of the undersigned corporation have talked, the attack on Mr. Raft's part was wholly uncalled for and actually brought about a very serious disturbance in the production of said photoplay. The interruption and disturbance of production of the picture became so serious because of the situation that Mr. Hal B. Wallis, Executive Producer of the undersigned corporation, was called into the controversy, Mr. Edward G. Robinson left the set and went to his dressing room, and the entire production was stopped for several hours, resulting in a great and substantial loss to the undersigned. Several hours after the controversy had been temporarily quieted, production was proceeded with and approximately a week passed and, except as called for by the script and by the Director, Messrs. Robinson and Raft did not speak to one another, although the script proceeded upon the theory that the characters portrayed by Messrs. Robinson and Raft were close friends.

Just prior to twelve o'clock noon on Saturday, April 26th, while the cast in said production was engaged on said Stage 11, Mr. Robinson was rehearsing a scene wherein the script called for him  to be provoked by one of the other characters. The script called for Mr. Robinson to attack this character and during the attack the script required that Mr. Raft, playing the part of "Johnnie" in the production, make his entrance and seek to quiet the disturbance. Instead of conducting himself as called for by the script, Mr. Raft immediately undertook to and did violently rough-house and push the said Edward G. Robinson around the set in an unusually vigorous and forceful manner, with the showing of a great deal of personal feeling and temper on Mr. Raft's part, causing Mr. Robinson to wheel around and say to Mr. Raft, "What the hell is all this?" In reply to Mr. Robinson's question to Mr. Raft, Mr. Raft thereupon told Mr. Robinson to "shut up", and in the immediate presence of the persons hereinafter mentioned, directed toward him a volley of personal abuse and profanity, and threatened the said Edward G. Robinson with bodily harm, and in the course of his remarks directed and applied to Mr. Robinson in a loud and boisterous tone of voice, numerous filthy, obscene and profane expressions. Thereupon, Mr. Robinson walked into his dressing room on the set. A minute or so later Mr. Robinson returned to the set and addressed himself to Mr. Raft, substantially as follows: "George, what a fool you are for carrying on in such an unprofessional manner. What's the use of going on? I have come here to do my work and not to indulge in anything of this nature. It seems impossible for me to continue." Following such remarks Mr Raft directed another volley of profanity and obscene language toward Mr. Robinson, whereupon Director Raoul Walsh, Assistant Director Russell Saunders, and others, fearing further personal violence on the set between the two men, jumped in and separated them, and Mr. Edward G. Robinson left for his dressing room off the set and the entire production was stopped...

As a result of the controversy between the two Principals on Stage 11, all further work involving the two principals was suspended from just prior to noon on Saturday, April 26, 1941, until Monday morning, April 28, 1941, and the general confusion, etc., on the set was such that the undersigned corporation lost an entire day in production, resulting in a large financial loss to the undersigned corporation. The effect of the disturbance was such that Mr. Robinson became highly nervous and such nervous condition affected his voice and made the same husky so that he was unable to properly and clearly speak his lines and otherwise give the artistic and creative performance of which he is capable. The said Edward G. Robinson, by reason of the above-mentioned occurrences, has demanded of the undersigned corporation that it give him full protection on the set from bodily harm and insulting demeanor from Mr. George Raft, making the position of the Company an extremely difficult one in its effort to produce a photoplay of artistic merit under the circumstances shown...

The undersigned feels that the above occurrences are of such serious import that they should be officially called to the attention of the Screen Actors Guild...

Yours very truly, 

WARNER BROS. PICTURES, INC. 

By: Roy Obringer 

Above and below: two scenes from Manpower with its three leading actors Robinson, Dietrich and Raft. The film became a solid box-office success despite the problems on the set. 

Source of the letter: Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951) (1985), selected, edited and annotated by Rudy Behlmer.

Edward G. Robinson: Art Lover & Collector

While Edward G. Robinson is mostly known for playing gangsters and tough guys on the big screen, in real life he was a man of refined taste. He loved art and was Hollywood's first major art collector, owning quite an impressive collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. Robinson didn't think of himself as a collector, though. He once stated: "I am not a collector. I am just an innocent bystander who has been taken over by a collection. [...] I am just a lover of paintings. I do what I do for the sheer joy of it."*

In 1956, Robinson was forced to sell his art collection in order to pay for his divorce from his first wife Gladys Lloyd. He sold the collection for more than $3 million to Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos. After marrying Jane Adler in 1958, Robinson started to collect art once again. This second collection, which was even bigger than the first, was sold for more than $5 million to an American industrialist a few months after Robinson's death in 1973.

The Praying Jew

There were a few major exhibitions featuring Robinson's art collection. One of them was an exhibition in 1953 called Forty Paintings from the Edward G. Robinson Collection, which included works by Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pablo Picasso. The exhibition was first shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 4 March to 12 April, and later travelled to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC where it was displayed from 10 May to 24 June. It was at the exhibit in Washington where a Mr. Goldberg saw Marc Chagall's painting The Praying Jew and immediately fell in love with it. Wishing to own a reproduction of the painting, Goldberg wrote a letter to both its owner Robinson and its maker Chagall, asking for permission to have a copy made. Both men wrote Goldberg back --their letters are shown below-- with Robinson granting the permission Goldberg had asked for.

Transcript:

June 9, 1953

Mr. William Goldberg

726 Somerser Place, N.W.,

Washington 11, D.C.

Dear Mr. Goldberg:

Thank you for your letter of May 30th, 1953. I am very happy that you enjoyed my pictures displayed at the National Art Gallery, in your city. It is quite a coincidence that as you say, "you fell in love" with "Old Jew with Torah" by Chagall, as that picture is one of my favorites also. 

I genuinely regret that I have no copy or reprint of the picture; otherwise I would be very happy to send it to you. 

If you wish to have said picture photographed while it is hanging in the gallery, you have my permission to do so and may use this letter for that purpose.

Yours sincerely,

(signed)

Edward G. Robinson

Transcript:

25 septembre 1953

Monsieur W. GOLDBERG
726 Somerset Place N.W.
WASHINGTON D C

Cher Monsieur,

J'ai bien reçu votre amaible letter. Malheureusement, je ne peux pas vous donner le renseignement que vous me demandez. Il faut, pour cela, vous addresser au collectioneur Robenson [sic] qui pourra vous indiquer si des reproductions de ce tableau ont été faites. 
Veuillez recevoir, cher Monsieur, l'assurance de mes sentiments distingués.

Chagall
(signed)

Translation:

Dear Sir,

I have received your kind letter. Unfortunately, I cannot give you the information you ask for. For this you need to contact the collector Robenson who could tell you if reproductions of the painting were made.
Please accept, dear Sir, the assurance of my highest consideration.

Chagall

Images of both letters via ebay.

*Click here for Robinson's statement accompanying the exhibition at the MOMA in New York in 1953 (beginning with the words "I am not a collector..."), and for a list of the 40 paintings Robinson had loaned to the museum.