Two Letters from
George, a short essay
Philip Kassel
For as long as I can remember I have loved film; I have loved good
stories expertly told through the cinematic process. As a student at the USC School of
Cinema-Television, as it was then called, I was exposed to most of the best
films ever produced. Viewing old
but significant films was part of the curriculum. From the silents to the talkies, the
school provided at least two screenings weekly, and often more, of a large
variety of film of every genre.
The professors at the school all encouraged new thinking and
innovation in the cinematic arts, but they also strongly believed that it was
important for every student to know what had “come before.” They taught that a strong understanding
of the classic, and often iconic films produced in the first fifty years of the
industry would form a solid foundation upon which to form new, creative ideas.
Long before actually attending the film school at USC I was certain I
wanted a career in filmmaking and to that end I came up with a variety of ways
to get myself in to most of the major studios in Los Angeles. In those days, before this era begun by
the events in September 2001, it really wasn’t all that difficult. I discovered in most cases, if I looked
like I knew where I was going, if I looked like I belonged there, I could
simply walk past the gate guards.
For the one or two studios that enforced stricter security I found ways
to sneak in. Once inside I would
explore the back lot, production offices and sound stages looking for names I
recognized, names I had seen on the big screen for years, names that I hoped
might let me work with them in some small capacity.
I would usually just leave my credit list with a secretary or personal
assistant. Now and then while
strolling around a studio property I would encounter a director, producer or
actor I recognized. On those
occasions I would work up my nerve, introduce myself with as much false
confidence as I could muster, shake their hand and then quickly explain what I
wanted. No one ever dismissed me;
some of them directed me to their office to leave my credit list and some took it
with them.
Very shortly after graduating from film school, in early March 1975, I
was on one of these forays at Universal Studios. While working my way through several offices
located in bungalows on the back lot I came across a name on a door that I recognized
immediately, George Seaton. He was
a first class writer-director and I had seen many of his films screened in the
film school at USC.
For readers who may not be familiar with the name, George Seaton ventured
into the entertainment industry directly upon graduating from college, first
working as a voice actor at a Detroit radio station. Early in 1933 the station was test
broadcasting a new show called The Lone
Ranger. John Barrett voiced the
Ranger during the test phase but when the decision was made to make the show
part of the regular schedule George Seaton took over the title role. Much later in his career he would
explain to interviewers how he devised the phrase “Hi-yo Silver” because he
couldn’t whistle for his horse as written in the early scripts.
Mr. Seaton entered the film industry as a writer, first penning stories
for films starring Jimmy Durante and Leo Carrillo. At 20th Century Fox he wrote
an uncredited draft of the screenplay for the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera. The whacky brothers liked his work
enough that they encouraged him to write something else for them; Mr. Seaton responded
with the original story and screenplay for A
Day at the Races. After another
uncredited contribution to The Wizard of
Oz, he went on to write The Doctor
Takes a Wife, Charley’s Aunt, and
The Song of Bernadette, just to name
a few of his forty writing credits.
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| George Seaton, 1955 |
Included among George Seaton’s 23 directing credits (the majority of
which he wrote as well) are Junior Miss,
The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, The Counterfeit Traitor, The Pleasure of His Company, and The Country Girl. The Country
Girl not only garnered Mr. Seaton an Academy Award in the Best Writing,
Adapted Screenplay category, but also won Grace Kelly the Oscar for Best
Actress.
My favorite George Seaton film is a charming, timeless Christmas fable
titled Miracle on 34th Street. Mr. Seaton wrote and directed this 1947
release, adapting the screenplay from a short story by Valentine Davies. This marvelous film won Academy Awards
for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Edmund Gwenn), Best Writing, Original
Story (Valentine Davies), and Best Writing, Screenplay going to George Seaton.
Miracle on 34th
Street captures the joyful innocence of childhood along with the warmth and
traditions of the holiday season.
It portrays American life encompassing strong values and a large degree of
wholesomeness. Of course, it
is “just a movie” but it is a movie that reflected a way of life and a set of
values that has been almost completely lost in the United States. I believe Miracle on 34th Street still charms and resonates
strongly with audiences today, over 65 years after it was produced, because
they hunger for that way of life and those values, often whether they realize
it or not.
Before these last few paragraphs of background material on George
Seaton I was standing at his office door on the Universal Studios back
lot. I went inside, and after
explaining my mission to the secretary at the front desk, asked if I might
leave my credit list with her for Mr. Seaton. She told me I could certainly leave my
credit list but then suggested that I also write Mr. Seaton a personal
letter. Handing me a business card
she explained that Mr. Seaton enjoyed getting letters from aspiring young
people. I was very young at the time.
So, home I went and that very afternoon composed a letter to George
Seaton. My letter was very basic
but articulate. I introduced
myself, explained my career goals and then assured him I would gain a great
deal by working with him in any capacity (I didn’t know very much about job
hunting back in those days). My letter
concluded requesting a meeting with him to discuss my career possibilities. I mailed my letter (this was long before
email, folks) and then waited in anticipation for a reply.
I never got to meet with George Seaton, but ten days after mailing my
letter I received a reply. Here is
the letter in its entirety.
March 20, 1975
Dear Mr. Kassel,
I only wish that I could answer your excellent letter by giving you
some hope. I’m forever saddened by
the lack of opportunities open to someone of your experience and ambition.
If I were actively engaged in a production I would be more than happy
to talk with you and try to arrange some working arrangement. Unfortunately I am now in the throes of
writing an original which if it eventually goes into production will not be
before the summer of ’76.
Since you are a writer as well as a director, cameraman and editor my
only suggestion would be for you to attempt a feature length script. From my experience, with dozens of young
filmmakers, this seems to be the only open door. It’s worked with others and might do the
same for you.
Studios are not so willing to evaluate someone’s talent by viewing
short subjects but they are more than anxious to latch onto a script with
possibilities. If, and when, they
find something with a potential they might (and, indeed, have) allowed the
writer to direct his own script.
The only other avenue of entry into a studio is by starting in the
mail room – not a job of prestige for someone of your background but at
least it provides an opportunity to climb the ladder. This is especially true at Universal
where they make an effort to advance those who are truly interested in making
films.
Since I notice that you are a graduate of U.S.C. it might be helpful
if Dr. Kantor would write a letter to Universal pleading your case. He knows to whom to write.
Good luck.
Sincerely,
[signed] George Seaton
Of course I was disappointed that there
would be no immediate employment with a notable writer-director at a major
Hollywood studio. But I was still
encouraged by Mr. Seaton’s letter and appreciated that he had taken the time
not only to write, but to make suggestions as to how I might accomplish my
goals.
As for his suggestions, I was relatively
certain I did not want to work in the Universal Studios mail room. I was relatively certain that I didn’t
want to work in any mail room. As for Dr. Bernard Kantor, then dean of
the USC School of Cinema-Television, he knew me only as an undergraduate who
had pestered him incessantly to sign a registration card granting me entrance
to the school one semester earlier than the rules allowed. Dr. Kantor did eventually sign that card
but beyond that he was completely unaware of me or my work at the school. A recommendation letter from him seemed
unlikely.
That left Mr. Seaton’s first suggestion
of attempting to write a feature-length screenplay. At that point in my life I had never
written anything but short films, but I had been required to write a screen
treatment for a feature-length film in an undergraduate writing class. I dusted off that treatment and began
transforming it into a screenplay.
I had to work on it in my spare time and it was my first feature-length
screenplay, so it took a while.
1975 came to an end and I was still
working on my screenplay. I was
also still trying to get my first “real” job in the film industry. I remembered from his letter that George
Seaton had been working on a new script he predicted might go into production
the summer of 1976. Hey, it was
1976. It was only February but I
thought it best to get a jump on all the other aspiring filmmakers. I wrote another letter. A few weeks later I received the reply
that follows.
February 26, 1976
Dear Mr. Kassel,
I’m afraid that this letter is not going to be any more encouraging
than my other one.
Unfortunately the project on which I was working (and referred to in
my note to you) was considered not commercial enough by the studio. Since the dialogue was based on words in
the English language and not copied from the walls of men’s toilets, and since
it did not include a giant shark devouring a 747 that crashes in the Bermuda
Triangle with 110 passengers aboard, it was judged too tame for today’s market.
I am now writing another original which, I’m afraid, will be rejected
for the same reasons. However I
keep trying in the hope that one day audiences will grow tired of sadistic
brutality, tidal waves, earthquakes, holocausts and man-eating spiders. I’m beginning to believe that Oscar
Wilde was right when he said:
“Nothing succeeds like excess.”
So until Oscar turns out to be wrong I’m afraid that I won’t be active
and consequently not in a position to consider a production, let alone a
production assistant.
Sincerely,
[signed] George Seaton
At the time I was just disappointed. I wanted a job but there was no job to
be had. That was pretty much all
there was to it for me. Furthermore,
I didn’t think the language I heard in feature films was all that bad, I
enjoyed disaster films with awesome special effects and I was often fascinated
with how filmmakers could make shootings, beatings, and stabbings look so
convincing. After all, it was only
entertainment, it was just the movies.
The issues addressed by Mr. Seaton had been completely lost on me. By the way, George Seaton is credited
with having originated the disaster film genre when he wrote and directed
Universal’s 1970 release, Airport.
Mr. Seaton had no way of knowing it but by the time he first
corresponded with me he had already directed his last motion picture; the film
was titled Showdown and it was
released in 1973. Three years after
writing his second letter to me in 1976, he would be dead from cancer at the
young age of 68.
Under the circumstances one might be tempted to say that George Seaton
had just hung on too long. He was
left over from an era in Hollywood that produced motion pictures much more
wholesome in content than those being produced in 1976. And when that old Hollywood was inclined to produce a picture dealing with
unwholesome subject matter they did so tastefully. Maybe George Seaton just didn’t
understand that times were changing, that he was living in a progressive, more
accepting society.
By the time I rediscovered Mr. Seaton’s letters in my files, sometime
in the 1990s, I had a different perspective. I was considerably more mature and
experienced in life; I had been working in the motion picture industry in a
variety of capacities for over 20 years.
I had experienced a few successes and a whole lot more
disappointments. I had married and
had produced two wonderful children.
Like most children mine enjoyed seeing a good movie from time to
time. My job as a parent was to
make sure the movies they saw were appropriate for them. Having children makes one look at a lot
of things differently.
I found that George Seaton’s letter of February 26, 1976 carried a
deeper meaning now. I began
comparing the contemporary films I had seen to the films of the 1970s. The newer films were clearly more
permissive in subject matter, much more liberal in all uses of language, and considerably
more graphic in depictions of violence.
Then there was the question of tastefulness in how all of the
aforementioned elements were handled.
I can only imagine how Mr. Seaton perceived the films of the 1970s when
compared to those of the ‘30s and ‘40s.
The issues addressed by Mr. Seaton in his letter were not new to our
society in 1976. Whether he was
consciously addressing it or not, growing permissiveness and the increasing
abandonment of Bible-based values have been present in the motion picture
industry from the moment Thomas Edison successfully demonstrated the Kinetosope
in 1891.
The film industry, as we know it today, probably began in 1902 with
the completion of Talley’s Electric Theater in Los Angeles, California, the
first theater built with the specific purpose of projecting films. By the 1920s there was increasing
pressure on the Federal government to censor movies. It obviously didn’t take long for
filmmakers to discover that exploiting the darkest, weakest elements of human
existence, and pushing every imaginable boundary drew an audience.
Hollywood responded to the threats of government wielded censorship by
establishing the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1922,
a trade organization with former Postmaster General William H. Hays as
president. The Hays Code regulated
how sex, nudity, drug and alcohol use, and all forms of violence could be
displayed on the screen. It
prohibited the use of on-screen profanity, “ridicule of the clergy, and willful
offense to any nation, race or creed.”
These are just a few examples; it was an extensive list of regulations.
The Hays office kept a watchful eye on motion picture content well
into the 1960s. This is how the
Motion Picture Association of America describes what happened next in their web
site’s “History of the MPAA.”
“In the late 1960s our nation was changing, and so was its cinema.
Alongside the progress of the civil rights, women's rights and labor movements,
a new kind of American film was emerging - frank and open. Amid our society's expanding freedoms,
the movie industry's restrictive regime of self-censorship could not stand. In 1966, former Special Assistant to
President Lyndon Johnson, Jack Valenti, was named MPAA President. That same year, sweeping revisions were
made to the Hays Code to reflect changing social mores. In 1968, Jack Valenti, who went on to
hold the position for 38 years, founded the voluntary film rating system giving
creative and artistic freedoms to filmmakers while fulfilling its core purpose
of informing parents about the content of films so they can determine what
movies are appropriate for their kids. More than forty years later, the system
continues to evolve with our society and endures as a shining symbol of
American freedom of expression.”
To me this MPAA paragraph is a message from motion picture producers
that essentially translates to, We aren’t
going to be told what we can and can’t do anymore. We are going to make films about
anything we want in any way we want, and we’re going to keep making them as
long as our audience keeps buying tickets.
Yes, the audience is part of
the problem. We are all responsible. Filmmakers and audiences alike are
moving further and further away from what is true, good, solid and
dependable. We are moving closer to
the darkness and further from the light.
The majority of filmmakers frequently produce morally, ethically, and
spiritually questionable products, and the audience flock to the theaters, stream
it into their living rooms and download it to their iPhones. The real issue is how we, as a nation are
steadily drifting away from a solid foundation of Bible-based values.
Today, if you don’t like the “frank and open” nature of the American
film you should be prepared to be labeled as a prude or close-minded. You are blind to the way life really is. You are stuck in the past, you are too
religious, and you aren’t keeping up with our rapidly changing society. But films influence our culture and
morality and the range of influence is immense. With the technology of today even a
small, independent film can potentially reach tens of millions of people. Amateur film and video efforts posted on
YouTube routinely reach even greater numbers than that.
George Seaton realized from professional experience that motion
pictures greatly amplify everything we are as human beings, both the good and
the bad. Movies reflect what our
society believes, our morals and ethics, our measure of faith, our reverence or
lack thereof for God. Movies are a
giant mirror of who we are as a people.
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| George Seaton with Ross Hunter |
When you buy a ticket or pay to stream a film depicting recreational
sex or drug use without any
responsibility attached, how do you like the reflection you see? When you look in the movie mirror to learn
how to expertly traffic drugs as taught by the “cool” drug dealer, how does
that reflection look to you? Sit
down to watch the contemporary horror and slasher films displaying the darkest,
most perverse aspects of the human psyche while striving to shock audiences
with unthinkable gore and brutality.
Do you like the reflection you see?
For the record, I still love films and the art of filmmaking. Granted, I’m much more discerning in the
films I choose to see, but I still believe in the potential motion pictures
have to educate, uplift, and heighten social awareness, as well as entertain.
I cannot claim to know the depths of George Seaton’s thoughts based
simply on the two letters he wrote to me.
Based on the films he wrote and directed, I think he believed it was far
nobler to make a film that uplifted and gave hope to his audiences, even if he
was dealing with dark, violent or ugly subject matter. Just from looking at how Mr. Seaton
handled the wide range of topics in his long list of films it is clear that he
realized the power of film can make audiences aware of important issues,
suggest solutions, and sometimes even point to a better way. All of his films were made with taste,
dignity and a respect for his audience.
George Seaton’s letters tell me that he thought filmmakers should
strive to do better, to be more responsible, and to move away from the darkness
and towards the light. And he had
worked long enough in the entertainment industry to realize that audiences can
powerfully influence the films that are produced simply by not buying a ticket. We
can all benefit from behaving more responsibly, filmmakers and audiences
alike. It’s something to strive for.
© 2012 Philip Kassel
