The Directors: Walter Lang

In the forties, 20th Century Fox might have been best known for its musical output (and maybe a little film noir), thanks in part to two people.  One was Betty Grable who was the most popular movie star of the decade.  That is due to the fact that she starred in most of the Fox musicals.  Secondly, there is Walter Lang, the director of six of Grable's 40's flicks and the studio's primary director of all its musicals.

Musicals weren't his only avenue for Hollywood glory.  Comedies figured in there prominently as well.  He did few dramas and no westerns or film noirs (for which I forgive him) but his musicals and comedies were held in high esteem.  He's not the father of the movie musical but migawd he must at least be an uncle.

Lang was born in 1896 in Memphis, Tennessee.  Not much is known about his early life although he developed a love of (oil) painting and sketching early in life and it would never leave him.  He also joined the army for the duration of WWI, spending most of his time in France.

Upon his release Lang obtained a clerical job with a film production company in New York.  He became quickly fascinated by the creative energy surrounding him and immersed himself in finding out all he could about the business.  He talked with coworkers, investigated and learned all he could about making movies.   Soon he was hired on as an assistant director.

By 1926 he directed his first film and by the early thirties he'd made quite a few films, most of them undistinguished but he tucked away all he learned.  Despite knowing he wanted to direct movies, it conflicted with his love of oil painting.  As a result, in the early thirties he upped and moved to Paris to join with the mob of painters and writers that engulfed the Montparnasse Quarter of the city.  While he was always pleased he did it, it did not last and soon enough he was back in Southern California.

Upon his return he directed his good pal Carole Lombard (who would become his son's godmother) in a comedy.  As a result Lang met her friend Madalynne Field, a former actress, who was then working as Lombard's secretary.  Lang and Field married in 1937, had a son and  would remain married all of Lang's life.

In the mid-30s, he was hired by Fox to direct some forgettable Loretta Young movie and it turned out to be a happy, successful and rare partnership for director and studio until Lang's retirement in 1961.

His first films with the studio were rather lackluster but he gained some attention when he worked on three Shirley Temple movies.  The best was 1939's The Little Princess (which caused her to turn down The Wizard of Oz) and he worked uncredited that same year on Susannah of the Mounties and the following year The Blue Bird, a film that failed every time it was made. 

Faye and Grable in Tin Pan Alley

Lang struck gold when he landed Tin Pan Alley (1940) with Grable and Alice Faye as sisters who help sell a tune for songwriters John Payne and Jack Oakie.  Its most popular number was The Sheik of Araby  with Faye and Grable singing and dancing in their sexy costumes.  Also featured are the fabulous Nicholas Brothers who increased the visibility of any movie in which they appeared.

Earlier in the year Grable made quite a splash in Down Argentine Way and as a result a part was created for her in Tin Pan Alley.  However, Lang's favorite was Faye whom he called the warmest, sweetest and most unaffected of the female stars with whom he worked.

The remainder of the Lang-Grable collaborations, as I see it, were run-of-the-mill B musicals... Moon Over Miami (1941), Song of the Islands (1942), Coney Island (1943), Mother Wore Tights (1947) and When My Baby Smiles at Me (1948).  All are fun in their way but the studio couldn't crank out Grable movies fast enough.  The public clamored to see more and more of her with the end result being so-so flicks.  Of course the public didn't care as long as  the peaches and cream Grable starred. The final two costarred Dan Dailey (one of Grable's best partners) and these movies are the first two of four that featured the pair.

Star Dust (1940) should certainly be seen by all fans of Linda Darnell.  The story concerns a young Hollywood hopeful who gets a contract and then is rejected because she is deemed too young.  The story closely parallels the real-life travails of young Darnell at Fox.  Payne costars as an actor who helps her find her way.

John Barrymore lampoons himself in The Great Profile (1940) as a drunk who nearly ruins the show in which he stars.   Payne, Anne Baxter and Mary Beth Hughes are featured.  Lang said it was not one of his favorite assignments.

Carmen Miranda and her director

Grable was supposed to star in Weekend in Havana (1941) but backed out and was replaced by Faye.  Payne, Carmen Miranda and Cesar Romero joined in the comedy songfest.  It is lightweight fare to be sure but I'd guess anyone who sees it is delighted.  Great cast.

A nearly-forgotten comedy, The Magnificent Dope (1942), features Henry Fonda as a lazy hick whose country karma is more than a match for scheming self-help school operators Don Ameche and Lynn Bari.  

In 1942 his beloved friend Lombard, 33, was killed in a plane crash on a war bond tour and both Langs were devastated.  They were afraid for their friend and Lombard's widower, Clark Gable. 

BFFs Lang and Carole Lombard

The second of three versions of State Fair  was released in 1945.  The story of a farm family and their trip to the Iowa fair where the parents win prizes and their adult children find romance.  The story lacked spark when featuring Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews and came alive when Dick Haymes and Vivian Blaine were singing.   All I Owe Ioway and It's a Grand Night for Singing are my favorite numbers and I occasionally catch them on YouTube.  It's one of Lang's most remembered movies.

Sentimental Journey (1946) was certainly that and perhaps too much for some people.  It's the story of a Broadway couple and the wife who proposes they adopt a little girl when she learns she is going to die.  Personally my journey involved seeing Payne and Maureen O'Hara play off one another which they did in three movies.  This was the last time the director worked with his buddy Payne.

Lang and Clifton Webb formed a mutually respectful relationship by simply running into one another on the lot and occasionally lunching together.  The better they got to know one another, the more they wanted to work together.  But for whatever reason, it didn't happen until 1948 and then it would happen twice and send Webb's career into the heavens.    Prior to their first collaboration, Webb had only been featured in (very good) dramas, including two superior noirs.

Sitting Pretty (1948) with O'Hara and Robert Young, introduced Webb as a fussy and manipulative babysitter (actually a writer trying to get background on a typical American family).  Lynn Belvedere was the character and he would be featured less successfully in two sequels.

A popular, turn-of-the-century memoir about stern paterfamilias of a large brood, became Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), an even more successful outing for Lang and Webb.   Myrna Loy was well-suited to play his wife.  It may be Webb's best comedy.

The biopic of 40s singer Jane Froman, With a Song in My Heart (1952), was a major hit for Fox, Lang and star Susan Hayward.  At its heart is the plane crash that caused Froman grave injuries although she mounted an impressive comeback.  Lang was such an easy man to get along with that even the temperamental Hayward managed it, although she was very keen about this project.  

Lang also got along with another temperamental star, Ethel Merman, when she repeated her Broadway success in the film version of 

Call Me Madam (1953).  She plays the boisterous (oh?) ambassador to Lichtenstein while romancing a singing George Sanders.  Donald O'Connor and Vera-Ellen handled the dancing expertly.  It is a delightful film for Merman fans. 

Lang, Merman and O'Connor stuck around Fox to make the musical extravaganza There's No Business Like Show Business (1954).  It was not as popular with the public as Call Me Madam but many times more popular with me.

If there was any doubt that Lang was Fox's favorite musical director, it would be dispelled when he signed on to helm the lavish Rodgers and Hammerstein hit, The King and I (1956), the film Lang would be most remembered for.  The sad part is that he frequently clashed with star-bully Yul Brynner who, in fact, made many of the directorial suggestions that made their way into the finished film.  Interestingly, Lang received his only Oscar nomination for this film.

Lang surely had his hands full with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in The Desk Set (1957).  In the eighth of their nine films together, they ate directors for breakfast and the easy-going Lang was certainly no exception.  Doesn't the story of two control freaks trying to monopolize the computerization of a television network's research department sound like knee-slapping fun?  Well, it's not and little wonder why it took the two stars 10 years to make their final film together.

If The Desk Set was not a success for Lang, it didn't hold a candle to his final four movies which lacked the charm of much of his earlier work.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed two of them.  Perhaps Lang had lost part of the glow he'd maintained for so many years.  It may have had something to do with his good buddy, studio head Darryl Zanuck, having great difficulty holding on at Fox.  His move caused turmoil for many.

The only time Lang worked at another studio during the decades he was under contract at Fox was when he directed But Not for Me (1959)

for Paramount.  That was because star Clark Gable not only asked for him but said he would not make the film if Lang were not attached to it.  

Clark Gable and Lilli Palmer

Gable plays a married Broadway producer who is about to retire.  When he informs his secretary, Carroll Baker, she responds by telling him she loves him.  He, in turn, elects to star her in one last play and enjoy a brief flirtation.  Much is made in the script about their age difference and much was made about it by critics and the public as well.  How she could go for Gable when handsome Barry Coe loved her and how Gable could go for her when he was married to the divine Lilli Palmer is a complete puzzlement.  Palmer, by the way, is the best reason for seeing the film and the second is to hear Ella Fitzgerald sing the title song.  

Can-Can (1960) was probably more famous for Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and his wife visiting the set at Fox and declaring that the film was pornographic.  Perhaps he needed to get out more.  Had he done so, he might have known in advance of the visit that the can-can was performed by women who wore no panties.  

It was not a happy production for Lang mainly because of Sinatra whose production company was behind the film.  Sinatra also hired himself for the lead in a part that was not in the Broadway show.  Like Brynner, Sinatra was another control freak and one wonders if Shirley MacLaine, not exactly Shirley Temple, didn't aid in Lang's woes.  Perhaps it was time to think about retirement.

The Marriage-Go-Round  (1961) was yet another Lang project that was previously a Broadway play.  James Mason and Susan Hayward play host to Swedish hottie Julie Newmar who wants Mason to father a child with her.  Oh, your mind and my body, she purrs.  The comedy comes from their marriage going into a tailspin... Hayward is appalled at the request while Mason is passionately intrigued.

I loved the sparring between the Hayward and Mason.  I had wanted them to make a movie together (both were under contract to Fox) but had, of course, expected a drama.  Comedy was the forte of neither but I was captivated watching them.  The film, however, simply didn't work... words like artless, corny and cheesy come to mind.  

And if one thinks that was cheesy, just contemplate for a moment Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961).  Can you imagine such a title and the lunatic plot they must have come up with?  Needless to say, I missed it and I'm betting you did too.  For Lang, of course, directing it was an ignominy, a precipitous fall from grace and all this lovely gentleman needed to take his final bow.

Shortly thereafter he and his wife moved to Palm Springs, California, a city he dearly loved, where he spent much time painting and sketching.  A year or two after his retirement, his old employer called and asked if he would like to direct the big screen adaptation of The Sound of Music.  He could not be persuaded.  One wonders what a man of his background would have done with the film although I think its eventual director, Robert Wise, has nothing to be ashamed of.

In early 1973 Lang underwent vein surgery and appeared to be recovering.  But a week later he died of kidney failure in Palm Springs at age 75.

It was not John Ford, Henry King, Jean Negulesco, Otto Preminger, Henry Hathaway or any other Fox contract director who was at the studio the longest... it was Walter Lang.  If his fortunes rose at Fox, the studio's fortunes rose due to Lang.  

When I was still a kid and getting into what directors did and who the big names were, of course, as a movie musical fanatic, I learned of Walter Lang.  His love of painting is likely responsible for why so many of his films are so beautiful to see.   He was a great influence on musicals and a great influence on me as well.

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