Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

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Lzcutter
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Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Lzcutter »

Here's the link to the announcement about Steven Bingen's visit: http://silverscreenoasis.com/oasis3/vie ... =29&t=5809


We are pleased to announce that Steve Bingen, co-author of the popular MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, will be our July Guest Star joining us for the weekend of July 20th. M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot is the illustrated history of the soundstages and outdoor sets where Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the premier Hollywood dream factory, produced many of the world’s most famous films. During its Golden Age, the studio employed the likes of Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, and Clark Gable, and produced innumerable iconic pieces of cinema such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, and Ben-Hur.

The sprawling studio is located not in Hollywood but the bustling suburb of Culver City. Of all the dream factories, MGM had one of the most prolific and largest backlots. It was home to Tarzan’s Africa, Andy Hardy’s neighborhood, the turn of the century town of Meet Me in St. Louis, the Cotton Blossom of Showboat drifted down the backlot’s river and the Paris of American in Paris, along with countless other films that are considered classic films.

It is estimated that a fifth of all films made in the United States prior to the 1970s were shot at MGM studios, meaning that the gigantic property was responsible for hundreds of iconic sets and stages, often utilizing and transforming minimal spaces and previously used props, to create some of the most recognizable and identifiable landscapes of modern movie culture.

All of this happened behind closed doors, the backlot shut off from the public in a veil of secrecy and movie magic. M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot highlights this fascinating film treasure by recounting the history, popularity, and success of the MGM company through a tour of its physical property. The book is filled with never before seen images of the studio and the backlot.

Our guest, Steven Bingen has also written Warner Bros.: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of and has contributed to numerous books, documentaries, and magazines. He holds a staff position at Warner Bros. Corporate Archive, aiding in the preservation and management of the studio’s legend and legacy. With Steven Sylvester, who explored the backlot back in the 1968 and 1975 before it was developed into housing tracts, and Michael Troyan, the author of A Rose for Mrs. Miniver: The Films of Greer Garson, they worked together to produce this book which takes its readers behind that veil of secrecy and explores the history of one of the most beloved studios in the history of Hollywood.

We hope you are as excited about his upcoming visit as we are! So, start thinking of the questions you want answered about that most fabled of dream factories and join us beginning Friday, July 20th for a weekend of studio and film archival history.

“The first ten films I made for MGM changed my life. Now you can go back in time—as I have—in the pages of this remarkable book, learning how and where the ‘Land of Make Believe’ became real. Once you take the journey, you, too, will be transported.”
— Angela Lansbury

“For anyone who has ever dreamed what it was like to live in the Golden Age of Hollywood, this visit to my grandfather’s studio will vividly re-create the experience. From hometown USA to eighteenth century France to medieval England to a village in China, the memories of all the great films that were made there will spring back to life.” —Daniel Mayer Selznick

Here's his website: http://www.mgmbacklot.info/

So please feel free to join us here and ask Mr. Bingen questions regarding MGM's backlots, the famed studio and other history questions you may have.

This is the thread to post your questions for Steven.
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Lzcutter »

Steven,

Welcome to the Silver Screen Oasis! I have really enjoyed your book on the MGM backlot. When I first got to the City of Angels in 1977, part of the back lot was still standing but looking very forlorn. I remember thinking even back then, how great it would be if there was a book or a documentary on the famed lot.

Now, of course, time has marched on. The backlot is no more, the studio is now owned by Sony and has grown though you can still seem remnants from the old MGM days as you drive around the outside of the lot.

How did you and your co-authors become interested in doing a book on the studio and the backlot?
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by moira finnie »

Hi Steve,
Welcome to the SSO and thank you for your sharing some time with us. One of the things that you and your co-authors Stephen X. Sylvester and Michael Troyan captured well in this book was the wealth of talent at every level employed by this company; from carpenters to researchers to writers to actors and directors. When the studio began in the '20s, was there a clear business plan to make this the "Tiffany" of movie studios or did it just evolve that way?
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Steven Bingen »

Thanks to all of you for inviting me. The book came about because, well, let me paraphrase something I told someone the last time I was asked, if I may. To say that I've always been a film buff would be accurate and obvious. But it would also be irrelevant. I didn't grow up in LA, so Hollywood seemed a world away from my real life. Perhaps because it all seemed so alien, I found myself particularly obsessed with movies where a character would go to Hollywood and crash the gates of a studio. You know, Hollywood or Bust"" or "The Errand Boy," or "Anchors Aweigh" or Pee Wee's big Adventure." Pictures where Jerry Lewis or someone would find themselves inside a movie lot and experiencing its marvels and mysteries. But material about these studies themselves, as opposed to the movies made there, seemed almost conspiratorially vague. To this day, if you dredge up any book written about the Hollywood studios, you'll find someplace inside, amidst all the text about the films and about the stars that studio created, a single sentence or a paragraph (with one aerial photo, maybe) about the physical place where these pictures and stars came from. And that paragraph, will always say how amazing, how wondrous and Oz-like this place was - and then go back to its discussion of Judy Garland's personal problems and not describe it further!

This was inexplicable and maddening. Think about it this way. If a book has the words "Paramount Studios" on its cover, well, shouldn't there be more than a paragraph inside about "Paramount Studios?" I remember thinking after the 8th or 9th "Paramount Studios" book, that if a farmer had bought a manual about raising tomatoes, only to find that said manual was really about the tomatoes themselves, the politics of raising tomatoes, and how much people enjoyed (or didn't) eating those tomatoes. Well, he probably would have been justified in returning that book to the feed store and asking for his money back! But no one but me ever questioned or even seemed to notice that there was something odd and mysterious about any of this. This mystery, and I didn't know what else to call it, eventually was one of the factors that brought me to Hollywood. One of the first things I did when I moved out here was to drive out to see the physical lots of all seven of the majors. I spent days walking their fence lines and peeking through knotholes in those fences. Oddly, I felt like I'd been to all of these places before. And onscreen at least, I really had. We all have. So my interest in movie "studios" only deepened. I started talking to other film buffs who all seemed to feel the same way. Two of them, Steve Sylvester and Michael Troyan (who had written a great book about MGM star Greer Garson) turned out to be as crazy on the subjest as I was. So we started working together. And, well, here we are.
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Lzcutter »

Steven,

Thanks for the back story. Like you, I've always been fascinated with the studio lots. Having landed in the City of Angels only a few years after That's Entertainment hit the theaters, MGM was always of particular interest to me. I wanted to do one of my first films at SC on the studio but was unable to get permission to film (in 16mm) before the project was due.

I have a couple of questions-

1) How did the three of you divvy up work on the book?

2) How difficult was it to find images of the backlot? Can you talk about some of the resources you were able to use?

3) Did you interview former MGM employees and how did you decide who to interview?
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Sue Sue Applegate »

Hi, Steve Bingen!

We are so thrilled that you are our guest here this weekend. The story of your fascination is a little like all of our experiences. Most of us here at the SSO didn't grow up in Hollywood or L.A., and Hollywood is a world away from our own personal experience, so your "tomato" analogy is quite fitting. Most of the biographies and compilations do focus on the machinations and psyches of the more popular, most famous, or obviously quirky personalities and often ignore the actual places that made our favorite films vivid.

To me, I feel that the commissary was one of the social hubs of the MGM lot, and many claim it was a place where the "pecking" order most obvioiusly revealed itself. I was wondering what you and your co-authors might have discovered about its prominence.

How many folks might be able to enjoy lunch at the same time? What were some of the more popular meals? Was there unlimited beverage service? I would love to find out a little more about where folks would meet, greet, and eat.

Lynn, I'd also enjoy reading the responses to those last three questions!

Thanks for your time and consideration, Steve!

Sincerely,
Christy
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Steven Bingen »

I promise to try to answer everyone’s questions. If you were nice enough to bother to ask ‘em, the least I can do is throw something back your way. So this one is for “Moria,” and regards weather or not MGM became the Tiffanies of studios by accident or design.

My feeling, and this is just a hunch, is that the merger that created the company was a business strategy only. Loews and Schenck were carpetbaggers who wouldn’t have spent anything on their product they didn’t have to. They would have operated exactly like their contemporaries at other studios, and their product and their factory would have reflected this.

Mayer, however was the wild card. He’s taken a lot of heat over the years and often comes across as a bit of a buffoon. But I’ve read his remarks on the day the studio was incorporated. He sounds just like Lincoln at Gettysburg! It’s like he was inspired to do something more with what he was given. And whatever you may think of him, the studio and its films reflected his vision. Good and bad.

In reality the studio and its product were only a little bit better than what other companies had to work with. But Mayer had a vision of the world and I think maybe that’s what we see in films, even movies the studio produced years after he was gone, that makes them stand out. MGM pictures weren’t better, so much as 'elevated' somehow. I don’t now how he did it, or even if it was always a good idea, but I think it was very much a part of one man’s personal and preordained plan for his company.
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by moira finnie »

Thanks, Steven. Your remarks about him reflect my own evolving opinion of Louis B. Mayer that has changed over timeafte r reading Neal Gabler's An Empire of Their Own and Scott Eyman's excellent bio of the mogul as a uniquely driving force behind the arc of the corporation's life.

In your book, Cedric Gibbons, the head of the Art Dept at MGM, appears as a key figure in creating the sets on the MGM lot and in their films. Arguably, his styles still effect design to this day.

Could you please discuss why you think he is relatively obscure today ? Has anyone ever written a biography of Gibbons?
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Steven Bingen »

This one is for Lynn...

I did interview an independent filmmaker who somehow managed to get permission to shoot on the backlot during that period you mention. He was probably one of the last people to film in what was perhaps the most photographed place in the world.
As to your questions –

1)I had a vision about what I wanted the book to be. My idea was to make it a “virtual tour” of the lot on a specific day and year, with what was actually in production on that day highlighted. Almost like a guidebook. So I outlined the whole book and did a first draft to that end. Steve and Mike wanted a more traditional approach and rewrote, weeding a lot of the “tour” out of the text, which I have to say, the publisher agreed with. I kept putting the “you are there” stuff back in and they kept cutting most of it out. I guess because I really wanted so badly to have explored the lot, as Steve did, that I couldn’t bear to part with that aspect. The finished book, I think is better for having that “tension” between my “fly on the wall” stuff and the more academic, scholarly approach they wanted.

2)Steve has a wonderful collection of materials which he has been collecting for years. Sadly he didn’t take photos of the lot himself the times he was there. Not because he wasn’t interested, but because it was the 1970’s and he thought the place looked so ratty that he wanted to wait until MGM “fixed it up” again, as he was sure they would. The rest of the photos came from private collection, including the wonderful Bison Archive, and from Warner Bros., which inherited a lot of never before published materials when they purchased the MGM library. As an archivist at Warners, I was very lucky to have access to all of these treasures that had never been made available to anyone before.

3)We interviewed a lot of people who worked on the lot. Anyone who would talk. Sadly, some of these studio veterans died before the book came out, and I’m very sad they didn’t live to see us recreate the place for them in our book. At the end of the process we finally started getting access to a few movie stars though, and frankly it was a little disappointing. We discovered that a lot of the talent had so much on their minds that didn’t notice the lot as much as say, a set painter would have. Elizabeth Taylor, for example spent decades of her life at MGM, but how often was she left alone to just wonder around the facades? And even if she did, would the place have seemed that remarkable to someone who never knew any other life? I mean what could she have possibly compared it to?
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Steven Bingen »

Dear Moira,

Gibbons was an amazing, creative art director, who probably had more to do with the look of the 20th century than anyone else. Most Americans discovered art deco, for examples, in movies. It was first seen by most people in his films, and only then was it recreated in the real world. Even today, when we think about that period, we think not about the actual era, which few of us were around to see, but of movies made in that period, which becomes our very idea of what that period must have been like.

I suspect that the reason he isn’t better known today, even among designers, is that he was too prolific. He and his staff designed too many movies in too many styles over too many years. People like to write books about race horses, not workhorses. Gibbons did his job so well, and for so long, that so ended up being so influential in so many ways that it becomes a question of “where to start.” He’s kind of the hero of our book, if it has one, and I wish we could have had room for a little more of him.
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Steven Bingen »

For Christy, About the commissary –

I saw a blueprint for the place somewhere. It wasn’t really any larger than the current “Rita Hayworth dining Room” which is on the site now. Apparently it was very fast and emphasized volume and convenience over glamour, with long ranch style tables (usually) where different departments or groups of talent held court at different times of the day. Everyone always seemed to think that the writers table was the social hub of the place, although I don’t know where that table was, or if it moved about over the years. I kept trying to get people who were there to tell me where this group or this star liked to sit, but without taking the people there and asking them to point, I could never quite nail the exact logistics of the place. That means that some of the secrets of the commissary will probably never be unlocked, sadly.

I never thought to ask anyone about the beverage service. What a great question!
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Sue Sue Applegate »

Thanks so much for that insightful reply, Steve! We are so glad you are here!

I've thoroughly been enlightened by your responses to Lynn and Moira's questions, too.

Do you know what part of the backlot was the most expensive to create and maintain? It seems like such a vast place and helped create such mystery and admiration.
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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Lzcutter »

Steve,

My fervent hope is that a documentary is made using your book as the foundation. :)

A couple of more questions:

1) How many backlots did MGM have? Often, when people think of a studio backlot they imagine the more modern version which is often a large area with different 'streets' but back in the classic era the backlots were much more extensive, especially MGM's, wasn't it?

2) What can you tell us about the Cotton Blossom from Showboat?

3) How much of the old studio still exists on the Sony lot? My husband works for one of the Fox sports channel and prior to the economic downturn, they had screenings on the lot that we would attend and walking around the lot we've been able to trace some of the studio's history through its buildings. How much of that can be done with the Sony lot?

4) What was the first movie that was filmed on the MGM backlot?
Lynn in Lake Balboa

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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by movieman1957 »

Hi Steven. Thanks for visiting with us. It's very kind of you to take the time.

Numbers of things interest me as well as behind the scenes information. One of the more fascinating documentaries I've seen is that 1925 MGM back lot film. So much stuff going on.

Are there numbers about how many people worked at MGM doing those things? How many acres were used for the studio lots? Just different statistical information you might have.

With the discussion of Cedric Gibbons I am not only amazed at the designers contributions to the look of the film but builders talent for realizing it. Who wouldn't want to live in those houses or visit those places?
Chris

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Re: Welcome to Steven Bingen, July 20th-22nd

Post by Moraldo Rubini »

Two years ago I called lzcutter and excitedly shouted into the phone, "This is the best book ever!". I had ordered a copy for each of us, as was dazzled by its thorough content. Thank you, Mr. Bingen, for this wonderful view into the City of MGM. I'm fascinated with the ability of the studio's craftsmen to create art from artiface. I only wish you'd hired me as research assistant; I would have paid you well for the job. My favorite image in the book was that of Herbert Stothart conducting the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz, as it packed the double-wollop of showing us Mr. Stothart and the musicians along with the lost "Triumphal Return" scene which was cut from the film in post-production.

Regarding the making of the "Tiffany" studio. How much of this prestige should be credited to Mr. Mayer, and how much is apportioned to Mr. Thalberg?

Is there any vestige of the backlot to be found in the neighborhood of tract homes that replaced it?

Thank you so much for joining us in the SSO!
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