I have noticed before that whem BS and FM are out having dinner at the swank hotel ballroom, they make reference to having already danced one dance that night.
Does anyone know if that sequence was deleted and, if so, what was said in it?
Leisen made changes to the story from what Sturges wrote, but IDK what those changes were. All I know is that it upset Sturges enough to start directing his own work, so it would be done the way he imagined it. I wonder if that scene was in Sturges' original screen play and I also wonder if there was more to his original ending.
shareI think Leisen often changed his scripts and that must be why Wilder and Sturges hated him so much. But gosh the films he did with their scripts turned out so good, it's difficult to understand what might have been in the film to make it even more wonderful. I think Leisen is very underrated. Yet I can't dismiss the fact that he was a cog in a studio wheel that had a lot of talented writers to make him look good because he was at the helm of those films they wrote. Nobody in Hollywood was ever as talented as Billy Wilder.
shareDavid Chierichetti says, in his bio of Mitch, that the ballroom scene and an apple-bobbing scene were cut. He went on to say that Sturges liked the cuts and changes Mitch made to the script and the film is one of only two he purchased for himself.
According to DC, the Sturges script came in at 130+ pages and was for a film in which the prosecutor would be a dominant,high-minded and heroic lead. Liesen, knowing he had to cut at least 30 pages and that the 'speeches' that Sturges had written for the DA were beyong MacMurray's ability cut them all and made a Barbara Stanwyck film. Sturges supplied the 'bridge' lines for that and there's no evidence that he had any objection to the film that resulted.
I have the Chierichetti book and if cites are wanted for anything I'll be glad to supply them. What I've posted here is from memory of a read I did a few days ago.
cool. thx for the info!
Season's Greetings!