Oscar Profile #206: Victor Fleming

Born February 23, 1989 in La Canada, California, Victor Fleming entered the film business as a stunt man in 1910. He had a side job repairing cars. It was in this capacity that he was discovered by director Allan Dwan while working on one of his his cars in 1913. Dwan gave him a job as camera assistant from which he quickly moved to camera operator.

A member of the Army’s photographic unit during World War I, Fleming served as President Woodrow Wilson’s chief photographer at Versailles. His career as a cinematographer began in 1915 and continued through 1931. His first film as a director was Douglas Fairbanks’ 1919 film, Till the Clouds Roll By, after which he directed a number of the actor’s films while still working as a cinematographer..

Although associated with Fairbanks in his early career, Fleming went on to direct many other actors before reaching his pinnacle in 1939. These included Emil Jannings who won the first Oscar for Best Actor Fleming’s 1927’s film, The Way of All Flesh; Buddy Rogers and Nancy Carroll in the 1928 comedy, Abie’s Irish Rose; Gary Cooper and Walter Huston in the 1929 western, The Virginian; Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in 1932’s Red Dust; Helen Hayes and Clark Gable in 1933’s The White Sister; Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper in 1934’s Treasure Island; Spencer Tracy in his Oscar winning role in 1937’s Captains Courageous and Gable and Tracy in 1938’s Test Pilot. Then came 1939 and two of the most iconic films of all time- The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind.

Although Fleming directed most of both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, he was one of several directors who worked on both films. He was brought onto Gone With the Wind because producer David O. Selznick felt original director George Cukor, although fantastic with the big dramatic scenes, was not up to some of the film’s more sweeping ones. In order to take on that film as quickly as possible he was taken off of The Wizard of Oz two weeks before it ended production, its’ direction taken over by Mervyn LeRoy. Fleming would go on to win one of Gone With the Wind’s ten Oscars (8 regular; one technical and one honorary).

The prolific Fleming slowed down considerably after Gone With the Wind, directing only five more films before his death in 1949.

His 1941 film of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Spencer Tracy; Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner was a commercial succcess but a critical disappointment. 1942’s Tortilla Flat, a modest success, toplining Tracy and John Garfield, earned Frank Morgan a Best Supporting Actor nomination. 1943’s A Guy Named Joe with Tracy and Irene Dunne was a box-office smash but 1946’s Adventure with Gable and Greer Garson was a major flop. 1948’s Joan of Arc with Ingrid Bergman and José Ferrer was a troubled production.

Victor Fleming died of a massive heart attack on January 6, 1949. He was 59.

The director left behind a wife and two children. Child actress Victoria Leigh, who is named after him, is his great-niece.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

RED DUST (1932)

Fleming’s fabled adventure film made Clark Gable a superstar overnight and proved that sex symbol Jean Harlow could act in no uncertain terms.

Gable had been toiling in films for nearly a decade when major supporting turns in 1931’s A Free Soul and Night Nurse made audiences sit up and take notice. Starring roles opposite Greta Garbo in Susan Lenox and Joan Crawford in Possessed brought in audiences but it was his rough and tumble rubber plantation owner that solidified his reputation.

Harlow’s performance in Red-Headed Woman gave audiences a glimmer of what she could do but her thinly disguised freewheeling prostitute in Red Dust proved that she could do just about anything.

John Ford remade it twenty-one years later as Mogambo with Gable reprising his old role and Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly replacing Harlow and Mary Astor. It was good, but not as good as the original.

CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS (1937)

One of the best rip-roaring adventure films of the 1930s, this Rudyard Kipling tale would be remade twice as a TV movie, but nothing could ever top of the excitement and joy of Fleming’s version for which Spencer Tracy won the first of his back-to-back Oscars as the Portuguese fisherman who makes a splendid young man of spoiled brat Freddie Bartholomew who also gives one of his most impressive performances along with Lionel Barrymore as the ship’s captain and Mickey Rooney as the captain’s son.

The film was a major box-office success and was revived many times over the years. It earned an additional three Oscar nominations for Best Picture; Screenplay and Editing.

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

George Cukor, Norman Taurog and King Vidor all had a hand in the making of the film and producer-director Mervyn LeRoy finished it when Fleming went to replace Cukor on Gone With the Wind, but Fleming directed most of it and is the film’s only credited director.

One of the most beloved films of all time thanks mainly to its annual TV showings from the mis-1950s in the days before home video, the film’s original release in August, 1939 was a only a moderate success. It nevertheless proved profitable when rereleased in theaters several times before its initial TV showing.

The film won Oscars for Best Song (“Over the Rainbow”) and Best Score. It had been nominated for Best Picture; Color Cinematography; Art Direction and Special Effects. Judy Garland’s honorary Oscar for outstanding juvenile performer was not credited specifically to the film, although it was the obvious reason she was soawarded.

GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)

Fleming was MGM’s original choice for directing the most anticipated film of the decade, but producer David O. Selznick insisted on his old friend George Cukor. Cukor began making the film, but was fired two weeks into production by Selznick who felt that although he was great with the dramatic scenes, wasn’t up to the film’s major set scenes. Legend has it that Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland continued to consult Cukor on the sly throughout the making of the film while Clark Gable was happy to have his old friend at the helm.

Several of the scenes Cukor originally directed were re-shot by Fleming but others remain in the film. Watch it with Rudy Behlmer’s excellent commentary on Blu-ay and DVD if you want to know which were which.

Fleming won an Oscar on his first and only nomination for the film. It won a total of ten Academy Awards including Best Picture; Actress (Leigh); Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel); Screenplay (making Sidney Howard the first posthumous winner); Color Cinematography; Art Direction and Editing as well as a technical award for the use of its camera equipment and an honorary Oscar for William Cameron Menzies forhis use of color in his production design.

JOAN OF ARC (1948)

This film was a pet project of Fleming and star Ingrid Bergman who discussed making a film about the French saint during the production of Fleming’s 1941 film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Maxwell Anderson’s 1946 play, Joan of Lorraine, in which Bergman starred, would become their source.

Although Fleming worked very hard on the film, he was not satisfied with the results. Nor was writer Maxwell Anderson or that matter, the critics who hated it. Nevertheless the film received seven Oscar nominations including Best Actress (Bergman); Supporting Actor (José Ferrer); Color Cinematography; Color Art Direction; Color Costume Design; Editing and Scoring. It won for its cinematography and costume design and producer Walter Wanger was given an honorary Oscar for adding moral stature to the world community.

Exhausted from working on the film, Fleming died of a heart attack just two weeks after the film’s Hollywood premiere.