'The Hasty Heart' director, Vincent Sherman R.I.P

[Michael Loser CBE]

Obituary
Vincent Sherman

Hollywood director renowned for his way with the leading ladies

Ronald Bergan
Wednesday June 21, 2006
The Guardian


To filmgoers for whom the names of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Ida Lupino
and Ann Sheridan evoke the glory days of Warner Brothers' "women's pictures"
of the 1940s and early 1950s, the director Vincent Sherman, who has died
aged 99, was something of a hero. According to a friend, Sherman, who had
the virile looks of a middle- weight boxing champion, discovered a way of
dealing with difficult leading ladies: "He went and slept with them. After
that, the next morning, they were angels."

By these means, Sherman handled the obstinacy of Davis, the tantrums of
Crawford and the insecurity of Rita Hayworth, the last during the making of
Affair in Trinidad (1952), apparently increasing her confidence. His wife,
former literary agent Hedda Comoro, to whom he was married from 1931 until
her death in 1984, and with whom he had a son and daughter, accepted these
brief encounters as a necessary part of his job. At the end of Sherman's
version of The Adventures of Don Juan (1948), Errol Flynn in the title role,
says, "There is a little of Don Juan in every man, and since I am Don Juan,
there is more of it in me." Sherman later became a successful director of
television series, including The Waltons and 77 Sunset Strip.
He was born Abe Orovitz in the small town of Vienna, Georgia, where his
Jewish father, who had left Russia in 1900, ran a grocery store. His
mother's maiden name was Vinnie Schurman so, when he started acting, he
became Vincent Sherman, and studied with a voice teacher to get rid of his
southern accent.

He appeared on Broadway in the world premieres of Eugene O'Neill's Marco
Millions (1928) and Elmer Rice's Counsellor at Law (1931), playing a young
Jewish communist beaten up by the police. He made such an impression in the
role that Universal Studios asked him to reprise it in the film version,
directed by William Wyler and starring John Barrymore. After a few small
parts in Hollywood, Sherman returned to New York, where he worked with the
left-wing Group Theater, directing Clifford Odets' taxi strike play Waiting
for Lefty (1935). The same year, in Dead End, Sidney Kingsley's social
protest play, he portrayed gangster "Baby Face" Martin, subsequently played
by Humphrey Bogart on screen.

It was for Bogart that Sherman wrote Crime School (1938), when he got a
writer's job at Warner Brothers. He also co-wrote King of the Underworld
(1939), featuring Bogart and Kay Francis. The first film Sherman was given
to direct was The Return of Dr X (1939), an enjoyable piece of ghouliana in
which Bogart comes back to life after being executed for murder.

Sherman went on to direct Saturday's Children (1940), a depression drama
that gave John Garfield the chance to get away from crime movies, and
Underground (1941), an effective anti-Nazi film about a secret radio in
Germany. Another anti-Nazi picture, an enjoyable comedy-thriller set in New
York, was All Through the Night (1942) starring Bogart and various Damon
Runyon types tracking down fifth-columnists.

Around the same time he read the script called Everybody Comes to Rick's,
which Warner were thinking of rejecting. Sherman recommended the studio do
it after a rewrite, and asked to direct it. He was bitterly disappointed
when Casablanca, as it was retitled, was given to Michael Curtiz.

For The Hard Way (1942), about a drab housewife (Ida Lupino) who propels her
younger sister (Joan Leslie) into stardom, Sherman, in order to give the
film a realistic look, wanted to shoot in a Pennsylvania mining town, but
Warner would not let him leave the studio. So he used footage from a Pare
Lorentz documentary to give a bleak quality of life in such an environment,
and insisted that the actors wore no makeup. "I wanted the freckles, sweat
and blemishes to come through," he explained. At first, Lupino vigorously
resisted, but Sherman convinced her.

He was now becoming known as a woman's director, especially after Old
Acquaintance (1943), in which he coped with the bitchy rivalry - both on
screen and off - between Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins. At one stage, he
shouted, "Ladies, sometimes I feel I'm not directing this picture, I'm
refereeing it!" Sadly, his influence on Davis was not strong enough to
convince her to tone down her grotesque make-up and gestures in Mr
Skeffington (1944). Nevertheless, Claude Rains gave a fine performance as
her Jewish husband, in a moving melodrama of a woman's destructive vanity.

The first of two films Sherman made in 1947 with the underrated Ann Sheridan
was Nora Prentiss (1947), about a nightclub singer who has an affair with a
doctor. Made on location in San Francisco, it had expressionistic camera
work by James Wong Howe, which captured the mood of seedy hotels and darkly
lit nightclubs. The other film was The Unfaithful, an excellent updated
remake of The Letter (which had starred Bette Davis), concerning a woman
forced to shoot her lover.

In contrast, Sherman made The Hasty Heart (1949) at Elstree studios, set in
an army hospital in Burma during the second world war, with a predominantly
masculine cast, including Richard Todd - in the role that made his name -
and Ronald Reagan.

Back in Hollywood, he made three movies with Joan Crawford: The Damned Don't
Cry, Harriet Craig and Goodbye My Fancy, all of which allowed the star to
suffer beautifully, although Sherman was instructed by Jack Warner to avoid
close-ups of the 45-year-old Joan as she was getting "too old". To get away
from women's pictures and Warner Bros, he took on Lone Star (1952) at MGM,
with Clark Gable, which had been turned down by Howard Hawks. Then, although
not called before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, he became a
victim of the red scare because of his radical past in the theatre, and
found it difficult to get work in Hollywood for some years.

In the late 1950s, Sherman was back at his old studio, making The Young
Philadelphians and Ice Palace, managing large resources with the experience
of two decades as a director behind him.

"A director must be a good storyteller," he declared. "He must know how to
establish interest in his characters and their problems so that an audience
will be anxious to know how the problems are finally solved. The skill with
which he builds the conflict and keeps the suspense going until the final
resolution is the test of his ability to entertain." He is survived by his
son Eric and daughter Hedwin.

Vincent Sherman (Abe Orovitz), film director, born July 16 1906; died June
18 2006.

[JamesM]

He also directed Richard Todd in The Naked Earth (1958).