William Faulkner in Hollywood by Solomon Stefan; Palmer R.; Bernstein Matthew

Author:Solomon, Stefan; Palmer, R.; Bernstein, Matthew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2017-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

1st SOLO

Down in Alabama,

DISSOLVE BEGINS.

Nothing but a pulpit and some wooden benches,

And Mr. Lincoln sitting in the back, away in the back

CHORUS

A lonesome train on a lonesome track, Seven coaches painted black, A slow train, a quiet train, Carrying Lincoln home again. (F, 4:310)

MONTAGE of 1865 train running. Over it the station signs follow one another: Washington, Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia.

Lincoln’s spiritual resurrection, by way of a southern song, would play an instrumental role in changing the overall tone of the screenplay, too. As the composer of the cantata, Earl Robinson, would tell Hawks, “the mood of so much of the picture is a sad one,” and it could do with a bit of lightening up.59 In July 1943, as Russia succeeded on the Eastern Front and Eisenhower launched an Allied offensive on Sicily, it would have seemed reasonable to give the screenplay a more optimistic outlook. As the changing fortunes of the war had influenced the narrative of “The De Gaulle Story,” so too would they affect “Battle Cry.”

But in the end, the film would not be produced. The film’s budget soon ballooned out to $4 million, and, although shooting was only a little over a month away, the studio abandoned production in August. At the same time, Faulkner reported that Hawks was “going to establish his own unit, as an independent: himself, his writer, etc., to write pictures, then sell them to any studio who makes the highest bid.” This arrangement, which would have seen Hawks and Faulkner dividing the profits of any film between them, would have been like Dudley Murphy’s Associated Artists, just on a far grander scale. For, unlike that failed company, Hawks “says he and I together as a team will always be worth two million dollars at least” (SL, 176). This film company would never come to be, but at least Faulkner could take something lasting from the material in “Battle Cry”: the beginnings of A Fable (1954), his novel about the myth of the Unknown Soldier.

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