Oscar Profile #244: Hal B. Wallis

Born Aaron Blum Wolowicz on October 18, 1988, Harold Brent Wallis’ name was legally changed by his parents on September 14, 1889.

In his early twenties Wallis was managing a Los Angeles movie theatre owned by Warner Brothers where he met and married comedy film star Louise Fazenda in 1927. Around the same time he also met Warner Brothers Studio Chief Jack L. Warner, who hired him to work in Warner Brothers’ publicity department. He was named studio manager in 1928 and production manager shortly thereafter.

Wallis produced more than three hundred films for Warner Brothers through the mid-1940s including twenty that were nominated for Best Picture Oscars in the days when a film’s studio, not its actual producer, was given credit for the production. The Warner Brothers films he shepherded toward Best Picture nominations were Five Star Final, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Flirtation Walk, Captain Blood, A Midsummer Night’s Drum, Anthony Adverse, The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Four Daughters, Jezebel, Dark Victory, All This, and Heaven Too, The Letter, The Maltese Falcon, One Foot in Heaven, Sergeant York, Kings Row, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca and Watch on the Rhine.

Wallis was twice awarded the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award, first at the 1938 Oscars when he had three films in contention for Best Picture. His second came at the 1943 Oscars, the year his Casablanca won Best Picture. Wallis left Warner Brothers in a tiff because Jack Warner insisted on accepting the award for Best Picture which Wallis felt he should have done.

The legendary producer then moved over to Paramount where he produced such films as Love Letters, September Affair, Come Back, Little Sheba, The Rose Tattoo (for which he finally received his own Oscar nomination for producing), The Rainmaker, Wild Is the Wind, Career and Summer and Smoke.

Louise Fazenda left films after 1939’s The Old Maid and became known for her philanthropic works, often helping the poor whose stories she read about in newspapers or met through her volunteer work at hospitals. She died in 1962 at the age of 66. Four years later, at the age of 68, Wallis married actress 44-year-old Oscar nominated actress Martha Hyer (Some Come Running). His later Paramount films included Becket (his second personal Oscar nomination), Barefoot in the Park and True Grit.

Wallis then moved to Universal, producing such films as Anne of the Thousand Days (his third and final personal Oscar nomination), Mary, Queen of Scots and Rooster Cogburn (his last film).

Hal B. Wallis died on October, 5, 1987 at 88. Martha Hyer, who quit acting in 1974, became a recluse in later life. She died in 2014 at the age of 89.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LITTLE CAESAR (1931), directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Warner Bros. thrived on the gangster film in the 1930s. Wallis’ first film as producer was this classic that made an immediate star of Edward G. Robinson. Wallis also produced Robinson’s newspaper drama Five Star Final which was the first of twenty-three films produced by Wallis to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Wallis’ nurturing of the gangster film continued with the following year’s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang which for many years stood as the single most important social drama in Hollywood history. Other Wallis produced films that mixed the two genres included Angels with Dirty Faces and City for Conquest.

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938), directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley

In 1938 alone, Wallis produced forty-three films among which three – The Adventures of Robin Hood, Jezebel and Four Daughters – were in contention for Best Picture. Others including Angles with Dirty Faces, White Banners and The Dawn Patrol were also highly successful. The Adventures of Robin Hood won Oscars for Art Direction, Film Editing and Original Score. Jezebel won Best Actress (Bette Davis) and Supporting Actress (Fay Bainter). James Cagney (Angels with Dirty Faces and John Garfield Four Daughters had to settle for nominations. Wallis took home the Thalberg.

CASABLANCA (1943), directed by Michael Curtiz

It was Wallis who was responsible for the teaming of Bogart and Bergman, negotiating the services of Bergman with David O. Selznick in exchange for Olivia de Havilland. Largely on the success of this film Wallis was given his second Thalberg award just five years after receiving his first.

Annoyed that Jack L. Warner rushed to the podium to accept the film’s Best Picture Oscar, Wallis left Warner Brothers after producing more than three hundred films, most of them enduring classics. He would command continuing success with his films made at Paramount and Universal in the years to come.

BECKET (1964), directed by Peter Glenville

Jean Anouilh’s play opened on Broadway in October, 1960 with Laurence Olivier as Thomas Becket and Anthony Quinn as Henry II. It ended its run in March, 1961, but returned briefly in May, 1961 with Olivier as Henry and Arthur Kennedy as Becket. Wallis’ film version brilliantly recast with Richard Burton as Becket and Peter O’Toole as Henry earned both actors Oscar nominations for Best Actor. The film was nominated for a total of 12 Oscars including one for Wallis as producer. It won for Edward Anhalt’s adapted screenplay.

TRUE GRIT (1969), directed by Henry Hathaway

The 2010 remake may be truer to the novel, but this original version of Charles Portis’ 1968 novel did something no other film was able to do – win John Wayne an Oscar.

The iconic star was not nominated for Stagecoach, Red River Fort Apache She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, The Searchers, Rio Bravo or any of his other famous westerns. He reprised his Oscar winning role of the one-eyed marshal in Wallis’ final film, 1975’s Rooster Cogburn.