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MGM Edith Farrell Rare Original 1940 Production Book

Currency:USD Category:Memorabilia / Movie - Memorabilia Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:600.00 - 800.00 USD
MGM Edith Farrell Rare Original 1940 Production Book
MGM Edith Farrell Rare Original 1940 Production Book - One of the true tragedies to Hollywood history was the destruction of thousands of carefully documented work-books at MGM, that held every detail to the daily workings of the greatest Film Factory. These amazing books held virtually every record of the minute-to-minute dramas of putting together those classic films, the likes of which we will never see again. Everything was saved. It was all catalogued and documented, and gave the world a magnificent intimate "you-are-there" time-machine of this by-gone era. Edith Farrell was the head of the script department at MGM during their heyday, and in many ways wielded more power than even the heads of the studio. Since the script was the foundation for everything produced, everything went through her department first. And she ran her department with an iron-fist by which even General Patton would have been intimated. Farrell almost single-handedly created the system for credits, arbitrations, disputes, lawsuits, actor and creative artist ego's, and the all important placement of credits still in use today. She insisted that every piece of documentation was carefully placed in her famous special Loose Leaf books. She even made sure that these books were all from the same company (The Loose Leaf House in Los Angeles), and that the binders were Model 7320-Style MHLH with the iconic metal hinges. And in them held treasures of details never before revealed. Over twenty-years ago, the last of these books that had not been destroyed, were found in a warehouse, However, virtually all of them had been underwater from a leaking roof, making them useless. Miraculously this book survived, and may be one of the only ones left in existence. It is in good condition as are all the original type-written memos, letters telegrams, buck sheets, notes, hand-written and typed documents, including copious memos and notes from Edith Farrell herself. They are carefully organized by production in the original famous Loose Leaf House binder, with the original dividers and "tags" with the original production numbers. One the binding is the original book number (#61), and the production numbers in a type-written framed label (productions #1134-#1138). The productions, all made in 1940, are four MGM classics: "Boom Town", the grand epic about the early American oil industry starring Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy; the famous and beautifully mounted screen adaption of Jane Austin's "Pride & Prejudice" starring Laurence Olivier, Maureen O'Sullivan and Greer Garson; the highly controversial, and way-head-of-its-time "One Was Beautiful", that shocked audiences in its day by its unflinching treatment of an evil woman, starring Robert Cummings and Laraine Day; and "The Mortal Storm", starring Margaret Sullivan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan and Robert Stack, which was the first motion picture from a major Hollywood studio to show the unfolding horrors of the emerging Nazi Party in Germany including scenes in a concentration camp. This was released two years before American became involved in the war and had an enormous effect on the public. In fact, the film was so powerful that Adolf Hitler himself made this the first film to be banned from release in Germany, and because MGM produced this film, from that point forward banned all MGM films until his fall from power.