Production
Tallulah Bankhead starred as Judith Traherne in the 1934 Broadway production, which ran for 51 performances at the Plymouth Theatre.
In 1935, David O. Selznick wanted to cast Greta Garbo in Dark Victory, but Garbo chose to play the lead in Anna Karenina instead.
Dark Victory was the eighth on-screen teaming of Bette Davis and George Brent. Davis had recently ended affairs with William Wyler and Howard Hughes and her husband Ham Nelson had filed for divorce, and after the first few days of filming she begged to be released from her contract, claiming she was too sick to continue. Producer Hal Wallis responded, "I've seen the rushes—stay sick!" She found comfort with Brent, who had just divorced Ruth Chatterton, and the two embarked on an affair that continued throughout filming and for a year after.
The tune, "Oh, Give Me Time for Tenderness" sung by Judith was written by Edmund Goulding and Elsie Janis. The voice of Vera Van was dubbed for Davis.
Another scene for the ending was filmed but ultimately deemed anticlimactic and not used. After Judith's death, her horse was seen winning a race, and her stablehand Michael (Humphrey Bogart) was shown crying. The scene met with negative response with sneak preview audiences and was cut.
The film premiered at Radio City Music Hall.
Read more about this topic: Dark Victory
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Perestroika basically is creating material incentives for the individual. Some of the comrades deny that, but I can’t see it any other way. In that sense human nature kinda goes backwards. It’s a step backwards. You have to realize the people weren’t quite ready for a socialist production system.”
—Gus Hall (b. 1910)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)