Talk:Lewis Milestone

message: Dear DD - I do not object to you removing the Higham quote, but I do request that you replace it with one that supports the material that preceded it. As is, the material left without a source.
You wrote that the Higham quote is "a hyper-ideological apologia for McCartyhism [sic] [and] totally inappropriate" in a Wikipedia article. Perhaps you can provide the names of those film critics you consider qualified to comment on the Hollywood blacklist, under which Milestone may have suffered.
Your imperative "The quote has been excised and must not be reinstated" is delightful and daring. In return, I offer you this remarkable obituary on the inimitable actor Richard Harris, like yourself "a professional Irishman", and written by Marxist writer and film critic Paul Bond.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/10/harr-o30.html
--Lord Such&Such (talk) 15:47, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charles Higham quote and McCarthysim 

message: This article is in need of editing for tone - encyclopedic writing should not use colloquialisms and should remain impartial. For example, words to watch should generally be avoided, as should flowery phrasings like "had the shared misfortune of competing with a veritable pantheon". Nikkimaria (talk) 03:49, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing this out, Nikkimaria, agree 100% here. Hopefully the repeated reverts by a certain user will stop now and encyclopaedic work will proceed. Robert Kerber (talk) 13:10, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, that's one phrase and I do not really see why this should be rephrased, the phrase is interesting to read. At least two (Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz) of the films against his film competed are quite legendary, on the other films I do not know enough to be sure, but the discussion above lets me assume good faith. Of the other films he competed with I 1939 are Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, Ninotchka and they are considered to be some of the 850 historically valuable movies by the Library of Congress. Love Affair was subject to censorship but anyway nominated to the academy awards, etc. Please be more specific to include the tag.   Paradise Chronicle (talk) 00:36, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Maintaining encyclopedic neutrality takes priority over interesting phrasing. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:33, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Really? I do not understand what you want to have improved and nominated the article at the GOCE, let's get some help from the specialists.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 06:33, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I wanted to rephrase it, but I couldn't after having read the source according to which 1939 was Hollywoods greatest year. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:35, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Tone

message: Not sure why my edit has been  but this article is a mess. Thedarkknightli (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: A certain user has made repeated reverts, including repeated removals of the "tone" banner, but it looks like this has stopped now thanks to the above comment by Nikkimaria. Robert Kerber (talk) 07:09, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Thedarkknightli: You are welcome to revert, but keep them within Wiki Rules limits. Using the pejorative term "a mess" to describe an article requires positive evidence. The article, as written has been visited and edited numerous times without any generalized complaint. Please enter into a discussion and defend your position.--CerroFerro (talk) 17:47, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: CerroFerro, at the moment there are multiple editors who see problems with the article as written, and so far no defense has been put forward for your position that it has none. I'd invite you to join the discussion above. In the interim though, the tag should remain in place. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:26, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

text: Exactly one...ONE...editor has complained about the "tone" or that the article is "a mess." The person who continues to post the notice has not offered a single argument as to why the entire article should be stigmatized as such: "so far no defense has been put forward" by the posting editor. The high quality of article speaks for itself.--CerroFerro (talk) 18:15, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Three people on this talk page have suggested they believe the article has issues. There are specific rationales for the tagging in the section above. So no, we cannot say that the "high quality of article speaks for itself", and it's not appropriate to remove the tag at this time. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

text: CerroFerro, three users, User:Thedarkknightli, Nikkimaria and I have tagged this article for "tone" issues. There are clear directions how to proceed with the article before removing the tag. Each time, you removed the tag without addressing any of the issues regarding the article's tone, even despite Nikkimaria's given examples. Neither have you followed the invitation to a constructive participation made by Nikkimaria. Instead you make false claims about the number of users questioning the article's alleged quality and restrict your comments to your reverts to ones like "I see you on the talk page". If you persist removing the tagging for tone without addressing any of the mentioned issues, your behaviour can be regarded as vandalism, which it already has been in the past. Please act according to WP rules from now on. Robert Kerber (talk) 10:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

text: Again, there are examples provided in the section above. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:46, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manual of style 

message: CC-BY-SA declaration; text in this section has been removed from the article by me; see that article's history for full attribution. I've removed the text because it's off-topic or belongs in another article. I'm leaving it here for the benefit of future editors and in case its removal breaks any named references. 
===1932–1939===
Rain is based on the short story "Miss Thompson" by Somerset Maugham, which had gone through several adaptations, both for stage and film, before and after Milestone filmed the work in 1932.Millichap, 1981 p. 62: Dramatists John Colton and Clemence Randolph, with Maugham's blessing, mounted a stage production of the work in 1922, entitled Rain, that ran for three years with Jeanne Eagels in the lead role. The play was revived in 1935 with Tallulah Bankhead. A silent film adaptation appeared in 1928, directed by Raoul Walsh starring Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore. A 1944 musical version was staged with June Havoc in 1944, and Rita Hayworth starred in the 1953 film adaptation Miss Sadie Thompson.Canham, 1974 p. 83
 Cheers, Baffle☿gab 02:45, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed text

message: Rain is based on the short story "Miss Thompson" by Somerset Maugham, which had gone through several adaptations, both for stage and film, before and after Milestone filmed the work in 1932.Millichap, 1981 p. 62: Dramatists John Colton and Clemence Randolph, with Maugham's blessing, mounted a stage production of the work in 1922, entitled Rain, that ran for three years with Jeanne Eagels in the lead role. The play was revived in 1935 with Tallulah Bankhead. A silent film adaptation appeared in 1928, directed by Raoul Walsh starring Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore. A 1944 musical version was staged with June Havoc in 1944, and Rita Hayworth starred in the 1953 film adaptation Miss Sadie Thompson.Canham, 1974 p. 83
</blockquote> Cheers, Baffle☿gab 02:45, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: 1932–1939

message: My Life With Caroline was released in August 1941, just four months before Pearl Harbor and America's entry as a belligerent in World War II.Millichap, 1981 p. 105: "My Life With Caroline was released in August 1941. Within a few months America would be at war, and one of the home-front industries would become the production of war movies.... Milestone, his reputation for All Quiet on the Western Front [and he would] enter another career cycle </blockquote> Baffle☿gab 01:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Early 1940s

message: Edge of Darkness is Milestone's fulsome demonstration of these sentiments that exposed "the severe limitations" created by Hollywood's self-imposed propaganda requirements.Higham and Greenberg, 1968 p. 104: "a stereotyped exercise in predictable propaganda" and see pp. 99–100 for description of stereotypes and scenarios typical of Hollywood propaganda.Millchap, 1981 p. 109: "severe limitations imposed by the propagandist weight of [the film's] message." Film critics Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg comment on this phenomenon:
Milestone was ambivalent regarding the cast and their characterizations for Edge of Darkness. The picture stars Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan, who had been costars in the western Dodge City, here portraying Norwegian freedom fighters. Helmut Dantine appears as the sociopathic Nazi commandant. Biographer Joseph Millichap reports that "the frequent rasp of New York accents from Norwegians and Nazis" distracts from the picture's authenticity. A number of the players, including Flynn, were embroiled in personal and legal issues that detracted from their work on the production.Higham and Greenberg, 1968 p. 100: "Bronx accented [European] patriots" and p. 104: "the too frequent casting of Americans as Europeans"Millichap, 1981 p. 109: Milestone described the cast as "extremely mixed" and p. 110: Millichap reports "difficulties of characterization and casting" and other than Walter Huston "the rest of the cast is eminently forgettable" and "severe personal problems" that plagued cast members. And "New York accents"Erickson, 2010 TCM: "The movie would probably have been better without any recognizable stars.Millichap, 1981 p. 115: "weighed down by its single-minded theme"
Milestone's overall cinematic execution renders the story adequately in a realist style, but lacks his bravura use of the camera.Millichap, 1981 pp. 111–112: Overall "Milestone does only a competent job in terms of cinematic style [with] an undistinguished realist style... few extreme effects are attempted [and] seems more motivated by a failure of creativity than a commitment to realism." In one exceptional scene, Milestone reveals the dramatic epiphany experienced by the villagers when the Nazis publicly burn the local schoolteacher's library collection. Through expert cutting and panning, Milestone documents a collective transformation that will spur the outraged residents to plan an armed uprising against their oppressors.Erickson, 2010. TCM: "Director Lewis Milestone keeps his camera moving, over-using the signature fast-tracking shot he introduced to startling effect in his classic All Quiet on the Western Front. Shot after shot rakes across lines of charging patriots, turning the camera into a machine gun. Cameraman Sid Hickox frequently employs a zoom lens, a gadget that didn't see much use until the 1960s. The technically slick movie employs plenty of unconvincing but dramatic miniatures."Millichap, 1981 p. 113: See here for description of the scene."unfortunately, the rest of the movie falls off from this high point"
Edge of Darkness delivered effective war propaganda to Warner Brothers studios and fulfilled Milestone's contract. His next project was set on the Eastern Front in a Sam Goldwyn production at RKO: The North Star (1943).Canham, 1974 p. 91
 Baffle☿gab  03:39, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Edge of Darkness (1942)''

message: The North Star is a war propaganda picture dramatizing the devastation wrought by the German invasion of the USSR on the inhabitants of a Ukrainian farming collective. US President Roosevelt dispatched Lowell Mellett, the chief of the Bureau of Motion Pictures of the Office of War Information to enlist producer Sam Goldwyn in making a film celebrating America's wartime alliance with Russia. Milestone's "lavish" production support included playwright-screenwriter Lillian Hellman, cinematographer James Wong Howe, set designer William Cameron Menzies, film score composer Aaron Copland, lyricist Ira Gershwin and a competent cast of players.Passafiume, 2009. TCM: "Celebrated cinematographer James Wong Howe would be behind the camera, and Aaron Copland and Ira Gershwin would contribute the music and lyrics to several folk songs for the film.... Lillian Hellman went to work on the screenplay" and "Goldwyn received a message from President Roosevelt through Lowell Mellett, the chief of the Bureau of Motion Pictures of the Office of War Information.... It would be a portrayal designed to gather sympathy for the Russian people and strengthen American support for the U.S. government's alliance with the Soviet Union"Hoberman, 2014: "lavish Samuel Goldwyn production"Cojoc, 2013 pp. 93–95: "the American's perceptions of the Soviet Union had to be shaped overnight so that FDR could receive popular support for entering the war on the Soviet Union's side. a responsibility for such a task was [placed on] The Office of War Information."Millichap, 1981 p. 115: "the production credits of The North Star are impressive". And p. 124: Millichap list James Wong Howe, William Cameron Menzies, and Aaron Copland. And "the cast does well enough with what it has [in terms of script]" and "Goldwyn bankrolled a lavish production"Murphy, 1999. p. 16: The North Star was made "at the request of President Roosevelt with the conscious aim winning the support of the American public for its wartime ally, the Soviet Union."
The Hellman script and Milestone's cinematic compositions establish the bucolic settings and social unity that characterizes the collective's inhabitants. Milestone uses a tracking shot to follow the aged comic figure Karp (Walter Brennan) as he rides his cart through the village, a device Milestone uses to introduce the film's key characters. An extended sequence portrays the villagers celebrating the harvest with food, song and dance, resembling more an ethnic operetta, with Milestone using an overhead camera to record the circular symmetry of the happy revelers.Millichap, 1981 pp. 118–119: "lovable old coot [Brennan's Karp]" and "Here the operetta analogy takes hold... singing and dancing... reduces the major characters to fugitives from a musical comedy [and] makes no sense in terms of plot... does much to create the inanity that finally destroys the film."Hoberman, 2014: "The peasants were played, without [adopting Russian] accents, by... all-American types: Dana Andrews, Anne Baxter, Dean Jagger... Walter Brennan... appeared as semi-comic stock characters with Walter Huston, as the village doctor, supplying the sort of moral authority.... The chief villains were Erich von Stroheim (once billed as The Man You Love to Hate) and Martin Kosleck"Hoberman, 2014: "its idealization of Soviet life, notably the lengthy village celebration choreographed by the Russian ballet master David Lichine, that suggests [the Hollywood musical] Oklahoma." Milestone displays his "technical mastery" both through image and sound as villagers discern the approach of German bombers announcing the shattering of their peaceful existence. Portions of this sequence resemble documentary war footage, recalling Milestone's work in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Joris Ivens The Spanish Earth (1937).Millichap, 1981 pp. 119–120: Milestone exhibits ``admirable technical mastery" in the first bombing sequence... momentarily recalls the power of All Quiet" and p. 120: "the power of documentary [as in] Joris Ivens's The Spanish Earth"Canham, 1974 p. 93: "Milestone's professionalism transcends his material"
Beyond this point, the necessities of Hollywood war propaganda asserts itself, shifting the focus to German atrocities.Millichap, 1981 p. 116: "the world's most devastating conflict, the world's most important event in history, was perceived within the limitations imposed by commercial filmmaking" and pp. 120–122: After the initial German aerial attack on the road and village "the genre changes... to Gothic as the plot moves to Russian defenders to Nazi attackers [who] are the same monsters who appear in dozens of war films". p. 117: In The North Star "Milestone... forgot the lessons of All Quiet on the Western Front: he forgot the reality of war." and p. 124: "the film finally sinks under the weight of wartime hysteria and patriotic assertion"Hoberman, 2014: "Looking to replenish their supply of plasma, the Nazi vampires drain blood from the village children" Hellman's screenplay provides for a complex treatment only for the German aristocrat and surgeon Dr. Otto von Harden (Erich von Stroheim), who, though dragooned into service, rationalizes Nazi atrocities. Milestone presents him in the Gothic style of German expressionism.Higham and Greenberg, 1968 p. 106: "Milestone's craftsmanship in North Star... gave the film its characteristic rhythm and momentum, which partly counterbalances its tediousness. Erich von Stroheim and Martin Koslek contributed the villainy"Millichap, 1981 p. 122: "Hellman's script [calls for] one multi-dimensional character... Dr. Kurin" Russian doctor Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin (Walter Huston), Harden's moral opposite and nemesis, ultimately dispatches his Nazi prisoner. Biographer Joseph Millichap observed that "Single-minded hatred of Fascist evil countenanced action, shooting a prisoner [the Nazi Dr. Harden] or shooting a mindless melodrama".Millichap, 1981 pp. 123–124: "Dr. Kurin's action [shooting Harden] symbolizes the ideological climate that spawned The North Star"
The film's melodramatic climax resembles a commercial action-movie, where untrained Russian guerrilla fighters overrun and obliterate the Nazi stronghold and its defenders.Cojoc, 2013. pp. 93–95: Milestone "transformed it into a pure-blood Hollywood piece... the peasants organize themselves into guerillas and without a trace of military or governmental help to protect their homeland (resembling the ad-hoc assemblies that governed themselves in American westerns)"
The picture received fulsome approval from the mainstream press, with only the Hearst papers interpreting the film's pro-Russian themes as pro-Communist propaganda. The Academy of Arts and Sciences nominated The North Star for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Special Effects, Best Musical Score, Best Sound and Best Original Screenplay. The film was largely ignored at the box office.Hoberman, 2014: The North Star "received near universal acclaim when it opened in New York at two Broadway theaters, less than a month after the Red Army liberated Kiev... [numerous dailies including] Life magazine named The North Star the movie of the year... only the two Hearst papers were critical, denouncing the movie as pro-Soviet propaganda."Cojoc, 2013 pp. 93–95: "Life magazine (1943) called it 'an eloquent tone poem (...) a document showing how the people fight and die" [while] the Hearst Press condemned it as communist propaganda"Passafiume, 2009. TCM: Hearst papers "made the outrageous suggestion that the film was not only Red propaganda but Nazi propaganda" and "positive reviews did little to help The North Star, which ultimately fizzled at the box office"
Sam Goldwyn's The North Star and two other films—Warner Brothers' Mission to Moscow (1943) and M-G-M's Song of Russia (1944)—came under scrutiny by the anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee in the post-war years.Millichap, 1981 pp. 116–117: Films produced after the Hitler–Stalin pact and Russia joined the Allied Powers "were to haunt their creators in the McCarthy era, when various witch hunters would try to sniff out any sympathy with Communism. In most cases, this romanticizing of the Eastern Front seems more commercially than politically motivated. The mass media, somewhat in response to government pressure, portrayed all our allies as good guys, the Soviets included."Barson, 2020: "Lillian Hellman's script gave the picture a political tone that would land the filmmakers in trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) just a few years later."
The North Star was reissued in a heavily reedited form that expunged any sequences that celebrate life under the Stalinist regime. Retitled Armored Attack and released in 1957, the setting is represented as Hungary during its uprising with a voice-over condemning communism.Passafiume, 2009. TCM: "Later in 1957 with the burgeoning of the cold war and McCarthyism, The North Star was completely re-cut to air on television after being singled out by the House Un-American Activities Committee as being pro-Communist. All sympathetic Soviet references were completely removed, a narrator was added warning against the 'menace of Communism,' the location was changed from Russia to Hungary, and a new title was given to the film: Armored Attack"
</blockquote> Baffle☿gab 00:24, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''The North Star'' (1943) 

message: A Walk in the Sun takes place during the US invasion of Italy during WWII: a platoon of American soldiers are tasked with advancing inland  from Salerno to take a German-held bridge and farmhouse. The social and economic backgrounds of the officers and men represent a cross-section of America, who often express ambivalence about the purpose of the war. Film critic Kingley Canham describes the characters as "a group of unwilling civilians, who find themselves at war in a strange land... a sense of hopelessness pervades the film and the final outcome means nothing to the men who are fighting the war".Canham, 1974 p. 96: "a sense of purposelessness pervades the film, blind serving of a plan whose shape and outcome mean nothing to the men... it looks forward to Pork Chop Hill"Barson, 2020: "A Walk in the Sun (1945) was a stylistically adventurous war drama, adapted by Robert Rossen from the novel by Harry Brown. The film focuses almost entirely on the states of mind of several soldiers (Andrews, Conte, and John Ireland) as they try to take a Nazi-held farmhouse in Italy."
</blockquote> Baffle☿gab 02:36, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: ''A Walk in th Sun'' (1945)

message: Remarque's brutally realistic depictions of the Paris underworld, which describe a revenge murder and a mercy-killing approvingly, was at odds with the strictures of the Production Code Administration. Milestone accordingly excised "the bars, brothels and operating rooms" as well as the sordid ending from the screenplay. Enterprise studio executives, who called for a picture that would rival Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's recently re-released Gone with the Wind (1939), had procured Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman to that end.Millichap, 1981 p. 156: The first problem was that Enterprise "pushed [the production] toward glamorous romance" and "bars, brothels... [and the film's] conclusion is changed" to conform to Code. The miscasting of screen stars Boyer and Bergman as Dr. Ravic and Joan Madou, respectively, impaired Milestone's development of these characters with respect to the literary source.Millichap, 1981 pp. 155–156: Boyer and Bergman were badly miscast. Boyer, a matinee idol [is unconvincing as] a refugee doctor, while Bergman... portrayed as international tart about as convincingly as Boyer would have played an All-American fullback." The director described his difficulty:
Milestone delivered a lengthy four-hour version of Arch of Triumph that had been pre-approved by Enterprise. Executives reversed that decision shortly before its release, cutting the picture to the more standard two hours. Entire scenes and characters were eliminated, undermining the clarity and continuity of Milestone's work.Canham, 1974 p. 99: "certain studio executives did not like the long version that Milestone turned in, so it was drastically pruned and re-edited, and today Milestone practically disowns Arch of Triumph."Millichap, 1981 p. 156: A "major difficulty was that [producers cut Milestone's long version] from about four hours to a more conventional two... such drastic cutting destroyed the continuity of the work. Major characters were completely eliminated, loose ends of plot abound and the movie romance of Boyer and Bergman becomes even more central."Hoberman, 2014: "The script, which Milestone helped write, is hopeless — disjointed and rich with pointless enigmas, although not enough to be truly surreal." The film includes some of the macabre elements of the novel through effective use of expressionistic camera angles and lighting effects.Erickson, 2014 TCM: "The movie benefits from director Milestone's formalism and attention to character detail. The lighting, sets and costumes are more realistic than we expect.... The movie offers noir atmosphere, incipient doom and the haunted face of Ingrid Bergman" and "A flashback to a torture chamber (cue silhouette images) seems to come from a horror movie."Millichap, 1981 p. 156: The flashback torture scene "a clear throughback to German Expressionism [with] quick juxtaposition of extreme angles."Hoberman, 2014: "The movie is ripely atmospheric, shot by Russell Metty in a manner that recalls the romantic fatalism of late-'30s French movies."Thomson, 2015: "I don't know why, but it's a neglected work." Milestone's overall disaffection from the project is evident in his indifferent application of cinematic technique, contributing to the failure in his film adaptation. Biographer Joseph Millichap observes:
Millichap adds that "Wherever the blame is placed, Arch of Triumph is a clear failure, a bad film made from a good book."Millichap, 1981 p. 156. And p. 154: "The Arch of Triumph should have been a much better film than it turned out to be... based [as it was] on a solid literary property"
Arch of Triumph proved an egregious failure at the box office, with Enterprise suffering significant losses. Milestone continued with the studio, accepting an offer to produce and direct a comedy vehicle for Dana Andrews and Lilli Palmer: No Minor Vices (1948).
Erickson, 2014 TCM:"audiences didn't [appreciate] the film and it earned back less than a third of its budget."Millichap, 1981 p. 156: "both an artistic and financial disaster. It grossed $1,5 millon, while it cost almost $4 million to make."And p. 157: "in later years he has practically disowned the film"Canham, 1974 p. 99
No Minor Vices (1948): A "semi-sophisticated" programmer reminiscent of Milestone's 1941 comedy My Life with Caroline at RKO, it added little to Milestone's oeuvre.Millichap, 1981 pp. 156–157: "After he completed Arch of Triumph, Milestone reverted to the weak, semi-sophisticated comedy of his Paramount and RKO pictures of the 1930s in No Minor Vices (1949)... the movie seems to reprise My Life with Caroline (year).... Milestone labored to make the film interesting with stream-of-consciousness soliloquies and deft pans... but most reviewers found it dull stuff... it seems the kind of programmer that the director might have better avoided."Canham, 1974 p. 99: Milestone "continued to work prolifically, turning our a rarely seen comedy, No Minor Vices"
Milestone departed Enterprise and joined novelist John Steinbeck at Republic Pictures to make a film version of The Red Pony (1937).Millichap, 1981 p. 157
</blockquote> Baffle☿gab 01:39, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Arch of Triumph'' (1948)

message: I was looking online and saw one of the movies Lewis Milestone directed and noticed his last name which matches mine, so I asked my father if he’s related to us and he explained that my great-great-great grandfather and my great-great-uncle worked with making movies and told me where they were from. I decided to google his name and I was surprised that it came up as a wikipedia page. I think that it’s very interesting that someone related to me made such famous movies. 2600:1008:B06E:C49C:2179:4E26:AB2B:A162 (talk) 05:31, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  My Great-Great-Great Uncle