This book is all about the making of the movie 'The Way We War', a 1973 romantic drama starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford.
Ever since the American Film Institute started keeping track, 'The Way We Were' has always been among the top ten movie romances of all time, in the venerable company of 'Casablanca' and 'Gone With The Wind.' I'm going to write about the plot of 'The Way We Were' in this review, so if you're not familiar with the film and plan to see it, you might want to stop reading now.
Chronologically, 'The Way We Were' starts in 1937, when Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) is a Jewish, working class, college student and a member of the Young Communist League. Katie rails against the Spanish Civil War and unsuccessfully tries to engage other students in her cause.
Katie is attracted to handsome, gentile, blonde jock Hubbell Gardiner (Robert Redford), an upper class boy in her writing class who appears to have it all.
Hubbell admires Katie's spunk, but they're just schoolmates, and Hubbell hangs with his own crowd.
Katie and Hubbell meet again after World War II, when Katie works for a New York radio station and Hubbell is back from his stint as a naval officer. Romantic sparks ignite between the pair, and they become a couple.
Trouble erupts when activist Katie takes umbrage against Hubbell's rich dilettante friends, whose lives seem to revolve around fun and parties.
Katie and Hubbell break up, but get back together and marry.
Hubbell's novel has been optioned for a Hollywood movie, and Katie and Hubbell move to California, where Hubbell will write the screenplay.
While the couple is living in California, the red scare flares up and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) pursues a mission to root out subversives in Hollywood. This leads to the blacklist, which denies employment to actors, screenwriters, directors, musicians, and other entertainment personnel who are (or were) Communists or sympathizers.
Katie and other activists who feel their freedom of speech is being abridged go to Washington to protest, and Katie's radicalism threatens to blow back on Hubbell and his career.
Katie and Hubbell part, but happen to meet years later for a final goodbye.
That's the jist of the finished movie, but the road to get there was long, sinuous, and difficult.
'The Way We Were' began when producer Ray Stark commissioned screenwriter Arthur Laurents to write a movie for Barbra Streisand.
Producer Ray Stark with Barbra Streisand
Laurents penned the script for the film 'The Way We Were' - and later the book of the same name - based on his own experiences. Laurents, who was Jewish, tended to fall for handsome gentile men, and his script for 'The Way We Were' was based on Laurents' romance with actor Tom Hatcher......where Laurents is Katie and Hatcher is Hubbell.
Screenwriter Arthur Laurents (right) with Tom Hatcher
Moreover, "over the years Laurents never gave an interview without failing to mention how his movie career got upended when the House Un-American Activities Committee swung into action in 1947 and declared....the motion picture industry a hotbed of communism."
Director Sydney Pollack liked Laurents' script and wanted Robert Redford to play Hubbell Gardiner.
Director Sydney Pollack (right) with Robert Redford
Redford refused to sign on though, because he thought the Hubbell role was too shallow and one-dimensional. Redford noted, "All I am supposed to be is this blond, blue-eyed hunk of romance that all the girls go crazy over, and I have absolutely nothing else to do in the picture." The actor "had assiduously avoided playing any [movie] role that capitalized on his awesome chiseled face and his dazzling golden hair." Redford felt his looks got in the way of audiences and critics recognizing his real talent as a subtle and gifted actor.
Robert Redford
Pollack cajoled Redford for months, saying "You really have to do it. It's really important. I, as your director, want you to do it, and I think you'll be good in it." Streisand and scriptwriter Laurents also fought for Redford to play Hubbell. However producer Ray Stark was indifferent to the actor and asserted "We've got Streisand. What do we need Redford for?" The producer pushed for Ryan O'Neal and seemed to think almost any handsome (preferably blond) actor would do. Thus other suggestions for Hubbell were Ken Howard, Dennis Cole, and Warren Beatty.
Actor Ryan O'Neal
Pollack insisted on Redford though, and proclaimed "Redford is one of the great screen actors." Pollack pressured Laurents' to change the script to beef up the Hubbell character, and when Laurents refused, the director hired other writers to turn Hubbell into something Redford wanted to play. And Redford finally (if reluctantly) agreed to star in the film.
Stark and Pollack also wanted the writers to play down the politics because the blacklist was still a sensitive subject in Hollywood.
The top executives at Columbia Pictures, which was financing the movie, feared what would be exposed. For instance, the William Morris Agency, which represented some of the best known entertainers in film, television, and music, had vigorously enforced the blacklist....and people were still resentful.
Script re-writes continued throughout the filming and the ever-expanding and changing screenplay emerged as the greatest problem dividing producer Ray Stark and director Sydney Pollack. "We were rewriting all the time," said Pollack. "While we were shooting, we were rewriting. We didn't know how to mix the politics and the love story and make it work."
The actors also presented challenges. Three weeks into production, Pollack could see he was dealing with two extremely different actors. Pollack recalled, "Barbra wanted precision; Redford spontaneity. Barbra likes lengthy rehearsals and multiple takes; Redford [refuses to rehearse and] is better in his early takes. After that he just gets bored." In addition, Streisand phoned Pollack at eleven o'clock most nights to discuss everything that had happened that day and what would be taking place the next day.
Sydney Pollack directing Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford
'The Way We Were' had a five-million-dollar budget, which was very tight. Streisand and Redford together were earning $2.2 million, and that didn't leave Pollack much money to replicate New York City in the year 1945, where Katie and Hubbell meet after the war. It was expensive to rent vintage cars, set up shots for the luxury Beekman Place apartment of Hubbell's best friend, and camouflage anachronisms like modern parking meters and post office boxes.
Additionally, photographing stars like Streisand and Redford on the streets of New York City demanded a good deal of security control, which was expensive. Finally, numerous scenes were filmed that never made it into the final cut of the movie.
When it came to the music for the film, producer Stark approached Marvin Hamlisch and asked him to write a song for Barbara on spec. If the song passed muster, Hamlisch would get to do the whole movie. Stark put Hamlisch together with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and together they wrote the theme song for Streisand to sing. As it turned out, the song - also titled 'The Way We Were' - ended up being as tightly linked to the film as 'Over the Rainbow' is to 'The Wizard of Oz' and 'Moon River' is to 'Breakfast at Tiffany's.'
Composer Marvin Hamlisch with Barbra Streisand
The film was edited by John Burnett and Margaret Booth, and Burnett observed, "You put the movie together and it's not exactly what the director for a year or two has had in his head." After Pollack had the first private screening of the (more or less) completed movie, he and Burnett removed whole chunks of the film, taking out most of the blacklist material, which made the movie basically about a couple.
'The Way We Were' had its world premiere on October 16,1973, at the Loew's State Theatre in Times Square, with an after-party at the Plaza Hotel. On the red carpet, Pollack downplayed the film's politics, telling reporters "It's a star vehicle for our two reigning superstars." The movie went on to become the year's fifth most popular film, earning nearly fifty million dollars....and the eponymous song became a number one hit and the best-selling single of the year.
Upon the film's release, the influential critics Pauline Kael and Judith Crist broke from the majority male opinion of 'The Way We Were.' The women found the film 'enjoyable.' Almost fifty years later, critic Christina Newland wrote, "[The movie is] wonderful because it addresses what so many women know to be true: some men want you to be less of yourself, and that simply will not do. Even if they are Robert Redford."
There was talk of a sequel to 'The Way We Were' but it never happened.
Barbra Streisand singing The Way We Were
I've mentioned a bit about the making of 'The Way We Were', but every aspect of the movie, including the cast, costumes, extras, lighting, etc. is extensively covered by author Robert Hofler - who did numerous interviews and prodigious research. Hofler also includes juicy gossip about some of the major players, especially screenwriter Arthur Laurents, who had a mean streak, lots of affairs, and a very colorful life. Hofler also mentions that Barbra Streisand often slept with her male co-stars, but not Redford, who was a married father and careful to keep his distance. There are plenty of other interesting tidbits as well, and I enjoyed this peek into Hollywood history.
I'd recommend the book to fans of 'The Way We Were', film buffs in general, and people interested in HUAC and the blacklist.
Thanks to Netgalley, Robert Hofler, and Kensington Books for a copy of the manuscript.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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