THE PLAY

Inspiration for Moonlight and Magnolias

Excerpt from the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s Moonlight and Magnolias Study Guide
by David G. Anderson

“The inspiration for Moonlight came when I was visiting my father in England. I was reading Daily, Daily, the autobiography of Ben Hecht’s week rewriting Gone with the Wind, and literally from one footstep to another, it struck me, wow—this is classical farce. Can you imagine? All the elements are there. Three high-powered individuals lock themselves in a room existing on peanuts and bananas, and they are ever mindful that the clock is ticking, in a total pressure cooker situation.”

There was no stretch of the imagination for Hutchinson to identify with Hecht. “I’ve been all around the world in closed hotel rooms from Libya, to Morocco, to Mexico hammering out new scripts with ulcer ridden, catatonic producers ever present. The most memorable was a few years back when they flew me to the Kalahari Desert in Africa to assist with Flight of the Phoenix. The pressure is immense, there is craziness all around, but somehow you hammer it out. I enjoy the challenge and fun of it.”

Moonlight and Magnolias, he confesses, “was really more of a celebration to correct the image of film’s golden age writers, directors, and producers than an indictment of Hollywood. Though Hecht is the voice in the play, the hero is the producer David Selznick. Too often today, the producer’s image is that of the sleazy, behind the scene guy, who rakes in the money. Selznick had everything on the line: his fortune, reputation, and his marriage. The producers of yesteryear are the ones upon which the industry was built. I’ve had the great fortune to work with some outstanding producers who aren’t afraid to make the tough decisions.”

So much of the humor in the play is driven by the tension between Fleming and Hecht. When asked if there was a director he had worked with in the fashion of Fleming, Hutchinson laughed again, “Actually, I did have a person in mind in the casting. Fleming is a lost director of the golden age, a man’s man, a real tough guy. I had the great opportunity to work with John Frankenheimer on several occasions. John was six-feet-five-inches tall and full of aggressive energy. To John, directing was a full contact sport. Once again, it was my intent to shed today’s image of the director who has a scraggly beard, a backwards baseball cap, and a shaggy green belt.”

Excerpt from “Moonlight and Magnolias is a Hoot “

by Richard Connema

The Chicago Sun-Times declared it “a hyperventilating slapstick comedy” and Howard Kissel of the Daily News said “Frankly, my dear, this is one funny play.” The audience is taken into the inner sanctum of the famous producer’s office in 1939 in this two-hour ten minute two-act production. We see a clash of titanic egos that is both hilarious and entertaining.

Moonlight and Magnolias is not all comedy. There is a serious side to this farce, which is also about the hidden prejudice of Jews in Los Angeles during 1939. Ben Hecht tells how Jews cannot live in certain neighborhoods like Bel Air or cannot join the Los Angeles Country Club.
Most of the fun is in the “hidden” stories that the three titans tell about Hollywood. Hecht has only read the first page of the massive novel. At the beginning of the play, he keeps repeating to Selznick, “I have never read the book.” However, the producer is determined Hecht can come up with a new script since he is the best screenplay writer in Hollywood.

Read the full article here.