Moonlight and Magnolias

Moonlight and Magnolias by Ron Hutchinson 72 pages

 

In this play, movie producer David O. Selznick has shut down the making of that 1936 blockbuster novel, Gone With The Wind, three weeks after production begins. The burning of Atlanta has already been filmed and is in the can. However, the screenplay is not working. Selznick has fired director George Cukor and tapped Victor Fleming to take over. Fleming, however, is trying to direct that equally famous movie, The Wizard of Oz.

 

The Place:  David O. Selznick’s office. Day. And the next four days after that.

 

The Actors:  David O. Selznick, producer; Victor Fleming, maybe the movie’s new director; Ben  Hecht, famed screenwriter that can make any manuscript shine; Miss Poppenghul, Selznick’s secretary.

 

The Goal: To rewrite the screenplay for Gone With The Wind

 

Act 1: Word has gotten around that Selznick has stopped filming his high budget film.  He is fending off phone calls from the newspapers, everyone in Hollywood and Louis B, Mayer, founder of MGM studios and, more important, his father-in-law.

 

Selznick has called Ben Hecht and Victor Fleming to his office. He asks his secretary to being in bananas and peanuts, locks the door and tells the two Hollywood veterans that they have five days to come up with a shootable script. The only time the door will open is for more bananas and peanuts.

 

Problem number one: Hecht is the only person in Hollywood, probably the world, who has not read  Margaret Mitchell’s tale of the Old South.

 

Act II: Selznick and Fleming re-enact scenes from the novel to light Hecht’s imagination. Imagine if you will, the tall (6 foot), rotund Selznick prancing around his office in a high voice, pretending to be Scarlett, or even funnier, Prissy.

 

After five days, the script is finished. The office has been trashed. The men are falling asleep on their feet. The rest is history.

 

There is a lot that happens in these few pages that bounce between comedy and drama. Snippets of the play are in fact true, but mostly it’s fiction from the mind of author Hutchinson. I thoroughly enjoyed Moonlight and Magnolias and would love to see the play performed. The only real beef I had with it was that Louis B. Mayer was on hold for two solid days, waiting for an explanation from Selznick. That would never, ever happen in real life. Moonlight and Magnolias receive 4 out of stars in Julie’s world. 

 

Miss Aldridge Regrets

 

Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare 368 pages

Lena Aldridge isn’t happy with her life. She thought she would be a big star by now. Instead, she’s singing in a dump in London’s Soho. Her father, Alfie, just died, and her married lover has left her. She’s lucky to have the gig she has, mostly thanks to her best friend, Maggie, whose husband, Tommy Scarsdale, owns the joint.

But tonight isn’t Tommy’s night. He dies right in front of the stage, right in the middle of Lena’s set. This isn’t the first murder that has happened, which make Lena skittish.

A stranger appears, saying that his boss owes Alfie a favor. He offers Lena a chance to star on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary. Lena weighs her options, and figuring she has nothing to lose, she jumps at the opportunity.

Author Hare does a fabulous job in creating the period details and the luxuries Lena enjoyed on the ship. Luxuries she has never known in her twenty-six years. Heck, she even had to borrow clothes from Maggie just to fit in.

On Lena’s first night, she learns that her tablemates are the Abernathy’s. Each member of the family is stereotypical of their role. It got old quick! It’s more important than ever the Lena keeps her mixed-race identity a secret.

Wandering around the ship in search of what Lena isn’t quite sure. She meets one of the bandleaders, Will. There is mutual attraction, but Lena must be very, very careful. Will is African American, and mixed couples in 1936 are exactly welcome in either race. Lena believes that the Abernathy’s would rather have her thrown overboard as shark food rather than sit at the same table with her.

When the Abernathy patriarch dies, murdered it seems, Lena is more frightened than ever.

“Miss Aldridge Regrets” is hailed as being an Agatha-Christie like murder mystery. I don’t see t. To me the pace was slow, tension was low, and the characters were so stereotypical, Christie would be embarrassed. I did love the period details and that pushes “Miss Aldridge Regrets” to 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.