The Magic of the Goldwyn Touch

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I have a weakness for Hollywood. 

Of all people, I can blame it on my dad, who made it a point to show to me the glory of films.  I’m not talking about the ones that were all the rage when I was a kid.  We watched what we termed as classics at the theater…anything by John Wayne, Charlton Heston, or the other greats that existed in a world far different from that we know now.

Some of the younger crowd out there may think Hollywood is the glamour of Demi Moore, Tom Hanks, and Leonardo DiCaprio.  Others are just naming out films that are gracing the box office this week.  They don’t realize Hollywood is so much more than that!

Once nothing more than a quintessential little town out on the California coast, Hollywood blossomed into the city we know today.  Movie producers and actors avidly sought the solace and the year round warm weather for the latest endeavor to hit the public…The movies.

Among those, Metro Goldwyn Mayer was one of the largest studios.  The king of the company, Goldwyn (born Schmuel Gelbfisz in Poland), prided himself in the fact that his company produced the finest films in the movie industry.  He was known for “the Goldwyn Touch”, where everything he handled became a masterpiece. 

Among his greats was my all time favorite, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).  The film, which dealt with the subject of three WWII veterans returning home after the war, lit on the previously unmentioned problems that we now know as PTSD, aging, family life, and the public’s general attitude of ‘thanks for the job, but you’re over-qualified for the workplace.”  Heartwrenching, beautifully acted, and dramatic, the film won 7 Oscars and a Golden Globe, each all well deserved.  If you’ve seen the motion picture, Harold Russell’s portrayal of Homer Parrish makes me cry every time I watch the film, even after all these years.

On this day in 1974, the man with the Goldwyn Touch, Samuel Goldwyn passed away.  On his death, his obituary in the New York Times called him “a Hollywood legend, a motion picture producer whose films, always created on a grand scale, were notable for those most elusive of traits–taste and quality.”

 

 

 

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