About Elizabeth Expertise I`m an avid collector of all-things-Peck, and believe that I can field most any question related to his career, co-stars, or personal life.
Expert: Elizabeth Date: 4/10/2003 Subject: David & Bathseba/Gregory Peck
Question Do you have any information on the 1942 film of David & Bathseba..Gregory Peck starred with Rita Hayworth, I believe. This was one of Gregory's best performances I feel. Like Charlton Heston, Gregory gave his all and seemed to truly believe in what he was doing.
Thank you,
Answer Hi Janet. :)
Yes, that was a wonderful film!
Let's see. To start with, it was made in 1951, not 1942, by Twentieth Century-Fox (the video was released by CBS/Fox). In 1947, James Mason and his wife Pamela Kellino made their American stage debuts in a Broadway show, "Bathsheba." Seeing the production torn between drama and comedy, Mason predicted that it would flop, and he was correct. "Bathsheba" lasted for only 29 performances, and the New York Times called it "a long diffuse evening." Nevertheless, Darryl Zanuck owned the film rights and saw that some better scripting and more emphasis on sexuality could set the show right. Philip Dunne would address the first problem, and to ignite the flames on screen, Zanuck turned to Peck and Susan Hayward, the twin hottest properties in Hollywood in the late forties/early fifties. Objections to the red-headed, non-Semitic-looking Hayward were brushed aside, knowing that her looks could undo even David's piety.
Initially, Hayward had some concerns about the film title. Couldn't it stay "Bathsheba" or be changed to "Bathsheba and David"? She sensed that it would be Peck's film and was upset by her starlet treatment by Henry King that led one critic to see her as a "lovesick cheerleader admiring the football hero" and breathing lines like, "David did you REALLY kill Goliath? Was he as big as they say?" On the other hand, critics unanimously applauded Peck's performance.
In correspondence with Zanuck, Dunne saw "Sampson and Delilah" as a circus, a "Hebrew Paul Bunyan," yet as great entertainment. For this new biblical film, Dunne proposed to write a "character study of one of the most interesting and many-sided men in history." That emphasis on character rather than action is fostered by confining the film to just five sets, with a few desert shots, taken at Nogales, Arizona. The main action was talking, and in some quarters the film was seen as ponderous. The majority of reviews, however, saw the dialogue as fostering depth in a film that does service to the bible.
For this movie, King's preparation came up slightly short of full accuracy. The building of the Ark of the Covenant was based on illustrations of medieval scholars, the same model employed more recently in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." On the other hand, the film's slain Goliath tumbles backward, instead of falling, more biblically, forward on his face. Zanuck had complained to Dunne about the lack of sex in the last act, but what disappointed the audience was the blandness of Bathsheba's bath scene (Hayward was very much clothed and the camera well removed from her tub).
Still, the film opened to critical acclaim and a rush at the box office. For 1951, the box office earnings were at the top of the list, according to Variety, with a total of 7-million. Though it won no Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Story and Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Set Decoration, Best Score, and Best Costuming.
At the time of the production, Peck was involved in stage and movie work both in England and in La Jolla, California (he was co-founder of the now infamous La Jolla Playhouse), and had also just completed a vacation fishing trip that was as strenuous as it was supposed to be relaxing. He has spoken of that time as one in which he was drinking heavily to ease the pressure of an unhappy domestic life, and he was also taking seconal to reduce the pressure of his work. On October 26, 1950, while testing for David's makeup and costume, Peck collapsed. He was suffering from exhaustion. For a month, he went out into the Mojave desert, took long walks, ate good food, and read. When he returned to begin filming, he had the advantage of working again with his favorite director, Henry King.
The quality of his performance in this film was cited by Martin Scorsese when he toasted Peck at the 1991 Kennedy Awards Dinner: "In the last fifteen minutes of the picture, from the moment starting with his recitation of the 23rd psalm to his supplication before the Ark of the Covenant, we experienced his truly remarkable ability to convey the darkest struggles of the human soul."
I don't know if you're looking for production details or not, so I'll provide them, just to be sure:
Producer: Darryl Zanuck
Director: Henry King
Screenplay: Philip Dunne (based on the Second Book of Samuel and on the play "Bathsheba" (1947) by Jacques Duval)
Cinematography: Leon Shamroy
Color Consultant: Leonard Doss
Art Directors: Lyle Wheeler, George Davis
Set Design: Thomas Little, Paul Fox
Editor: Barbara McLean
Special Effects: Fred Sersen
Music: Alfred Newman
Orchestration: Edward Powell
Dances: Jack Cole
Makeup: Ben Nye
Costumes: Charles LeMaire, Edward Stevenson
CAST
Gregory Peck: David
Susan Hayward: Bathsheba
Raymond Massey: Nathan
Kieron Moore: Uriah
James Robertson Justice: Abishai
Jayne Meadows: Michal
John Sutton: Ira
Dennis Hoey: Joab
Walter Talun: Goliath
Paula Morgan: adulteress
Francis X Bushman: King Saul
Teddy Infuhr: Jonathan
Leo Pessin: David as boy
Gwyneth Verdon: specialty dancer
Gilbert Barnett: Absalom
John Burton: priest
Lumsden Hare: old sheperd
George Zucco: Egyptian ambassador
Allan Stone: Amnon
Paul Newlan: Samuel
Holmes Herbert: Jesse
Robert Stephenson, Harry Carter: executioners
Richard Michelson: Jesse's first son
Dick Winters: Jesse's second son
John Duncan: Jesse's third son
James Craven: court announcer
Janet, if you're looking for answers to any specific facets of the film which I haven't covered, please don't hesitate to write back. Your question was a general one, so I just tried to cover the broader picture here, but I'd be more than happy to cover anything in particular that I overlooked here.
Many thanks for writing, and, again, don't hesitate to write back if there's more you'd like to know,
Elizabeth
:)
