Photoplays

This chapter surveys Milestone’s career in the early 1930s: The Front Page, Rain, and Hallelujah, I’m a Bum. The comedy The Front Page, produced and financed by Howard Hughes, adapted a fast-paced play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur about a Chicago newspaperman torn between his work and his fiancée. It was nominated for three Academy Awards. Based on Somerset Maugham’s story, the drama Rain starred Joan Crawford and Walter Huston in a racy story about repressed sexual desire. Al Jolson starred in Hallelujah, I’m a Bum, a Depression-era musical. Other topics discussed: Milestone’s friendship with Sergei Bertenson and their Paris adventures, courtship of actress Kendall Lee, changing Hollywood censorship guidelines.