Shooting Down the ‘Sergeant York’-’Casablanca’ Swap

Re Robert W. Welkos’ article “Taking Direction From Hollywood Greats� (Sept. 17):

Although I found quite entertaining the story told by Howard Hawks, and recounted by Tony Macklin in the latter’s book of interviews, “Voices From the Set: The Film Heritage Interviews,� about how the director swapped assignments with Michael Curtiz, exchanging “Casablanca� for “Sergeant York,� the anecdote does not seem to be very well supported by the historical facts.

“Sergeant York� was completed and released in 1941--before the United States entered the Second World War, I believe--and “Casablanca� only came out in the following year.

According to Arthur Marx in his biography of Sam Goldwyn, Jesse Lasky approached Goldwyn to borrow Gary Cooper for “Sergeant York� in 1940, but even apart from the unlikely possibility that “Casablanca� was already in planning in 1940, the tone of the films is indicative of two quite different periods.

In retrospect, “Sergeant York� was clearly intended as a warning that the United States might be involved in another war with Germany, but the film is relatively un-propagandistic in its depiction of the Kaiser’s army.

By contrast, “Casablanca� is a full-fledged anti-fascist melodrama such as no studio would have dared to produce before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

In his biography of the director, “Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood,� Todd McCarthy describes the making of “Sergeant York� in some detail, including the delicate negotiations with Alvin York, who had long resisted having his exploits adapted to the screen, but I do not recall a word about any trade-off with Curtiz involving “Casablanca.�

In any case, although Curtiz was Warner Bros.’ jack-of-all-trades, Hawks would have been a logical first choice to helm “Sergeant York� as one of the most prominent directors of action pictures in the industry and something of a specialist in World War I stories, having made the greatest of the pictures about the war in the air, the original “Dawn Patrol� in 1930, as well as “Today We Live� in 1933 and “The Road to Glory� in 1936.

Like Macklin, I too worry “that today’s younger generation is not even aware of many great films of the past.� But uncritically repeating fairy tales of this kind hardly furthers the cause of film scholarship.

In his superb book of interviews, “Hawks on Hawks,� Joseph McBride diplomatically but prudently inserted caveats as a corrective to some of Hawks’ wilder assertions. I wish that Macklin had exercised the same diffidence in handling his sources.

DAVE CLAYTON

San Diego