Moonlight and Magnolias

Susan Granger on “Moonlight and Magnolias” (Manhattan Theater Club: 2004-2005)

If you love old movies the way I do, particularly “Gone With The Wind,” you gotta relish the nostalgia of “Moonlight and Magnolias.” Fiddle-dee-dee – it’s sheer theatrical fun!
Behind-the-scenes delight begins before the curtain rises with screen tests of wannabe Scarlett O’Haras like Susan Hayward, Paulette Goddard, Lana Turner, Jean Arthur and Vivien Leigh.
Inspired by real events and set in 1939 in the office of producer David O. Selznick, the broad comedy revolves around how “Gone With the Wind” was hammered into shape over a frantic five-day period by Selznick, legendary script-doctor Ben Hecht and Clark Gable’s favorite director, volatile Victor Fleming, whom Selznick snatched off the set of “The Wizard of Oz.”
Problems abound: Hecht has never read Margaret Mitchell’s best-seller, dismissing it as “moonlight and magnolias,” so neurotic Selznick and rugged Fleming act out the story for him.
To Selznick’s consternation, Hecht realistically points out that “no Civil War movie ever made a dime” and that the slave-abusing heroine is not only unsympathetic but amoral. Unable to leave the office confines during the sleepless marathon, the men munch peanuts and bananas supplied by Selznick’s harried secretary, Miss Poppenguhl. Unseen but always lurking in the background is Selznick’s tyrannical father-in-law, M.G.M. studio mogul Louis B. Mayer.
Writer Ron Hutchinson and director Lynne Meadow relish the bantering farce, faltering only when trying to delve into Hollywood’s Jew-Gentile dilemma. Douglas Sills captures Selznick’s meticulous, maniacal obsession, while David Rache, Matthew Arkin and Karen Trott get laughs as the insecure Fleming, skeptical Hecht and loyal Poppenguhl. Frankly, my dear, it’s hilarious!

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