While browsing an old Hollywood fan magazine in this age of coronavirus quarantines and restricted travel, my eye caught a photograph of a spectacular mountain setting. This monochrome photograph showed a distant view of large mountains behind a lake. The foreground was framed by two massive tree trunks, with the small figure of a casually-dressed young woman leaning against one. A large caption in this December 1934 issue of Screenland said, "The Most Beautiful Still of the Month". A smaller caption revealed more: "Claire Trevor in 'Eleanor Norton'".
Claire Trevor—a known quantity for me—a star or top supporting actress of many well-known Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s, including John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) with John Wayne, Murder My Sweet (1944) opposite Dick Powell's hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe, and John Huston's Key Largo (1948), with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Edward G. Robinson.
Elinor Norton was another matter. This was a film I had never heard of—and from a portion of Claire Trevor's career I knew nothing about. Her career prior to her brief, Oscar-nominated, performance in William Wyler's Dead End (1937) was a black hole to me. I immediately decided to find out more about this movie.
This turned into quite a hunt, as Elinor Norton is clearly the most now-obscure movie I have ever looked into. Using my quick, informative, go-to references of old Hollywood fan magazines and U.S. newspaper archives (which include TV listings), I found no clear evidence that this movie has had showings since the 1930s. The only references in later decades I found were in nostalgia articles discussing the 1930s, or in listings of all of Claire Trevor's movies upon her death in 2000.
I am curious if anyone under the age of 90 has seen this movie.
The story of the film Elinor Norton starts with the 1933 best-selling novel The State vs. Elinor Norton, by Mary Roberts Rinehart. In contrast to the film, the novel is not obscure these days. It can be purchased as an e-book at popular web sites, plus it has been re-published as a paperback as recently as 2001.
Fox Film Corporation promptly purchased the rights to Rinehart's successful book. This was Fox prior to the momentous merger with 20th Century studios—which happened the next year—creating 20th Century-Fox. Fox was still one of the major Hollywood studios of the era, but financially troubled. A substantial fraction of pre-merger Fox films are obscure these days as they have not been in wide distribution for decades. A devastating film vault fire in New Jersey in 1937 destroyed a large cache of early Fox film prints—particularly devastating for their old silent films. For a number of pre-merger Fox films that still exist, the best recent opportunities to see them have been at screenings at New York City's Museum of Modern Art.
As of May 1934, Fox was planning for established star Helen Twelvetrees to play the principal role in the film that was then titled the same as the novel, The State vs. Elinor Norton. Hamilton MacFadden was assigned to direct. The film would start after MacFadden and Twelvetrees finished She Was a Lady. By June, though, Twelvetrees' name was no longer attached to the Norton film, and the press reported that the role was up for grabs. The studio conducted over two hundred interviews and fifty screen tests before assigning the role to their 24-year-old contractee Claire Trevor in July.
Trevor had only been in Hollywood for a year. She was coming off an appearance as Shirley Temple's mother in Baby Takes a Bow (1934), one of the child superstar's earliest starring vehicles. Elinor Norton, produced by Sol Wurtzel's unit at Fox like all her previous films, would be her first starring role. (Wurtzel's unit generally handled lower-budget films.) The story called for three men to act as her various love interests. These roles were soon cast with Hugh Williams, Norman Foster, and Gilbert Roland. None of these were huge names, with Roland probably the most notable.
"This is the big chance," Trevor told a Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist as filming got underway in early August. "Up till now I've always played hard-boiled gals and sob sisters and that type of woman. But this is my first chance to be a lady (sob sisters arise!). For the first time, too, I'm allowed to wear good clothes. I've got 22 changes of costume. Both the wardrobe mistress and I are going dizzy keeping track of them. But it's just grand."
In mid-August, the company travelled a few hundred miles north of Hollywood to the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains near Bridgeport, California. There, they filmed at Twin Lakes and the Hunewill Ranch. This was a repeat visit for director MacFadden, who had also filmed She Was a Lady in the Bridgeport area earlier in 1934.
Twin Lakes is clearly the location of the "Most Beautiful Still of the Month" that started this investigation. I found a modern-era photograph that shows a near identical mountain-and-lake profile.
By late August, the crew had returned to Fox's Western Avenue studio. Constance Bennett dropped by one day to watch her companion (and future husband) Gilbert Roland play a love scene with Claire Trevor.
As production wrapped up in September, Fox officially shortened the name of the film to Elinor Norton and signed Gilbert Roland to a long-term contract. In early October, Claire Trevor left for a brief vacation in New York. The official release date was set for November 9.
The first ads for movie showings of Elinor Norton appeared in small towns in mid-October, suggesting the release date had been moved up. The first reviews in the trade papers showed up on October 20. None of the ones that I have found were positive—or even neutral. The exhibitor ratings were equally dismal.
Here are some quotes from various of these reviews: "much unnecessary footage", "tepid as entertainment", "a tiresome and unpleasant drama", "stilted dialogue", "direction is uneven", "a jinx to a good cast", "no interest in the story", "whatever interest might have been engendered has been nullified by the quality of the acting, direction and production", "it falls short of being interesting or entertaining".
Photoplay magazine stated, "It is an unbelievably dull picture." The Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin editorialized, "Would it not be an excellent boon to the movies if audiences more often gave the 'bird' to trash like this?"
Nonetheless, as the movie was being released, producer Wurtzel was reportedly so pleased with Claire Trevor's performance that she was allowed to keep her entire wardrobe from the film. As we heard above, that would have been a substantial gift!
After Trevor's New York vacation, she returned to Fox studios to begin work on Dante's Inferno with up-and-comer Spencer Tracy. Within a few months, Fox studios had merged with 20th Century to become 20th Century-Fox. Daryl Zanuck took over and a new era began at the studio. Wurtzel and Trevor remained under the new management. Director MacFadden was released.
Claire Trevor's career grew as her first starring vehicle plunged into obscurity. In interviews given by Trevor over the next few years that I have found, Elinor Norton is not mentioned.
A nitrate print of Elinor Norton resides under the care of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. It is reportedly not in good condition.
. . .
Further reading
- "Claire Trevor: The Life and Films of the Queen of Noir" by Derek Sculthorpe, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2018
- "Hamilton MacFadden, Who?" by Anne Morra, www.moma.org, "Inside/Out" column from April 16, 2015
Sources
- Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers
- Media History Digital Library archives of Hollywood fan magazines and trade papers
Acknowledgements
Thanks to "Forever Hollywood" @foreverhollywo3 on Twitter for helping find out more about the state of the print of Elinor Norton held by UCLA.