Hal B. Wallis — Hollywood Mr. Clean (1969) 🇺🇸

Yet, formulas like this have made Wallis the most consistently successful producer in Hollywood history, filling his trophy case with 32 Oscars, and 121 Academy Award nominations.

by Frank Taylor

 According to him, the Wallis secret if there is one, is good taste. He has made a career out of finding unknowns and making them stars in clean pictures with a mass appeal. He keeps the common touch by reading farm and ranch journals, and avoiding permissiveness on the screen. His old pictures dominate the Late, Late, Late, Show, and currents, set box office records. Thanks in part to the vision of Wallis casting John Wayne in “True Grit,” the actor is likely to win his first Oscar in over 200 motion pictures. Other stars have earned Oscars because Wallis gave them a chance to make a major picture with a leading role.

Now a young unknown from Canada stands a good chance of doing the same thing in the latest Wallis production of “Anne of the Thousand Days,” for Universal. The producer found Geneviève Bujold in a minor film she had made for her husband and immediately decided she should play the title role of Anne Boleyn opposite Richard Burton. The results have been so spectacular, Universal has decided to release the film three months early in order to qualify for Oscar consideration.

In his 40 years of motion picture producing and management, Wallis has uncovered more talent than any other man. A list of his discoveries reads like the “Who’s Who?” of Hollywood. Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Charlton Heston, Shirley MacLaine, Errol Flynn, Elvis Presley, Shirley Booth, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, and a host of others all received their first starring roles in Wallis pictures.

Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and Olivia de Havilland were snatched from obscure careers on the Warner Bros. lot and elevated to stardom by the Wallis touch, and such screen classics as Little Caesar, I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, Dawn Patrol, Gold Diggers of 1933, The Rose Tattoo, Sorry, Wrong Number, Come Back, Little Sheba, and Last Train from Gun Hill have assured Wallis of a secure place in Hollywood history.

But the only history Wallis is interested in, is that which he puts on film. Many of his pictures have dealt with themes of heroic times, and past glory, and there is a reason for this. Both Wallis and the late Cecil B. DeMille discovered long ago that history sells. People going to the movies like to escape and Wallis has a knack for helping them escape through the medium of his pictures.

“Becket,” “Casablanca,” and The Charge of the Light Brigade (the first one with Errol Flynn) are remembered as much for the story content as the acting. As the old Hollywood studios are gradually taken over by bankers and cost accountants, Wallis predicts a decline in movie popularity and quality.

“The film business,” he points out, “is not one that can be run on normal commercial lines. You’re not mass producing paper towels or stamping out auto parts. Every picture is highly individual and is custom made to the last detail. Every word, every line in the script, every piece of acting, every bit of casting, is an individual operation.” Men who make money in the business world, rarely have the creative sensitivity Wallis feels to control motion picture production.

For this reason, Wallis insists on retaining all creative control of his films.

Studios who sign him up are happy to accept his terms knowing full well they couldn’t get him or his money making talents any other way.

When he was head of the Warner Bros. studio in the San Fernando Valley, he arrived at work to find a sign painter removing his name from the door and replacing it with that of Richard Zanuck.

Wallis sat down and started to laugh. A few weeks before he had inserted a situation exactly like it in one of his movies. When Zanuck moved on to greener pastures as head of 20th Century-Fox, he was invited back to the studio as chief of production, but he never lost his perspective or sense of humor. He looks like a middle aged stock broker, or a successful insurance man today, and his desk is kept neat, there is an air of calm about him that breeds confidence. After 40 years, Wallis has no plans to retire. Currently he does two pictures a year. If he retires, he will cut back production to one a year. In the meantime he plans to continue his pursuit of the “G” rating. To his way of thinking, it is a symbolic rainbow whose pot of gold is box office success. Let other producers clutch at straws and exploit sex on the screen, Hal Wallis knows there is a better way of doing things.

Hal Wallis Won 32 Oscars Without Violating Good Taste

When Warner Bros. bought their present studio at the corner of Barham and Warner Blvds., in 1928, the first studio boss was Hal Wallis. For many years, Wallis was a Valley resident and directed the activities of the giant studio both as studio manager and later chief of production.

His most recent motion picture, Anne of the Thousand Days, was shot on location in England and released by another Valley studio, Universal, marks a new milestone in his distinguished career.

Author John Ringo Graham explores the background of Hal Wallis in his penetrating article and discovers that the famed producer once found himself doing in real life what he had his actors do on the screen.

Geneviève Bujold and Hal Wallis on the Set

Pomp and ceremony mark the production of Hal Wallis' Anne of the Thousand Days.

Anne of the 1000 Days

Continuing a 40 year trend of Academy Award winning entertainment, Hal Wallis brings to the screen the life and times of Henry the Eighth and his romance with the beautiful Anne Boleyn who later lost her head in the Tower of London.

Anne of the Thousand Days is full of the pageantry and excitement that made this one of the great eras of English history. Starring Richard Burton and newcomer, Geneviève Bujold, the picture fills the screen with pageantry and spectacle

Released three months early, Anne of the Thousand Days, is expected to place Miss Bujold in Oscar competition. Wallis who also brought Becket, True Grit, Little Caesar and more than 400 other major pictures to the screen, predicts this will be one of his finest films.

In this issue of Hollywood Studio Magazine, John Ringo Graham explores the career of this amazing producer and discovers his real life resembles some of his movies.

Caught in a pensive mood by the camera, Richard Burton ponders his portrayal of “Henry the Eighth.”

Doing a bit part, Elizabeth Taylor peers from behind an elaborate mask in a key scene at the insistence of husband Richard Burton.

Geneviève Bujold and Richard Burton relax on the set while a make-up-man gives their faces a touch up.

Editors Note: As we were going to press it was announced that Anne of the Thousand Days has been selected by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for a Royal Film Performance, February 23rd, 1970.

This is the most coveted honor that can be given a film in England, and ranks with an Academy Award in the United States. A special seven-day consecutive run at Loew’s Beverly Theatre, Beverly Drive and Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, will begin on December 18th to qualify Anne of the Thousand Days for Academy Award consideration.

Collection: Hollywood Studio Magazine, December 1969