APPLETON, WIS. — Robert Shandley, director of film studies at Texas A & M University, examines filmmaker William Wyler’s ground-breaking attempt to shake the American film industry out of a post-World War II financial tailspin in the Lawrence University Main Hall Forum “How Rome Saved Hollywood.” Shandley’s address, Friday, Oct. 13 at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall, Room 201, is free and open to the public.
Amidst a myriad of challenges — the growth of surburbia, the emergence of television programming, trade unions demanding pay hikes following wage freezes during the war, negative publicity caused by government investigations into political activities of movie industry employees — the major Hollywood film studios found themselves in financial straits following the end of the second World War.
Shandley argues that legendary director William Wyler tried to tackle all of those problems in one film, 1953’s “Roman Holiday.” Filmed on location, it was the first Hollywood studio film in which all production and post-production work was done outside of southern California. It earned 10 Academy Award nominations, including best picture and best director for Wyler.
Although few productions followed in the footsteps of Wyler and Paramount Studios, the film did become a model for reducing costs by filming abroad, using exotic locations that television could not match, providing employment to blacklisted professionals and appealing to Americans’ new sense of cosmopolitanism.
The presentation is part of Shandley’s forthcoming book, “Runaway Romances: Hollywood’s Postwar Tour of Europe.” He also is the author of the 2001 monograph “Rubble Films: German Cinema in the Shadow of the Third Reich.” A member of the Texas A & M faculty since 1995, Shandley earned a Ph.D. in German and comparative literature from the University of Minnesota.
