Hello, Sister!

The working title of this film was Walking Down Broadway. This was the last film on which Erich von Stroheim worked as a director. Although von Stroheim developed the script with Fox writers and directed during the initial production period, the studio subsequently remade the film without his participation and released it with no director credited. The project began, according to a September 4, 1931 Film Daily news item, when Fox signed von Stroheim to direct a film based on the unpublished play Walking Down Broadway by New York writer Dawn Powell. The copy of the play in the Twentieth Century-Fox Produced Scripts Collection at the UCLA Theater Arts Library is dated August 6, 1931. Von Stroheim and Fox staff writer Leonard Spigelgass prepared an outline, dated September 11, 1931, which contained the basic scenes and characterizations that appeared in the final shooting script of August 9, 1932. In a modern article, Spigelgass stated that the director "was chiefly interested in the neuroses" of the characters, whom they changed from "simple American characters into far more complicated ones, Viennese-oriented." Before the final shooting script, a number of treatments and continuities were written by Stroheim, Spigelgass and other writers. According to information in the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department, also at UCLA, von Stroheim was "summarily dismissed" in February 1932 with $16,500 still owed him on his contract. A draft of the script dated March 12, 1932 lists Alan Crosland, not von Stroheim, as the director. (At that time, Gordon Wiles was to be the art director; David Cox, to be in charge of wardrobe; Jack Boland, the assistant director; and Archie Buchanan the business manager.) A Los Angeles Times news item dated June 5, 1932 reported, "For awhile [von Stroheim] was scheduled to direct his own story, Walking Down Broadway, for Fox. The deal, he admits, is now apparently off, although he retains hope for its revival." A Hollywood Filmograph production chart in June lists the film as shooting with Crosland as director, but in the next week, the film is listed as "in preparation" with von Stroheim as director, so it is not likely that Crosland actually shot any footage in June 1932. By June 21, 1932, von Stroheim was back as director. A Hollywood Citizen-News news item dated June 23, 1932 explained that Winfield R. Sheehan, the Fox production chief, originally signed von Stroheim, but that the production had been postponed "time after time." Sheehan subsequently left on a "long sick leave," and while he was away, Alan Crosland was engaged to direct. Following Sheehan's return, von Stroheim was put back in charge. At that stage, according to Hollywood Citizen-News, only James Dunn and Minna Gombell were cast; Una Merkel had been cast, but was no longer going to be in the film. On 28 Jun, Hollywood Citizen-News announced that Marian Nixon, who had been cast for the romantic lead opposite Dunn, was no longer set for the part and that von Stroheim was testing a number of actresses. According to a memo in the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library, dated July 21, 1932, Hays Office officials Colonel Jason Joy, director of the AMPP Studio Relations Committee, and his assistant, Lamar Trotti (both of whom would, by the end of 1932, quit the Hays Office and become Fox employees), discussed the script with von Stroheim, who read it to them. The three worked out details that worried Hays Office officials, and a few days later, Joy reported on the meeting to MPPDA president Will H. Hays: "Von Stroheim, who remembered our letter on Queen Kelly [von Stroheim's last attempt at directing, which was halted before production was completed] kicked like a steer about seeing us, but I was very much pleased yesterday to hear that he now thinks we aren't so bad....We read the script several months ago and found it chock full of the old von Stroheim bits....[The latest version of the script] was vastly improved, both as entertainment and from our standpoint, but of course, there remained a lot of words and phrases which had to be changed." On August 1, 1932, Trotti reported in a memo, "They [von Stroheim and producer Sol M. Wurtzel] have decided to insert the idea of marriage between the girl and boy almost immediately in order to make the characters more sympathetic. It was really to strengthen Mr. Wurtzel's idea that we were called in to discuss it with Mr. von Stroheim." The final shooting script, dated August 9, 1932, was subtitled "An inconsequential story concerning small people along The Great White Way." Initial filming began August 19, 1932 and was completed in mid-Oct. Hollywood Reporter reported that although the film came in one week late, it had not gone over budget. The film was edited in October and was scheduled to be released November 27, 1932, according to Film Daily. An ad in Film Daily on 10 Nov, listing von Stroheim as director, reads, "Life itself wrote this story-Genius brings it living to your screen. No woman can resist its appeal." The film was shown to members of the Hays Office on 18 Nov. On 29 Nov, however, after a preview, Hollywood Reporter reported, "It is understood that W. R. Sheehan has or will order a complete remake of the Fox production of Walking Down Broadway due to the fact that this picture was sold on a special contract and so many of these have been signed that a release of the picture just finished May jeopardize the money value of the exhibition agreements." A number of sources have offered possible reasons that Fox executives thought the release of the film might jeopardize exhibition agreements. Hollywood Citizen-News stated that von Stroheim's version "turned out to be much too long for release." A Hays Office letter about the film states, "The first version was so bad (as a piece of entertainment) that the studio never released it." In a Los Angeles Times column dated December 4, 1932, Philip K. Scheuer commented, "Quite the disappointment of the year is the news of Erich von Stroheim's failure as director of Walking Down Broadway. Ballyhooed as potentially great, touted sky-high to exhibitors, it goes back for a complete remake at the Fox studios. And nobody's to blame. I didn't see a preview of the film, but I can conjecture. It is not von Stroheim who has changed, but we. The man and his methods are as definitely 'dated' as are the rules of social deportment he obeys. Chastity and evil, white and black, a camellia in a pigsty-screen anachronisms all, like a click of the heels, a bow from the waist, a kissed hand....First Griffith, now von Stroheim. Artists both, murdered by Time." Modern sources report that von Stroheim felt he was caught in the middle of a battle for control of the production forces at Fox between Sheehan and Wurtzel during a period when the company was undergoing changes in management and that he blamed Wurtzel for his removal from the film. However, writer Leonard Spigelgass, in a modern article, states that Sheehan, not Wurtzel, threw von Stroheim off the lot after viewing the rough cut. Included in the Produced Scripts Collection is a script dated February 6, 1933 containing retake scenes written by Edwin Burke. (Earlier, in February and March 1932, after von Stroheim had been dismissed from the project the first time, Burke had written "changes" to the script then being worked on.) This retake script incorporated some scenes from von Stroheim's version, with new scenes written by Burke that were to be filmed. Hollywood Citizen-News reported that Alfred Werker started directing retakes on February 13, 1933. Hollywood Reporter stated on March 2, 1933, "Edwin Burke has moved in to direct retakes of Walking Down Broadway for Fox. Picture gives Burke, contract writer, an opportunity to direct. Although production of the picture originally was under the supervision of Winfield Sheehan when Erich von Stroheim directed it, Sol Wurtzel is supervising the retaking job. When released the picture will carry the title Hello, Sister." (Burke appears to have directed only one other film, the 1934 Now I'll Tell [see below]). A Variety news item noted that Werker directed the retakes with Burke, and modern sources state that Raoul Walsh directed the scenes in Coney Island, which were shot by James Wong Howe. Spigelgass, in a modern article, states that Sidney Lanfield May have directed some of the retakes. The New York Times review credits Alan Crosland with direction; however, no information concerning his participation in the final film has been located. Variety stated that the original production cost around $300,000 and that the retakes cost $62,000. Modern sources credit Charles Van Enger as second cameraman and list Hattie McDaniel in the cast as a woman in the apartment house. McDaniel was not apparent in the print viewed. According to information in the MPAA/PCA Collection, the new version was viewed on March 17, 1933 by the Hays Office. The AMPP Studio Relations Committee, reporting on the film to Hays, stated, "This new version does not seem to be much better." The script shot by von Stroheim is much longer than the retake script and has many differences in emphasis. In the original, the character of Mac is coarser, and Millie is more fully developed and more important than in the retake version. She is willing to do anything to get a man and, when she meets Jimmy, falls much more in love with him than in the final film. The major change involves the ending. In the original, the fire occurs after Millie turns on the gas in an attempt to kill herself. Afterwards, in a hospital scene, she effects a reconciliation between Jimmy and Peggy and then succumbs to an agonizing, terrifying death. The scenes directed by von Stroheim that seem to have survived in the released print (according to indications in the February 6, 1933 retake script) include the following: some shots of the "walk down Broadway"; Millie's dialogue with Jimmy as they walk about her fondness for funerals; Jimmy finding the injured dog; Millie falling in the sewer and Jimmy rescuing her; hallway shots as Jimmy goes to Peggy's apartment; Jimmy and Peggy climbing up to look out the skylight in her apartment (however most of the apartment scene is new); Mac's attempted rape of Peggy and his subsequent fight with Mona; Jimmy's talk with his boss in the bank; the marriage license bureau scenes; Jimmy and Peggy's argument in the rain; Peggy's return to the apartment; the fight in the street; the explosion and the most of the fire sequence. In reviewing the film, Motion Picture Herald noted that the title was "the salutation of the 'pick-up.'" Film Daily commented that the film was "For adults only. Its story is hackneyed and considerably off-color, with dialogue which at times cannot be described as wholesome."