Editing King Vidor (section)

===Paramount Pictures: 1935–1936===

''[[So Red the Rose (film)|So Red the Rose]]'' (1935) and ''[[The Texas Rangers (1936 film)|The Texas Rangers]]'' (1936)

Paramount production manager at [[Paramount Pictures]], [[Ernst Lubitsch]], persuaded Vidor to undertake the direction of a film based on a story that afforded a "[[Culture of the Southern United States|"Southern"]] perspective, ''So Red the Rose'', an [[American Civil War]] epic.

The topic appealed to the Texas-bred Vidor and he offered a dual vision of the [[antebellum South]]'s response to the war among the white [[planter class]], sentimentalizing their struggle and defeat. Here, the western "pioneer" plantation owners possess less of the anti-Northern fury that led to [[secession]] by their "Old South" counterparts. The scion of the estate, Duncan Bedford ([[Randolph Scott]]) initially refuses to join the Confederate army ("I don't believe Americans should fight Americans") but his sister Vallette Duncan ([[Margaret Sullavan]]) scorns his pacifism and singlehandedly diverts her slaves from rebellion. The white masters of the "Portobello" plantation in Mississippi emerge from the conflict content that North and South made equal sacrifices, and that a "New South" has emerged that is better off without its white aristocracy and slavery. With Portobello in ruins, Valette and Duncan submit to the virtues of hard work in a pastoral existence.<ref>Durgnat and Simmons, 1988: p. 176-177: Vidor's interpretation of the Civil War South is that of "an unrepentant – unreconstructed Southerner..." And "Vidor presents "two distinct southern regional responses" to the Civil War. And p. 199: The film describes "a split between Texans and Southerners [who behave] according to different senses of 'honor'..." And p. 176: The loss of Portobello "toughens" [the former slaveholders] into survivors" who now work and live simply on the land. And for "pacifism" and "American" quotes, see p. 176, p. 179.<br />Baxter, 1976 p. 53-54: Thumbnail sketch of So Red the Rose.</ref>

The novel ''So Red the Rose'' (1934) by [[Stark Young]] in its narrative and theme anticipates author [[Margaret Mitchell]]'s ''[[Gone with the Wind (novel)|Gone with the Wind]]'' (1936). Vidor, initially tapped to direct Mitchell's epic, was ultimately assigned to director [[George Cukor]].<ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 53-54</ref>

The box-office failure of ''So Red the Rose'' led the film industry to anticipate the same for Cukor's adaption of Mitchell's Civil War epic. To the contrary, ''[[Gone with the Wind (film)|Gone with the Wind]]'' (1939) enjoyed immense commercial and critical success.<ref>Durgnat and Simmons, 1988: p. 172, p.176</ref>

At a period in the 1930s when Western theme films were relegated to low-budget [[B movie]]s, Paramount studios financed an A Western for Vidor at $625,000 (lowered to $450,000 when star [[Gary Cooper]] was replaced with [[Fred MacMurray]] in the lead role.)<ref>Durgnat and Simmons, 1988: p. 185</ref> ''The Texas Rangers'', Vidor's second and final film for Paramount reduced, but did not abandon, the level of sadistic and lawless violence evidenced in his ''Billy the Kid''. Vidor presents a morality play where the low-cunning of the outlaws ''cum'' vigilantes heroes is turned to the service of law-and-order when they kill their erstwhile accomplice in crime – the "Polka Dot Bandit.".<ref>Durgnat and Simmons, 1988: p. 181-182: "A light morality play...the two Rangers begin outside society, then join it, then acknowledge a duty to maintain it."</ref><ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 54: See thumbnail sketch of film and "Polka Dot Bandit".</ref>

The film's scenario and script was penned by Vidor and wife Elizabeth Hill, based loosely on ''The Texas Rangers: A History of Frontier Defense of the Texas Rangers'' by [[Walter Prescott Webb]]. Made on the 100th anniversary of the formation of the [[Texas Ranger Division]] the picture includes standard [[B movie|B western]] tropes, including Indian massacres of white settlers and a corrupt city official who receives small town justice at the hands of a jury composed of saloon denizens. The film presages, as does Vidor's ''Billy the Kid'' (1931), his portrayal of the savagery of civilization and nature in producer [[David O. Selznick]]'s ''Duel in the Sun'' (1946).<ref>Durgnat and Simmons, 1988: p. 186: Vidor and Hill's script "comes across as entirely too quirky" to be an adaptation of Webb's historical account of the Texas Rangers. And p. 185: Vidor's movie "contains what amounts to two B Westerns: "The Texas Rangers wipe out the Injuns" and "The Texas Rangers wipe out a monopolist."</ref><ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 54: "The Texas Rangers collapsed into a series of Western cliches.."</ref><ref>Berlinale 2020: "...civilization and the savagery of nature collide, provide hints to the basic conflict Vidor would explore in later Westerns – and carry to a glorious extreme in Duel in the Sun."</ref>

In an effort to retain Vidor at Paramount, the production head [[William LeBaron]] offered him a biopic of Texas icon, [[Sam Houston]]. Vidor emphatically declined: "... "I've [had] such a belly-full of Texas after the Rangers that I find myself not caring whether Sam Houston takes Texas from the Mexicans or lets them keep it."<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988: p. 172-173</ref>