A Hollywood power struggle turned a lumberjack epic into a legendary directorial disaster
In short: The 1936 film Come and Get It was meant to be a grand critique of American industrial greed. Instead, it became a chaotic battleground between producer Samuel Goldwyn and director Howard Hawks. The resulting production was so fractured that its replacement director, William Wyler, spent his career trying to disown it.
Based on Edna Ferber’s 1935 novel, the film was initially envisioned as a sweeping indictment of the wholesale destruction of American forests. Samuel Goldwyn paid $150,000 for the rights, hoping to capture a story about the robber barons of the 19th century. However, during Goldwyn’s absence for two major surgeries, director Howard Hawks radically altered the project. He shifted the focus from environmental devastation to a melodramatic love triangle, while ignoring the original script and inflating the budget.
Upon his return, a shocked Goldwyn discovered his film had been transformed into a character-driven drama. When Hawks refused to revert to the original vision, Goldwyn fired him. He then coerced William Wyler into finishing the project under threat of suspension. Wyler, who found the film mediocre, reluctantly directed the final third of the picture. He famously objected to receiving sole credit, eventually forcing Goldwyn to grant Hawks top billing. Wyler considered the work an embarrassment and refused to include it in his official filmography.
Despite the behind-the-scenes turmoil, the film achieved a historic milestone. Walter Brennan, cast by Hawks as the lumberjack Swan Bostrom, became the first-ever recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. While critics like Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times praised the performances and the graphic logging scenes, the film remained a compromised vision. Ferber herself, however, lauded Goldwyn for the courage required to scrap the initial production and undertake the massive task of essentially remaking the film from scratch.
The legacy of the production persisted long after its release. Edward Arnold and Walter Brennan reprised their roles for radio adaptations in 1937 and 1942. While modern assessments often label it a minor entry in the Hawks catalog, the film remains a fascinating study of how studio-era power dynamics could derail an ambitious artistic vision, leaving behind a disjointed but technically impressive portrait of a man caught in the machinery of his own ambition.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Come and Get It (1936 film)
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