Time of Your Life, The USA
1948, 109min.
Prod.: William Cagney, Script: William Saroyan (play), Nathaniel Curtis, Dir.: H.C. Potter, Dir. of Phot.: James Wong Howe, Joseph A. Valentine, Compos.: Carmen Dragon, Prod. Design: Wiard Ihnen, Sound: Earl Sitar, Edit.: Walter Hanneman, Truman K. Wood.
Cast: James Cagney, William Bendix, Wayne Morris, Jeanne Cagney, Broderick Crawford, Ward Bond, James Barton, Paul Draper, Gale Page, Jimmy Lydon, Richard Erdman, Pedro de Cordoba, Reginald Beane.
The Time of Your Life was originally filmed with Saroyan's humorous ending intact, but the preview audiences reacted negatively, forcing the Cagney brothers to shoot $300,000 worth of retakes. Though many historians have written off The Time of Your Life as a brave failure, the film was actually a hit, grossing $1.5 million.
Awards
This play was the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.
| Potter, H.C.  H. C. Potter (1904, New York, USA - 1977, Southampton, New York, USA)
Straight out of Yale Drama School, H.C. Potter launched a stage directing career in his native New York City. His most famous Broadway assignment was the 1944 production of A Bell for Adano, the film version of which was directed by Henry King. Not that Potter himself was ignored by Hollywood; brought to Tinseltown by Sam Goldwyn for 1936's Beloved Enemy, the director remained in demand until his retirement after 1957's Top Secret Affair. While his personal style was elusive, Potter was most comfortable with comedy. He got on splendidly with Olsen and Johnson during the filming of Hellzapoppin' (1941), even suggesting some of the film's funnier gags. H. C. Potter's resume included such notable items as The Cowboy and the Lady (which when he started filming had only 20 pages of completed script!), Victory Through Air Power, The Farmer's Daughter, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House and The Time of Your Life.
Filmography
Beloved Enemy (1936), Wings Over Honolulu (1937), The Goldwyn Follies (1938), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), Romance in the Dark (1938), The Shopworn Angel (1938), The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), Blackmail (1939), Congo Maisie (1940), Second Chorus (1940), Hellzapoppin' (1941), Mr. Lucky (1943), Victory Through Air Power (1943), The Farmer's Daughter (1947), A Likely Story (1947), The Time of Your Life (1948), You Gotta Stay Happy (1948), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), The Miniver Story (1950), Three for the Show (1955), Top Secret Affair (1957).
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