1935 Film Project: Sabotage and Salvation

1. Our movie is about a woman who is married, but tired and comfortable in her marriage so she seeks comfort elsewhere. After some time her husband begins to have suspicions as he notices her coming and leaving late, and always seeming more and more distant. He decides to follow her around and see if his suspicions prove true, which they do. He then gets very angry, and tries to sabotage all of her dates disguising himself so she wont recognize him. The movie is supposed to be dramatic with a funny aspect added to it, the comedy is supposed to be very physical (people falling, things spilling, etc). The reason we chose to add a humor element to it is because this movie is made during the great depression, and comedy could be seen as a form of escape from the real world problems people were likely experiencing. The message in our movie is to kind of give a new perspective of the role of women in a marriage, instead of more submissive and traditional type, the woman is the one who is sneaking around and acting more promiscuous. Also the message is that if you believe in the sanction of marriage in the end everything will find a way to work itself out. 
2. The genre is mostly comedic. It fits with the cast and crew because they are known for playing comedic roles and also some drama. The drama fits well with Warner Brothers because they're known for making their movies realistic and are very dialogue oriented, which is exactly what we want our movie to come across as. 
3. We chose Warner Brothers because they are known for making their movies realistic and we wanted the audience to feel that this could really happen in society, but also keeping it funny to make it more lighthearted.  Warner Bro's also targeted social issues during the time period, and the idea of a woman cheating on a man, or just a disruption in a marriage was probably something very unheard of at the time so it made it more controversial. Because our studio is big and well known, we wanted this to be a bigger scale movie, and start out in America but potentially be spread anywhere else. The message could affect anyone in a marriage and therefore could be relatable for a vast audience. 
4. Our director is Ray Enright and we chose him because we thought he had a good "fast" paced style of shooting movies, which would work nicely to keep the movie interesting and keep the audience engaged. The 1930's were also his peak years for the studio, so he would be a well known director and that could attract a bigger audience. The wife would be played by Myrna Loy because she looked exotic and wouldn't be what you would typically see, which is exactly the message our movie as a whole is sending. The husband will be played by James Cagney because he was popular and the time and known for his energetic performances and dead pan comic timing, which is perfect for the role of him sabotaging and hiding and trying to ruin the girl's dates. The man the wife has an affair with will be played by Cary Grant, because he was known for his dashing good looks, and he want it to be established that the wife wasn't necessarily in love, just looking for something exciting. We chose to focus on editing, because we want the shots to be quick and to be fast paced, to keep the audience engaged and also because that would be half of what adds the comedic twist to the movie. We chose Conrad A. Nervig because he had won an Academy Award around that time for his editing abilities. 
5. The Hay's Code affects our movie not so much as the content that will be displayed, but rather the subject and implications of the movie. Because the movie is centered around infidelity and the the woman being the one to break the sanction of marriage, it could become a very controversial movie and a lot of people could be against it. (Hence, why we chose to show them working everything out in the end, and giving it a heartfelt "happy ever after"). The movie will be simple and in Black and White, because it could be a metaphor for how that's the opposite of what marriage is. Its usually a bunch of shades of gray, and nothing is every all good or all bad, but a mixture of both. 
6. We mostly came up with everything together, so I agree with everything we did. Maybe it wouldn't have ended happily if I had worked solely on it because I think that makes it more of a sappy love story movie and could make the audience more narrow and center it around a more romantic type of viewers.