A Film By:

by Ted Elrick - DGA MAGAZINE, June/July 1998

(Editor's Note: What follows is the first installment of a continuing series
designed to address directors' rights and relationships with collaborators.)

It's not often that all the great directors in Hollywood are moved to unite in anger and take action on an issue. One such occasion occurred in 1967. The issue that moved them was a sudden revocation of the director's right to negotiate for the possessory credit on a film.

Director Norman Jewison vividly remembers what Frank Capra told him at the historic May 1967 meeting of 53 directors who met to address the subject. "This possessory credit should be important to every director. Once you've earned it, it's more important than anything," Jewison recalled Capra telling him. "I remember Mr. Capra saying, 'My name above the title is more important than anything to me.' And then, of course, he wrote his autobiography called Frank Capra: The Name Above the Title."

"We were all ready to strike for the possessory credit," remembered director and current DGA 3rd vice president John Frankenheimer. He was also a member of the Committee that arose as the DGA's response to a controversial provision of a new agreement between the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the Writers Guild of America, west that had been ratified on December 13, 1966.

The exact wording in the Writers Guild/AMPTP agreement read, "Producer shall not accord presentation credit in the form 'A Film (or Photoplay or Picture) of Sam Jones,' 'A Film (or Photoplay or Picture) by Sam Jones' or in the following two forms: 'Sam Jones' Hamlet' or 'Sam Jones' Film,' unless the person accorded credit is a writer entitled to credit on the screen or the author of source material."

Prior to this agreement anyone could negotiate for a possessory credit. In fact, directors and director/producers had been receiving it for more than 50 years. There had been D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916); Cecil B. De Mille's Ten Commandments (1923 & 1956) and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952); King Vidor's Big Parade (1925); Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946); George Stevens' Annie Oakley (1935), Penny Serenade (1941) and Shane (1953); Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960) as well as numerous others. In some cases, the individual negotiation of possessory credits to directors preceded the existence of the various Guilds.

Delbert Mann, then Guild 1st vice president, said news of this agreement came as a complete surprise. "That was what threw us into such a tizzy from the beginning," Mann explained. "We had learned nothing of it until it was announced. It was a fait accompli.

"We were really quite stunned. It took a while for the meaning of it to really sink in. I think those big directors who had always received the possessory credit figured it out very quickly. In a little while the anger built in all directors. They were really furious at the writers, but more particularly at the producers who had negotiated away the rights that everybody had. Producers, producer/directors, anybody could individually negotiate for the possessory credit."

On January 4, 1967, shortly after learning of this agreement, the Guild sent telegrams in protest to the AMPTP and the top executive officers of all major production companies. Joseph C. Youngerman, the Guild's National Executive Secretary, sent copies of the telegram to all Guild members. Its conclusion read:

"This telegram is to place you and each of your member companies on notice that the Directors Guild of America, Inc. will in no way accept or abide by your attempt to bargain away, in private council to which we were not a party, credit rights of motion picture directors which have been long established by industry custom and practice. We intend to take whatever action is necessary in this matter in order to protect and preserve the rights of our members."

At the 1967 Annual Membership meeting, Mann, in the absence of President George Sidney who was in London making a motion picture, reported on what had transpired since the Guild discovered that the agreement had been made between the Writers Guild and the AMPTP.

On January 19 a meeting had been held with members of the AMPTP who, according to Mann, had expressed surprise at the directors' reaction. Mann said that the AMPTP didn't see the importance of the issue, but they said that they would try to find a resolution within two weeks.

Nothing happened. On April 5 the Directors Guild again raised the subject, this time with Lew Wasserman, then Chairman of the Board of the AMPTP, and Charles Boren, AMPTP executive VP, Mann reported, "The feeling we received in the way that it was said to us was, 'We made a mistake, we made a mistake negotiating this, but there is not much that we can do about it. The writers have come up with a compromise which we will present to you.'

"The compromise," Mann reported, "was that hereafter they, the writers, will be the judge of who receives the possessive credits. They said, 'We will give a waiver to those who have earned it up to now, [George] Stevens, [Fred] Zinnemann, [Stanley] Kramer, those who are established directors, but after that time we will adjudicate these and we will be both judge and jury and you fellows will come to us and present your case. If you have proper credits, and we think that you are allowed to have possessive credits, we might give it to you.' You can judge for yourself what our answer was to that."

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Mann pointed out that directors of the stature of Stevens, Zinnemann and Kramer now had nothing to lose because the writers were willing to let them continue to have the possessory credit. Yet those directors, and the Guild, were still willing to continue the fight to get back the possessory credit for anyone who could negotiate for it so that future directors, producers and director/producers as well as writers would benefit.

During April, Jack Valenti approached George Stevens to privately discuss the issue with him. The Guild responded with a strongly worded telegram to Valenti that read, "You misunderstand the fact that this is an official Guild position. ŠThis issue has been hanging fire for four months and nothing has been done. We can sit on it no longer. Our members insist on action now. Please do not underestimate the seriousness of this threat to an amicable relationship of long standing."

A final meeting was held with the AMPTP, but again, they maintained that their hands were tied.

But the Guild had been busy during those four months. A 53-member Action Committee had been formed. The members included some of the most illustrious directors of all time. They were Robert Aldrich, Claude Binyon, Richard Brooks, David Butler, Frank Capra, William Castle, Hal Cooper, Roger Corman, George Cukor, Frederick De Cordova, Delmer Daves, Blake Edwards, John Frankenheimer, Willis Goldbeck, Mark Goode, Ray Gosnell, Walter Grauman, Arthur Hiller, Alfred Hitchcock, Norman Jewison, Henry King, Stanley Kramer, Buzz Kulik, Sheldon Leonard, Mervyn LeRoy, Joshua Logan, Delbert Mann, George Marshall, Vincente Minnelli, Ralph Nelson, Mike Nichols, Otto Preminger, John Rich, Martin Ritt, Mark Robson, George Schaefer, Franklin Schaffner, Lesley Selander, Jack Shea, George Sidney, Elliot Silverstein, Josef Von Sternberg, George Stevens, John Sturges, David Swift, King Vidor, Charles Walters, Charles Wasserman, Don Weis, Billy Wilder, Robert Wise, William Wyler and Fred Zinnemann.

A special meeting of the Action Committee was held on May 16, 1967, at the Guild's 7950 Sunset Boulevard headquarters. Current DGA President Jack Shea recalled the mood of that meeting, that there had been a lot of anger toward the AMPTP in the room. But while there was a lot of anger, he added that, "There was such a sense of unity of purpose in the room. We all thought this agreement between the producers and writers was wrong and we were all determined to do something about it."

"We all objected to [the Writer's Guild/AMPTP contract] completely," said then DGA President George Sidney. "Everybody was aghast and against it. These directors and director/producers who had created and given so much, who were recognized throughout the world as great directors said this was completely wrong."

Former Guild President and director Robert Wise remembered that it was the first time he saw Alfred Hitchcock attend a Guild meeting.

Director Norman Jewison recalled that the Action Committee meeting was "one of the most emotional experiences for me. That was the moment when I started having really deep, deep respect for the DGA and for what these men were attempting to do.

"I was one of the younger people at the meeting," Jewison explained. "Mike Nichols and I were sort of the young Turks present. I was in total awe because I was among giants. Stevens was a powerhouse and I remember he was absolutely outraged that there would even be a question about the possessory credit. I too had very strong feelings about it because I had worked so hard in my career. I was now beginning to get the possessory credit. I had done all these films at Universal and had been fighting for creative control from the very beginning. They were practically dragging me out of the editing rooms. I didn't want to give up artistic or creative control of any aspect of the film.

"The fact that this came from the Writers Guild and that they were trying to convince the studios that there shouldn't be a possessory credit really incensed Mr. Capra, George and Freddy [Zinnemann]. So while I remember being really passionate, Mike and I kind of stepped back a bit because the other directors had so much power. We listened as they explained to us that this was a power struggle. The studios, from the very beginning of motion pictures, had always tried to erode the strength of the director because they considered us uncontrollable. They told us the reason that the studios always tried to do that is because we are the only ones who actually create the film, who actually make the picture."

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Wise remembered that the highlight of the meeting was the reading of a cable from David Lean. In it, Lean argued why the director should have a possessory credit. "That was and is a very important letter," Wise said. "It supported the position we were taking at the time, and I've never forgotten how important we felt that letter was."

The Lean cable read:

"We directors who have possessory credits have hard-earned them over many years for good reason. We are paid big money because we can bring audience-pulling star quality to our films as a whole. We bring it by our personal influence over all including the writer. As a typical example take my own latest case, 'David Lean's film of Doctor Zhivago.' I worked one year with the writer. Unlike him I directed not only the actors but the cameraman, set designer, costume designer, sound men, editor, composer and even the laboratory in their final print. Unlike him I chose the actors, the technicians, the subject and him to write it. I staged it. I filmed it. It was my film of his script which I shot when he was not there. If a director, writer or producer cannot claim such overall responsibility it should not be called his film. If he can, it truly is his film. Sincerely, David Lean."

The DGA was unable to prevent the Writers Guild and AMPTP from formally signing the collective bargaining agreement. On May 10 Mann sent a special notice to all Guild members that the DGA was filing a restraint of trade suit in Los Angeles Superior Court. What made the suit unique was that directors were not the only named plantiffs in the suit. The DGA had also filed on behalf of producers maintaining the DGA's stance that anyone should be able to freely negotiate for the film possessory credit.

In response, the May 17 Variety reported that the Writers Guild had filed papers with the court stating they were only restricting the use of four possessory credits ‹ "John Doe's the Big Name, John Doe's Film, A Film by John Doe and A Film of John Doe." They claimed that their contract had no limitations on presentation credits such as "A John Doe Film, a John Doe Photoplay, a John Doe Production, a John Doe Presentation, etc." The Directors Guild maintained that all credits should be open to negotiation.

On May 18 the Guild was denied a preliminary injunction. The Court, however, never ruled on the merits of the DGA's case.

At the annual DGA meetings on both coasts in 1967, the membership unanimously voted to prosecute the issue "in the courts and by all other means."

At the Los Angeles meeting, Mann opened the subject up for discussion. Much of it was similar and united. Finally, director and former Guild President Stevens took the floor.

"That apostrophe business," Stevens began, "or possessive credit is not an argument for directors, it is an argument of negotiating for anyone that can contribute strongly to the picture: John Steinbeck, Hemingway, can have it; and the producer certainly has had it. And from the communications we read from the other guilds we need to keep the whole business open so that anyone can have it."

Other business of this meeting included the election of Delbert Mann as President of the Guild. Under Mann's leadership the Guild kept up the pressure, refusing to let the issue die as their own negotiations approached.

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On January 24, 1968, Mann sent out official notification to the AMPTP that the DGA would bargain only with individual producing firms and that it had advised its members to withhold services after April 30, the current DGA contract's expiration date, from producers failing to guarantee that proper steps would be taken by them to remedy the situation. By March, the Guild had succeeded in signing over 60 independent companies, a number of them members of the AMPTP.

As the threat of the strike drew near, a WGA, west spokesperson told Variety that what the directors were doing was to "illegally" bargain away rights held by writers since the prior year. He said that the Writers Guild was told by the AMPTP they were dealing with only a handful of DGA members and so they came up with another alternative resolution which would eliminate the possessory credit clause from their screen contract; however, in the future the screenplay writer would have his name equally prominent with the individual who got a possessory credit. They also commented that the Writers Guild was "thunderstruck" by the DGA's rejection.

Then on April 3 the Writers Guild sent its own letter to producer signatories stating "We have been gratified that management spokesmen view the DGA gambit in much the same way we do, namely that such an agreement would be in flagrant bad faith and destructive of our long-standing collective bargaining relationship. ŠAs you may know, the Writers Guild has been engaged in discussions for over a year with a view to resolving the current dispute. Each attempt has been rebuffed by (we are informed) a mere handful of DGA members."

David Lean on the set of Lawrence of Arabia
 Photo: Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The DGA stood firm in insisting that the studios reverse their mistake. As individual production companies began signing with the Guild, the pressure intensified on the AMPTP. "There were several wildly ridiculous so-called compromise positions offered to us, which were rejected out of hand as not being the point of the dispute. At this point the Association was convinced we did indeed mean business," Mann said.

Finally, at a meeting of the entire Directors Council, a suggestion made by George Stevens and John Sturges led to the eventual solution and a totally new atmosphere. A new negotiating committee was created with the AMPTP and a statement acceptable to the Directors Guild was announced on April 10.

"I was thrilled when I heard that we won," Frankenheimer said. "It was the solidarity of the membership that let us win this. Everyone was together, George Stevens, William Wyler, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, many, many more. We got all the heavyweights in there. And it was a very big victory for all of us. It's a credit that directors are entitled to negotiate for. It's a credit that cannot be treated lightly. It has to be something we are willing to go on strike for again."