Isadore Schary had a long and checkered history in motion pictures. He was first employed as a screenwriter at then-lowly Columbia after a story editor was struck by the crispness of a writing sample. The editor also happened to think that the writer was a woman, mistaking Dore for Dora. By 1933, he'd been lured away to the first of a number of writing stints at MGM at $200 per week working under producer Harry Rapf.
Schary and Rapf, known as "the anteater," didn't see eye to eye on a number of issues and fought continually. Schary soon left for work as a hired gun with a typewriter but found himself back at MGM writing a Spencer Tracy vehicle, Big City (1937),when he became intrigued in the story of Father Flanagan's Nebraska Boy's Town, envisioning Tracy for the role.
But Tracy was weary at playing a series of priests and the script was shelved. On top of that, he was unable to escape the irritating presence of Harry Rapf and he quit again. Boys Town (1938) was resurrected after Tracy reconsidered, becoming one of its biggest hits of the year, and co-writer Schary nailed an Oscar for best original screenplay.
E.J. Mannix dangled more money at the now-hot property, and he was back again at MGM developing Joe Smith, American (1942) with Mayer offering him a dream job as a producer, except that he'd be back working for Rapf. Sensing he could do more as a producer across a wide range of projects and undoubtedly drawn to a whopping salary increase, Schary accepted.
He definitely favored scripts with liberal allegories, which represented the very antithesis of the ultra-right-wing Mayer. But even Mayer was impressed by the man's versatility and ability to deliver hits such as Lassie Come Home (1943) and Journey for Margaret (1942),which introduced the biggest box-office draw the studio ever had in a child: Margaret O'Brien.
But a planned return to liberal allegory with a proposed project with Nobel prize winner Sinclair Lewis called "Storm of the West" failed to win Mayer's final approval, and he quit once again in protest. At the end of 1943, Schary accepted an offer with David O. Selznick's new independent division, Vanguard. He soon moved to RKO, where he enjoyed a brief period of total autonomy prior to its purchase and ultimate ruination by eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes.
Schary's textbook liberalism was called into question after he made a vigorous appeal on behalf of the brilliant writer Edward Dmytryk and producer Adrian Scott, both RKO employees, before HUAC in 1947, but seemed to backpedal after helping draft the so-called Waldorf-Astoria declaration, denouncing employment of known Communists.
Coincidentally, it was during the HUAC hearings that he ran into Loew's Inc. (and MGM's parent) chief Nicholas Schenck on a train bound for New York. MGM itself had begun to feel the financial effects of changing public tastes by 1947, which could rightly be laid on the lap of the Victorian-minded Louis B. Mayer.
While other studios were booming in the immediate post-war era, MGM's releases were rapidly losing their appeal. It truly was a dismal period for the studio, highlighted by recent flops such as The Sea of Grass (1947),Lady in the Lake (1946),and what many film historians consider the nadir of big-budget MGM releases, Desire Me (1947),a film so awful it was released without a directorial credit.
The Tiffany of Studios had fallen into 4th place in profitability, and the prospects for 1948 were decidedly mediocre (and would prove to be so, suffering a whopping $13.8 million slide from their peak in 1946). Schenck, who had ascended to his position after founder Marcus Loew's death in 1926, never enjoyed an ideal relationship with Mayer but tolerated their rancor in light of the studio's enviable financial record.
As a reward for its remarkable profitability during the Great Depression, Mayer became the highest paid executive in the country year after year. Schenck may not have initially envisioned Schary as Mayer's replacement, but he wanted to reinvigorate the studio with new (or at least, recycled) blood. Mayer first proposed his son-in-law, Selznick, who flatly refused to work for him.
Schary, by then at RKO, was having his own troubles. His latest pet project, Battleground (1949),had been rejected by an increasingly invasive and erratic Howard Hughes, who felt the public was weary of war pictures. Schary, sensing his career had hit another brick wall, opted to jump back to MGM as production chief and took the project with him, purchasing the rights from RKO.
Mayer's position at MGM by this time was considerably
