:47:03
By mid-January
a decision had to be made.
:47:06
Martha was public domain. Chopin
melodies out of copyright were chosen,
:47:10
and a deal was made to close rights
for Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony -
:47:14
public domain in America, but as
the Russian opera was already designed,
:47:18
European rights were bought
for the Éditions Salabert.
:47:27
The art direction for Phantom
was by Alexander Golitzen,
:47:30
a White Russian,
the son of a doctor, who as a boy
:47:32
escaped the Russian Revolution
with his mother.
:47:35
Trained as an architect,
he got a job at MGM in the 1930s,
:47:39
then assisted art director Richard Day at
Goldwyn on pictures like The Hurricane.
:47:44
At Goldwyn, he met his wife Francis,
who worked in the story department.
:47:48
Alex, known as Sacha, then went under
contract to producer Walter Wanger,
:47:53
for whom he did Stagecoach and
Foreign Correspondent, among others.
:47:57
An independent producer, Wanger made
a turnkey deal at Universal in the 1940s,
:48:02
which led to Golitzen first working
on the lot on Eagle Squadron in 1942
:48:06
for director Arthur Lubin.
Arabian Nights followed.
:48:09
Due to the draft, Universal was losing
John Goodman from the art department,
:48:15
and began negotiations
to obtain Alex to head the department.
:48:18
As always, they tried to get him cheap,
but they got him.
:48:22
Universal would be Alex's home
until his retirement in the 1970s
:48:25
following Slaughterhouse-Five.
:48:27
He won two Oscars,
one for Phantom and again for Spartacus.
:48:31
One of his most amazing achievements,
in the 1950s,
:48:34
were the oversized sets
for The Incredible Shrinking Man.
:48:38
"Alex was a godsend" said Lubin.
"Brilliant in everything he did."
:48:42
"By far superior to any of
the other art directors I worked with."
:48:46
"He didn't follow trends,
:48:47
and he tried to make each one of his sets
interesting, attractive and within cost."
:48:54
Alex's Phantom Oscar
caused consternation.
:48:57
John Goodman, as the department head,