Blu-ray Disc Features:

• Released: March 24, 2020
• Originally Released: 1936
• Label: Warner Archives
• Encoding: Region 0 (Worldwide)
• Aspect Ratio: Full Frame - 1.37
• Audio:
• DTS HD Master Audio - English
• Subtitles - English

Performers, Cast and Crew:

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Production Notes:

• DODSWORTH opened on September 23, 1936 at the Rivoli Theater in New York.
• DODSWORTH was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1990.
• In 1929, the novel DODSWORTH was a bestseller. A year later its author, Sinclair Lewis, became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. In spite of that, in 1932, when playwright Sidney Howard suggested to Samuel Goldwyn the novel DODSWORTH would make a great movie, the producer was uninterested. So Howard acquired the rights himself and adapted it for the stage--it was a hit. Now Goldwyn was interested. When Howard pointed out that the screen rights cost him eight times as much as they would have two years earlier, the classic Goldwyn reply was "I don't care. This way I buy a successful play. Before it was just a novel."
• When producer Goldwyn bought the rights to DODSWORTH he also acquired lead actor Walter Huston and Sidney Howard, who had adapted it from Sinclair Lewis's novel. At first planning to ask Gregory La Cava (MY MAN GODFREY, STAGE DOOR) to direct, Goldwyn changed his mind after the critical reception of THESE THREE, which Wyler had just directed for him.
• Ruth Chatterton was 43 when DODSWORTH was made, and like her character, she too was trying to hold on to her youth. She wanted to play Fran Dodsworth as a tough woman from the start. Wyler, like scriptwriter Sidney Howard, believed it was important to make the character sympathetic initially and that Fran's fear of aging would explain her later behavior. As a result of these differences, Chatterton and Wyler fought continually while the movie was being shot. Under these circumstances, it is surprising that Chatterton's performance is so good. It is perhaps less surprising that, after DODSWORTH, she appeared in only two more movies--both made in Britain.
• During the filming of DODSWORTH, Mary Astor was involved in a messy custody battle with her second husband. He leaked what was purported to be her private diary to the press. The trial was suspended while filming was completed, and Astor kept away from reporters by living on the studio lot. Later, in her biography, she wrote, "I had achieved the reputation of being the greatest nympho-courtesan since Pompadour."
• Actor John Payne, who was later to appear in such movies as KANSA CITY CONFIDENTIAL and SLIGHTLY SCARLETT, appears in DODSWORTH under the name John Howard Payne. This was his feature-film debut.
• Goldwyn made contradictory statements about how successful DODSWORTH was. On one occasion, he said, "I lost my...shirt. I'm not saying it wasn't a fine picture. It was a great picture, but nobody wanted to see it. In droves"; while on another he claimed DODSWORTH was "one of the biggest hits I ever had. It made a fortune."