Stanley Kramer, Producer
Kramer to Francis: “Allow recognition to subside and accomplishment to prevail — you can’t miss.”
Casting Bob, Making The Caine Mutiny
“That’s how Bob got the job. We needed somebody who would cost no money and do the job.
“It is a strange thing, you know, when you look at a fellow who had talent…He is that kind of a fellow. He was friendly with everyone and well liked. He had a natural personality, too. He was well liked, but you know you could not put your finger on it (Bob’s character, his inner self) exactly. He was pretty much what you saw. That is an advantage in many ways.
“I cast Bob for the part. It is a product of some arrogance on my part, I guess. I was reasonably tender [as a producer] and I felt that I couldn’t make any mistakes. I hoped. I had in the cast, after all, MacMurray, Johnson, Bogart, and Ferrer. They were stars of long standing. Bob was somebody who was around who read for me. I took him and signed him for the part. Mostly because I thought he was competent. It wasn’t the sort of part (in which) he was going to explode on the scene.
“I thought he did the job that we wanted and he looked as we wanted him to look. I talked to him many, many times. He would come to me and talk to me about problems of one kind or another, and I took some interest in him. But it never was (about) the launching of a new star. I think he learned a lot. (Director Edward) Dymtyrk was very good with him, and so it worked out.
“Bob was somewhat of a loner. You never knew who he was going out with or what he was doing or with whom. And nobody was particularly interested. He wasn’t the new sex symbol or anything.
“So what you get is a kind of a shade of gray through it all. He was certainly likable, honest, forthright, and wanting to help solve the problems of the day. I had hoped he would go on to some note. It (his death) was very shocking.
“I remember him fondly, warmly, and nicely. And I am afraid almost all people remember him that way. That’s what interferes with the film character.
“I would do Caine) pretty much the same way, although I did not direct it. But, I was in control of it — produced it and did develop the screenplay... Anything in retrospect can be improved and can be bettered and there are quite a few things…but as far as Bob was concerned, within the limitations of the role he was playing, he was completely believable.
“I remember the scene at the Captain’s Table when Bogart said there are a certain number of ways you can do things: the right way, the wrong way, and my way. My way is the important thing.
“I remember Bob responding. He was a natural to be in that part for that scene alone.
“He was a young man among experienced troupers. He sat at a table and played a scene with Fred MacMurray, Van Johnson, Humphrey Bogart. The thing was, he was playing with old hands and he looked young and inexperienced, and that was the way he was supposed to look. That helped with the part.
“There was one other thing about Bob that was never mentioned, but it was a plus because it was never considered (in casting). He was a young man who had no particular fetishes. In other words, he wasn’t carried away with his looks or the external little parts (of himself). He sought some sincerity and found it. That was good and I appreciate that in him.
“The best tribute I can pay to Bob is — when I think back to the film and those days — I think of him as a young actor under very pressing circumstances. He was cooperative and hard working. I don’t know what he might have eventually become. Who knows?
“Bob was not equipped for that (being a movie star). He didn’t have any of the foibles which you use as defense mechanism against the tradition of stardom. Had he become a star, he would have been a nice young man who became a star and remained that way.
“He was cursed and lived by the code and will always be recognized as a nice boy. Sometimes that can be fatal. But he dealt with it.”
Source: Stanley Kramer, interview, Aug. 12, 1992
Kramer can justly be cited as the man who gave the world Robert Francis, a movie star created not from scratch but from a young man deeply influenced by a strong family and supportive experiences during California’s truly golden age, 1900-1950. Bob’s was both a long and short journey from Pasadena to Gower Gulch, the home of Columbia in Hollywood.
Stanley Earl Kramer (Sept. 29, 1913 – Feb. 19, 2001) was an American film director and producer responsible for making many of Hollywood's most famous “message films.” As an independent producer and director, he brought attention to topical social issues that most studios avoided. Among the subjects covered in his films were racism (in The Defiant Ones and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?) nuclear war (in On the Beach), greed (in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), creationism vs. evolution (in Inherit the Wind), and the causes and effects of fascism in Judgment at Nuremberg) His other notable films included High Noon (1952, as producer), The Caine Mutiny (1954, as producer), and Ship of Fools (1965).
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kramer
