Use Restrictions

The copyright and related rights status of this collection have not been evaluated (See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/)

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Alexander Golitzen film production collection, C0009, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Collection donated by Cynthia Garn, daughter of Alexander Golitzen, in 1989.

Processing Information

Processed by Special Collections Research Center staff. EAD markup completed by Eron Ackerman and Jordan Patty in April 2009. Finding aid updated and collection reprocessed by Amanda Menjivar in September 2023.

Biographical and Historical Information

Alexander Golitzen (1908-2005) was a prolific Academy Award-winning film production designer and art director. Born in Moscow, Russia, Golitzen immigrated to the United States in 1917, fleeing the Russian Revolution. Golitzen's career in film production began in the early 1930s, and in 1942 began his long-term association with Universal Studios as their Art Director. Golitzen is credited with creating the look and feel of hundreds of movies of significance through the mid-20th century, including Gunsmoke (1953), My Man Godfrey (1957), and films by Douglas Sirk, among others. Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, Golitzen won in Art Direction for Foreign Correspondent (1940), The Phantom of the Opera (1943), Spartacus (1960), amd To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).

Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions was a film production company that lasted from the late 1940s-1960. Created by actor Burt Lancaster and and his agent Harold Hecht, literary agent Harold Hecht eventually joined the company, which was quite successful throughout the 1950s. Notable films to come out of the production company include Marty (1955), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Separate Tables (1958), The Devil's Disciple (1959), and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).

Scope and Content

This collection contains two original film scripts - Colossus by James Bridges, (Revised Final Screenplay, October 8, 1968) and Freud by John Huston and Wolfgang Reinhardt (Final Shooting Script, February 10, 1962). It also contains two scrapbooks representing artistic design research compiled by Hecht-Hill-Lancaster for the production company's 1957 film production of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple. Alexander Golitzen was the supervising art director at Universal Studios at the time, and it is unknown if he was involved in the film in an unofficial capacity.

Arrangement

Arranged by document type.

Related Material

The Special Collections Research Center holds other collections focused on filmmaking.

The Wisconsin Historical Society hold the Kirk Douglas papers, which includes an interview from Golitzen.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Filmmaking (Motion pictures)
• Golitzen, Alexander, 1908-2005
• Motion picture plays
• Motion pictures -- Production and direction
• Motion pictures -- United States