"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on
February 11, 1946 with Bette Davis reprising her film role.
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on
May 10, 1943 with Paul Henreid reprising his film role.
"Now Voyager" was actually the third book in a four-part saga of the Vales, a high-class Boston family, written by Olive Higgins Prouty over a 12-year period from 1936 to 1947. When Warner Brothers bought the film rights to the novel, Prouty wrote a lengthy letter to her literary agent, setting out how she felt the production should be mounted. She felt strongly that the best way to dramatize the flashbacks would be to feature short silent segments woven into the main sound narrative. Her letter made its way to producer Hal B. Wallis at Warners, who subsequently ignored her suggestions.
Edmund Goulding was first attached to the project as director. He wanted Irene Dunne to play Charlotte Vale. When Goulding fell ill, however, the project passed to Michael Curtiz, who had either Norma Shearer or Ginger Rogers in mind for the lead. In the meantime, Bette Davis was lobbying hard for the part. She was able to convince producer Hal B. Wallis that she would make a perfect Charlotte Vale, but she refused to work with Curtiz. Consequently Irving Rapper landed the director's job.
Paul Henreid's act of lighting two cigarettes at once caught the public's imagination and he couldn't go anywhere without being accosted by women begging him to light cigarettes for them.
Bette Davis complained about Max Steiner's Academy Award-winning musical score, saying that it was too intrusive on her performance.
Claude Rains initially turned down the Jaquith role, finding it too insubstantial. The part was built up for him and he was paid $5000 a week for six weeks' work.
Filming went a few weeks over schedule, which in turn caused some conflicts with Casablanca, which also starred Claude Rains and Paul Henreid. Rains finished work on this movie June 3rd in 1942 and did his first scene on Casablanca at 10:30 the next morning.
In 1942, Hal B. Wallis had just signed a new contract with Warner Brothers, which stipulated that he make four films a year for the next four years. This film was one from his 1942 slate. Wallis actually made six films in that year, the others being Casablanca, Desperate Journey, Air Force, Princess O'Rourke and Watch on the Rhine.
Principal shooting began on April 7 1942 and ended on June 23 with some retakes shot in early July. The completed film was released at the end of October 1942 to mixed critical notices and a rapturous public reception.
The Walt Whitman poem that Bette Davis reads (just before leaving Cascades) is "The Untold Want" from Songs of Parting (just 2 lines): "The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,/ Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."
The biggest box office hit of Bette Davis's career.
The comic scenes in which Giuseppe ('Frank Pugli'), the cab driver, drives Charlotte (Bette Davis) and Jerry (Paul Henreid) up Sugar Loaf in Rio are effective because Giuseppe does not speak English and neither Charlotte nor Jerry speak Portuguese. Yet, the comedy is even more intensified because Giuseppe does not speak Portuguese either. Rather he jabbers on in a sort of 'lingua franca' mixture of Pugli's native Scilian, Spanish, and Portuguese. All of it spoken with an Italian accent.
The film is remembered for the scene in which Paul Henreid places two cigarettes in his mouth, lights them, and then passes one to Bette Davis, but it wasn't an original idea - a similar exchange occurred ten years earlier between Davis and George Brent in The Rich Are Always with Us.
The main love theme from the score was published as the hit song "It Can't Be Wrong" with music by 'Max Steiner (I)' (qv) and lyrics by 'Kim Gannon' (qv).
The screenplay is a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel, except that in the book Charlotte takes a Mediterranean cruise, not a South American one.