Are there any articles or infos out there about the production history? I've heard the film was finished by another director. It would be interesting to know which scenes are not Murnau's. As a whole I find the film quite perfect and wouldn't have guessed it had such a troubled development.
shareThere is not much out there in terms of production history. I know the film was shot in Eastern Oregon, not far from where my grandparents lived, actually. I read that Mary Duncan was crowned the rodeo queen at the Pendleton Round-Up when she arrived in town to shoot the film, and there are photos of her at the rodeo in a cowgirl getup.
I read somewhere in a blog or something that they believe a farm was built specifically for the movie, but I can't corroborate that. There are also varying sources that say different things about the sound vs. non-sound versions of the film, but again, there is not much to go off of. Unfortunately, not much information has survived.
The Masters of Cinema Blu-Ray has a good commentary by David Kalat.
According to him:
Fox bought an orchard, cut down the trees and planted wheat. The wheat was subsequently sold. For some scenes at the end of the picture, the wheat field was recreated on a back lot or on a Sound stage.
The film was largely complete when Fox took a strategic decision to stop releasing silent movies. At first, they were just going to junk City Girl, but eventually decided to add some sound and release it as a part talkie.
Murnau was not entirely against this and made some suggestions about how it should be done. However, conventional wisdom at the time was to bring in a theatrical director to do the sound scenes. Murnau could not accept someone else finishing his movie, so walked away from the picture and from his contract with Fox.
A silent version was completed for sale in countries where Sound had not yet taken off. It probably contained a number of scenes not actually filmed by Murnau.
The MOC silent version was found in the Fox vaults around 1970. A comparison with a detailed review of the film that appeared in France or Germany (I can't remember which) suggests that it is essentially the same as the export version.
Of course, I don't know how accurate any of this is, but it sounds right to me.