World Film and Television Progress (1938)

Ben Mievht. forty-four years old: one time journalist* noir screen writer. Wrote the story for -Front Page9, the first great newspaper film, ami the screen play of the newest film about newspaper ballyhoo. 'Nothing Sacred. * Outstanding film work includes writing the story for -Seurfuee'. and the writing, or collaboration in the writing, of 'Design for Living9, 'Viva Villa'. -Hut-burg Coust% 'Onee in u Blue Moon9, 'The Scoundrel9, and 'Crime Without Passion9, which he helped prod nee and direct. feat this public, who unfortunately symbolize the 'Great American Movie Public' of today, is to substitute them with a new public — and the only way to do that is to have Hollywood go into the state of collapse it is inevitably heading for, and start anew with a sane production budget. "A picture that should cost 200 grand has to gross two and one-half million dollars to break even, and in order to meet this profit it has to cater to a vast undiscriminating audience. Cut down on these gigantic production costs, which only serve to feed a producer's ego — make a picture, a good picture, for less than a million, and to aitch with catering to audiences, exhibitors, actors, writers, directors, etc., etc. "Here's an illustration to prove my point. Several years ago I wrote a story called Scarface. Paul Muni, who had been kicked around like a gong at the old Fox studio, came over to U.A. playing the title role for a couple of hundred dollars a week. We signed a young Valentinoish looking wop for the second male lead, and gave him $75 — his name was George Raft. The girl who played the heroine had been an extra at MGM — we gave her $50. She's done all right for herself, too — her name is Ann Dvorak. The picture grossed $3,000,000. Remember another picture called Underworld! George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent thought they were pretty lucky to be in it, even though the Government didn't take away half of their salary. It was grossed $4,000,000. "Lombard and March cleaned up more than a quarter of a million between them on Nothing Sacred — and there was 'nothing sacred' about my weekly stipend, either; it was positively indecent! I would have taken less, but nobody asked me to. As for March and Lombard, they both turned out pretty swell pictures in Laughter (Par) and 20th Century (Col), minus that gargantuan salary. The point I'm trying to prove is that I could have made Nothing Sacred on a far more conservative budget than Selznick (exclusive of the technicolour, of course) and it still would have been a good picture!" At this point, the insistent ringing of the phone diverted Hecht from his analogy. It was his erstwhile co-producer and playmate, Charlie MacArthur. It was the perfect cue to ask when the Messrs. Hecht and MacArthur were to resume their zany partnership again — or had they forsworn pictures for all time? "But certainly not," Hecht demurred. "I'd rather do a movie anytime than a stage play — it's far more fun. We were considered two screw-balls when we were working out at Astoria, because, we played backgammon on the set and didn't hold conferences in our office •every lunch hour. The reason we didn't 'Front Page", the first great film of newspaper life. hold conferences was because we couldn't get into our office — it was always packed with the strangest looking people, and the reason we played" backgammon on the set was because it gave us an added interest in our work! "Seriously though, we didn't waste 50 bucks on extraneous matter — like travelling across the country with a print of the picture and the entire cast in tow — or throw ing cocktail shindigs for the press — or staging Hollywood premieres simultaneously in 24 cities, so that we could quote Mrs. Ipswich telling the world, 'that it would be a crime to miss Crime Without Passion— or making 5,692 tests of unknowns, and then using a player under contract -or running three weeks behind schedule, because for those three weeks we were 'on location' in the conference room. No, long before The Seven Dwarfs our slogan was 'Whistle While You Work' — only the next time we do it. we'd like to have the help of a kid named Bill Fields. \ few years ago Gene Fowler and I wrote a story for MGM which was supposed to suit the talents of Marie Dressier. We grabbed the opportunity o\ writing in a part for Bill. When we finished the yarn we weren't surprised when it was rejected — the stoiy turned out to be a starrer for Bill Fields, with Marie Dressier playing his stooge!"