Screen Guilds Magazine (July 1934)

THE SCREEN WRITERS’ MAGAZINE WRITER’S CRAMP by AL MARTIN I’ve seen directors come and go. I’ve seen stars come and go. I’ve seen writers come and go. You can see I’ve seen people come and go. Tis said that one of our six hun¬ dred members paid his dues the other day. Personally, I think it’s just a rumor. And did you know that Slim Sum¬ merville used to be a grave digger? No? Well, let me tell you. Slim Sum¬ merville used to be a grave digger. If every dog has his day possibly the screen writer will have his. And when that time comes wouldn’t it be ducky to be Down South with Mars. Byrd— where the days really amount to some¬ thing? Of course it wouldnt’ be so good for the pencil pusher who has just been told by a perspective employer to drop back and see him day after tomorrow. If’s plenty tough getting inside a studio these days. If St. Peter were as particular as studio gatemen, Heaven would be inhabited only by stars of the first magnitude and supervisors Al Christie, the famous comedy producer, used to be a bell hop in a Canadian hotel. There are several producers who wish they had Mr. Christie’s old job. In fairness to Mr. Christie, he should be given the pref¬ erence. Jerry Sackheim was assigned by a big executive (guess who) to make a synopsis of Roget’s Thesaurus. Any¬ thing for a laugh, eh, what? I hate to talk about myself, but one of our biggest producers saw one of my pictures and immediately gave me an assignment which he claimed was right up my alley. I am to write dia¬ logue for Harpo Marx. To those of you folks who are for¬ tunate enough not to know me person¬ ally, I would like to confess—I have an enormous profile. In fact it is so large my last boss saw it a few seconds before I stepped into his office. When I entered, his jaw and stenographer dropped to the floor, and pointing to my beak, he cried: “Put that back in the prop room.” - C. A. - by Nunnally Johnson Vicki Baum to Goldwyn’s for five months. Brick (“Six Cun’’) Terrett seen on Barbary Coast. Sheekman & Perrin getting echolalia from pondering on Riskin, Rivkin, Ruskin, Briskin, Praskins. Bonnie Parker shot and killed by re¬ tired Texas Ranger. George Oppenheimer having his corns husked. Bess Meredyth off to Europe. Dwight Taylor can draw. Cameron Rogers, Eastern belles- lettresist, to work with your corre¬ spondent on “Richlieu’’ for A Hiss. That’s all today. See you next mcnth. As much as I like to kid about it, I hereby serve notice that my nose will not be the only one in town that I’m going to pick on. I’m organizing “The Schnozzle Club.” There will be no initiation, for we of the anteater type have been abused enough, but mem¬ bers must be able to stand two feet from the border line of California and inhale the ozone of Arizona. I’m not sure whether Jimmie Durante is eligible. One of my spies reported that Jimmie stood in Califor¬ nia and inhaled the ozone of New Mexico—completely missing Arizona. I’ll have to look up our by-laws. Running true to form, the other day I got a great idea for a story. I planned to call it, “An American Tragedv.” The story was about a man who fell in love with a rich young girl and murdered the other one. I sure was burned up when I discovered a guy by the name of Dreiser had swiped my idea. YOU CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING \ k i D 7 IVa, P B1 DiOCK V V RITERS have strange ideas about freedom. They believe that a special Providence exists to guarantee them liberty. A part of this expecta¬ tion is natural to the state of creating something. Mere rational invention re¬ quires no more liberal scope than build¬ ing a house, which is limited at the outset by the laws of Euclid. But the creative process in its pure state is more mysterious, moves in a secret realm of its own, and is easily dissi¬ pated by the cold hand of restriction. Realistically minded persons have rested for some years on the conclusion that in a complicated industrial world the idea of freedom is a wish fulfill¬ ment, carried over from our primitive and unrestricted past. There are of course some liberties to be had in the world. But to have them and maintain them, you must first de¬ cide which ones are important to you. Society in its present state requires a kind of bargain; it will give you two items of freedom if you give up ten others. But the important thing to consider is that you can’t have them all. These apparently gratuitous philo¬ sophical observations are significant when considered in relation to the Screen Writers’ Guild. When the Guild was first organized, a number of well known writers expressed their sympathy with its general purposes, but declared that as for themselves they were individualists and didn’t like the limitation of personal action im¬ posed by organization. This is a kind of dream state which is not uncom¬ mon among those more fortunate workers in American life and industry. It is a hangover from those idyllic pio¬ neer days when the worker and his em¬ ployer and their families went on picnics together and belonged to the same bowling club. Unfortunately the nostalgia for this happy gambol linger¬ ed long after the facts that supported it had disappeared. The ecstatic indi¬ vidualist has his fetters and doesn’t know it, and if he does recognize them as such he loves them. Too late, he wakes to discover that the Damon and Pythias mood in which he plays golf with his employer doesn’t keep this gentleman from returning to the role of John L. Producer when it comes to making disposition of the individu¬ alist’s work at the studio or signing contracts for his services. (Continued on Page 22) [ 16 ]