Screen Guilds Magazine (May 1936)

A Chapter On Radio D RIBBLES of radio money are be¬ ginning to flow into the pockets of screen writers, constituting a soothing feeling. The money isn’t mountainous, but it promises to grow larger and is well worth asking to dinner. Radio uses up material faster than that old de'bil Screen, and the material is getting good and scarce. Naturally it uses reams of office-written stuff, and its value is what you surmize. It is beginning to pass its plate for helpings from novels, the stage, and from the screen. Oddly enough the fact that a story has been on the screen doesn’t hurt it for radio. In fact it steps it up. There’s nothing radio would more like to do than to air “ Mutiny on the Bounty”. The theory is that radio audiences are familiar with it and like to hear it all over again from the van¬ tage point of a rocking-chair. In fact, the better known a story is, the better the rocking-chair likes it. And it’s pie to turn a screen script into a radio script. Radio can make the same quick transitions the screen can, and the dialogue fits in neat and pretty. It would seem a simple matter, then, to get the rights to a screen play and put the story on the air. But it’s not quite that easy. First, the film com¬ panies usually air scenes from a story soon after it is made—teasers they are, really—and look with a tremendous frown upon doing a screen story in full on the air. “Hollywood Hotel” is an example of the way screen stories are put on the air immediately after, or be¬ fore, release. But the end is not yet. The radio com¬ panies, on the other hand, are perfectly willing to buy a screen story a year after it has been released, when pre¬ sumably it has slipped from the screen. And here is where the screen author comes in. All screen writers should re¬ serve radio rights to originals. Of course material written on the back of a pay envelope is different, and seemingly the author would have no claim to it. N OW we have arrived at the point where you have written an original, a year has passed since it hit the screen, and a radio company comes around and asks for it respectfully. The author and the film company should share. What the percentages should be is a matter of opinion. Suppose the film co'mpany got twenty-five percent; or one third, or one half. The price is not large; at least, at the present, but it does run from five hundred to a thousand dollars, and neither the film company nor the author has to turn a hand. In fact, a film company would probably welcome a bit of publicity for a picture during its old age. I went to Don Clark, South Swall Drive boy, and asked him about this problem of screen plays being fetched to the dial, and he took me by the hand and led me into the inner sanctum. He is the Big Boy out here in radio writ¬ ing; has just finished twenty broadcasts for Leslie Howard, and knows his way around. He says that a radio company could put “Little Lord Fauntleroy” on the air tomorrow night if it wanted to, whether David 0. Selznick and Kath¬ arine Brown liked it or not; that is, if the author’s estate reserved the radio rights. But—and now the catch—it could not use the screen dialogue. He himself ran up against this in “The Scarlet Pimpernel”. The story had been screened, and he was chosen to make a radio play of it from the book. But he found the screen ending had been changed from the book; he could not use that because it belonged to the film company, and he did not like the book ending. So he walked in the middle. Leslie Howard played the lead (he seems to be the most radio-active of all the Hollywood dramatic personalities). R ADIO money is constantly drifting in to the Hollywood boys and girls for copyright material. It isn’t large, but the pretty part is that the demand is constantly increasing. Radio has gobbled so much material that radio story editors are beginning to have the shakes. I haven’t figures on this, but By Homer Croy . . . Internationally known author, screen writer and more recently, radio script writer. I’ll wager a dinner at Simon’s that a hundred old plays and stories were con¬ sumed during 1935. Mary Pickford herself must have eaten a dozen. And I speak only of the networks, not the locals who are also at the pie counter. The oldest of the plays I have heard of being aired is “The Lion and the Mouse”. Why lawsy! it’s so old some of you never even saw it. How well I remember opening night. . . And here’s an item about it: in the neighborhood of $500 was paid for the radio rights for one performance. And a pleasing fact is that you can sell the radio rights over and over. NBC has handed James Hilton money three times for “Mr. Chips”. And that brings us to another inter¬ esting question: if you have an old play out in the smokehouse, how much should you get for it? This business of buying old plays and old stories is so new there is no price tag, but I can give you an idea as to what some of the hams have sold for. Everybody tells me I will get into trouble if I quote prices, but I am doing this in order to help straighten out this incohate business of radio rewards and that we members may have a lamp to our feet. Price depends on several factors: is it an hour program or a half-hour pro¬ gram ? Is it for a star, or for somebody who has just happened to drop into the studio? (You don’t have to worry about relatives; radio hasn’t learned that yet.) (Continued on Page 26) Radio money is constantly drifting in to Hollywood boys and girls for copyright material. It isn’t large, but the pretty part is that the demand is constantly increas¬ ing. Radio has gobbled so much material that radio story editors are beginning to have the shakes. ^ 13 • May, 1936