Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

20 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 5 groups, the labels can often be deleted. The reference to the villain’s Mexican features can be cut; his name can be changed. When the character has been drawn in such fashion as to pre vent removal of the label — his brogue or dialect, for instance, may be an integral part of his characterization — it may be possible to drop his role from the story. Only where revisions of this nature will destroy the worth of a particular work, must the remedy be complete oblivion — but oblivion, then, it should be. There are more than enough available replacements. READINGS IN PHOTOPLAY APPRECIATION From *^The Screen Writer^^ The Screen Writer is the official publication of the Screen Writers’ Guild, Inc., 1655 North Cherokee Avenue, Hollywood 28, California. It is published monthly at 25c a copy. The subscription rate is $2.50 a year for 12 issues. Teachers and students of literature, composition, speech, and drama, as well as members of photoplay club s, will do well to read the complete issues of this aggressive magazine. Hollywood scenarists whose articles appear in the December, 1945, issue of The Screen Writer include Philip Dunne, Roland Kibbee, John Lardner, Guy Endore, and Arch Oboler. Philip Dunne, in “An Essay on Dignity,’’ discusses the notable article by Raymond Chandler, entitled “Writers in Hollywood,’’ which appeared in the November Atlantic Monthly. Says Mr. Dunne : Where Mr. Chandler’s piece differs from the average attack on Hollywood is in its constructive approach. He writes not to make you laugh but to make you angry. It is a crusading piece, and therefore hopeful. For Mr. Chandler not only describes the symptoms; he makes bold to diagnose the sickness and prescribe a cure. Consider this paragraph: “Hollywood is a showman’s paradise. But showmen make nothing; they exploit what someone else has made. The publishers and the play producers are showmen too; but they exploit what is already made. The showmen of Hollywood control the making — and thereby degrade it. For the basic art of motion pictures is the screenplay; it is fundamental; without it there is nothing. Everything derives from the screenplay, and most of that which derives is an applied skill which, however adept, is artistically not in the same class with the creation of a screenplay. But in Hollywood the screenplay is written by a salaried writer under the supervision of a producer — that is to say, by an employee without control over the uses of his own craft, without ownership of it, and however extravagantly paid, almost without honor for it.” Here — and this is the heart of his piece — Mr. Chandler is putting into a national magazine what a thousand screen writers have asked themselves for years. * * * But read “Writers in Hollywood” for yourself. It is a “must” for every one who believes, with Mr. Chandler, that the motion picture is “an art which is capable of making all but the very best plays look trivial and contrived, all but the very best novels verbose and imitative.” Roland Kibbee, known to a wide radio audience as well as to films, contributes a brilliant satire on the Hollywood custom of having writers work in pairs. In “Two Men on a Vehicle,’’ which would make a good movie short, Mr. Kibbee says : In Europe, the wages of collaboration is death. In Hollywood the wages are much better, and you can get away with it indefinitely. * * * All that is required for a successful collaboration (and by collaboration I mean, in case you haven’t already guessed, a writing partnership) is a heart of stone, a congenial mien and, of course, a collaborator — preferably a trusting one with big, baby-blue, wondering eyes. Let us take two writers and call them Hammacher and Schlemmer. Schlemnier is the writer. Hammacher is the professional collaborator. * * Three sure-fire story conference techniques follow. They are sufficient to give you the general pattern. As a matter of fact, this general pattern is also called Blood ’n Guts. Schlemmer’s blood and Hammacher’s guts. 1. Arrange to sit side by side with the collaborator so that the producer sees both of you, but neither of you see each other. Now the producer says that this or that stinks. You quickly shoot a look of gentle reproach over toward Schlemmer. It is not much, but the producer sees it and is left with the ineradicable conviction that your collaborator is murdering the script in spite of everything you can do to prevent it. 2. This is really Number 1 with reverse English. The producer says that this or that is great. You promptly beam triumphantly upon your collaborator and say: “What did I tell you!” You may indeed have told him it was great when he thought of it. But the effect of this, as will readily be perceived, is to give the producer the impression that the favored idea was yours, and that your collaborator