Harrison's Reports (1931)

Compiled by “THE HARRISON FORECASTER” 1440 Broadway, New York, N. Y. Vol.I (1931-32 Season) No. 1 “AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY” 4 ( Produced, by Paramount) The Story in Brief Clyde Griffith, the son of small town evangelists, resents the narrow life he is compelled to lead. When he finally breaks away from his people, he obtains a job as bellboy in a city hotel. There he becomes involved in various dissipations with other gay youths, learns to enjoy the society of fast girls, joins in drinking bouts and has a convivial time generally. Later he goes to Lycurgus, N.Y., where he enters the employ of a firm operating a large factory and sees chances for advancement and a good future, of which he takes advantage. He meets pretty Roberta Alden, who works in the factory, and they fall in love. He seduces her. Roberta confides in Clyde that she expects to become a mother. In the interval Clyde has made the acquaintance of Sondra Finchley, scion of a wealthy family and a society bud. Both ambition and inclination tempt Clyde to win Sondra for his wife, but Roberta stands between them and her condition cannot be concealed. He takes Roberta for a row on the lake and either throws her or permits her to fall into the water and she drowns. His movements on the evening of Roberta’s death are traced by detectives. Clyde is arrested and charged with murder. He denies his guilt, but the jury will not believe him. He is convicted and is put to death by means of the electric chair. Criticism The foregoing plot, adapted from the Dreiser novel, was presented on the Broadway stage during the season of 1926. Beginning October 11, it ran for 216 performances. It also had a successful run on the coast and was said to have been more talked about in Los Angeles than any play shown there in years. The book created a furore in literary circles when first published and owing to its frank portrayal of the sexual life of its hero and other characters was placed under the official ban of the Boston municipal authorities, who forbid its sale or circulation in libraries. It is an extremely morbid story, without a single cheering ray of light to brighten a consistently gloomy atmosphere. The ill-fated Roberta, who dies a victim of her lover’s treachery, is about the only character in the book to win the reader’s sympathy. The hero, swayed altogether by the twin emotions of lust and selfishness, coupled with desire to achieve wealth and social position by marriage with another girl, stands out as a peculiarly detestable specimen of a cad. As a literary study in stark realism and exposition of animal passions running wild, the novel has considerable merit. The same may be said of the stage presentation. Talented players found ample scope for their emotional abilities in such roles as that of the unrelenting District Attorney, the betrayed girl, the other woman in the case, the wastrel hero and many other outstanding figures of a large cast. Patronage for unhappy plays of this nature, especially those in which moral conventions are thrown to the winds, is seldom lacking, so far as the legitimate stage is concerned. As a screen proposition, “An American Tragedy,” with its shameless wallowings in the sex gutters, its debauchery and insistent dwelling on the baser sides of human nature, would seem impossible of conversion into anything resembling wholesome or appealing entertainment for the majority of picture followers. Paramount paid author T Dreiser an astonishing price for the rights to the novel when it was published. But Mr. Will Hays intervened and declared the book unfit for film purposes. Recently the Hays office is said to have consented to the making of the picture, with the story revamped and cleaned up so as to pass muster. Unless die narrative is purged and twisted out of nearly all resemblance to the original, it is difficult to see how it can ever get by the censors, if its lustful and murderous atmosphere is eliminated, it will no longer be the Dreiser tale, but something spurious, sold on the strength of the title and therefore to a certain extent a fraud on the public. If filmed as written or staged, it will be about as safe as dynamite for the average exhibitor to trifle with. Other Facts The following resolution was passed at a meeting of one hundred of the Atlanta Better Film Committee (Mrs. Patrick Bray, President), representing every civic organization in Atlanta, Ga., with seven monitors present: " Whereas , It has come to our knowledge that there is again a movement to film Dreiser’s GREAT AMERICAN TRAGEDY, be it “Resolved, That the Better Films Committee of Atlanta again protest against filming this book, “Resolved Further, That we respectfully urge that we be given a definite promise that this book will not be filmed, with the assurance that the promise will be kept. “Resolved Further, That a copy of this resolution be sent to the Hays Organization in New York and in California, also to the National Board of Review in New York.” There is also a controversy going on between the author and Paramount. The April 9 issue of Daily News of New York City had the following despatch from Los Angeles : “Theodore Dreiser boarded an air liner today for New York, apparently in high dudgeon over the ‘vivisection’ of his book, ‘An American Tragedy,’ by Paramount. “Dreiser came here several weeks ago to read the adaptation which scenarists, aided by Joseph von Sternberg, film director, prepared. Last night he expressed disgust with the changes made, and announced he was prepared to file an action in Federal court.” No doubt Paramount, forced by public opinion, is trying to make such changes as will forestall attempts on the part of civic and religious organizations to bar it from showing; but they are fought by the author. If the author succeeds, there will be a great outcry against the picture ; if Paramount succeeds, the picture will be unlike the book; perhaps only the title will remain. EDITOR’S COMMENT : The object of The Harrison Forecaster is not to guarantee that the book or play will make a good or a bad picture ; the producer may make such changes as to turn a poor book or play into an excellent entertainment ; or he may turn an excellent book or play into a mediocre picture. Its aim is to place in the subscriber’s hands facts that will enable him to place himself on an equal footing with the salesman, who usually makes the assertion that every one of the pictures he is offering is going to be a knockout. Though the subscriber’s arguments will not be founded on knowledge of the finished product, the same is true of the salesman’s. But the exhibitor will be placed in a position where he can counteract the salesman’s extravagant statements. P. S. Harrison.