Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

56 SCREENL AND They Get $1,000 Frances Marion, winner of the Motion Picture Academy prize for the best original scenario of the year, "The Big House." Louise Long, a stenographer, taught herself to write for the screen. It took five years to win her present success. But how these women scenario writers earn it! "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," "Pollyana," and "Stella Maris" were all the work of Frances. Later she wrote and directed "The Lovelight." Norma Talmadge secured Frances for scenarizing "The Eternal Flame," "Secrets," and "The Lady." "East is West," "Cytherea," "Tarnish," "The Dark Angel" and "Stella Dallas" are among the many other silents for which Frances Marion received screen credit. But if the men expected the talkies to flummox Frances, they had another think coming. Instead she won the Motion Picture Academy prize for the best original scenario of the year with "The Big House," an intensely all-masculine picture. She earned the fond approval of Eugene O'Neill for her screen version of his "Anna Christie," and was also responsible for "Min and Bill" and "The A LL the world wants to / % write scenarios for rao/ tion pictures. Not only established writers, but bell-boys, nurse maids, stokers, politicians, bankers, et al. You should see the mountains of scenarios that flow into the studios. Almost every arrival in Southern California, from celebrity to immigrant, has a scenario up his sleeve. Even weighty nabobs, like Dr. Edward Smith Williams, author of 100 scientific books, self-consciously admit a scenario in the making! Hence the competition is terrific. When the silent screen took to talking, a perky male predicted, in print, that women scenario writers would now make an inglorious exit. Just as though women did not know all about talking ! But instead, the clever scenario girls have covered themselves with glory, and actually there are more women successful in this difficult field than men. How did they break in? That's the precious question all the yearners are asking. Take that brilliant Frances Marion, versatile, humorous, immeasurably kind. Frances started in a newspaper career in San Francisco, her home town. She comes of aristocratic lineage, her great-grandfathers being respectively Lord Douglas of England and General Francis Marion of the Revolutionary War. But that did not prevent her having to begin at the bottom, from financial necessity. Besides the newspaper work, Frances was doing art posters and going to college on the side. You see, she had an intellect and cultivated it. She didn't consider compulsory business an excuse for ignorance ! It was through writing short stories for magazines that Frances attracted the attention of the studios. After they had bought the scenario rights of a couple of them, she was invited to go to Hollywood with Mary Pickford. "The Foundling," "The Poor Little Rich Girl," Madeleine Ruthven, left, migrated from an Iowa ranch via newspaper work to triumphant scenario writing. She's with M-G-M. Bess Meredyth, above, began as a newspaper woman, also writing short stories. She has maintained her scenario success through the years, with such hits to her credit as 'Ben Hut," "A Woman Of Affairs," "Don Juan," "Our Blushing Brides" and Garbo's "Romance." Bradley King, above, convent-bred, wrote magazine stories, caught Tom Ince's attention, and has been a successful scenarist ever since. Right, Ethel Doherty, once a stenographer, served a 7-year apprenticeship and then clicked with "The Vanishing American . ' '