The screen writer (June 1947-Mar 1948)

AN APPROACH TO PICTURES involved in the project. I am sure that my colleagues, no less than I, live in anxious hope, rather than satisfied certainty. But whether we have succeeded or failed, one thing, I believe, remains true: Out of the various efforts now being made in Hollywood to achieve this synthesis in both subject matter and style can come something new, better and more mature in picture making. My evidence that this can be done, is that it already has been done in The Best Years of Our Lives. In the past, the documentary technique bubbled along quietly under the surface of popular entertainment. It excited only an aesthetic, scholarly and frequently snobbish few. Running parallel, the Hollywood technique flashed its virtuosity profitably across the entertainment sky. The war exploded heaven and earth in more ways than one. It drew the documentary up out of its safe obscurity to educate and inspire millions of soldiers and other millions of people in liberated areas, supplying sufficient audience and opportunity to fulfill what was previously embryonic in its technique. That same upheaval brought "once-upona-non-existent-time" magnificently down to earth with Sahara, Destination Tokyo, Edge of Darkness and others. Inevitably, when the smoke cleared, these two strangers had to meet. In The Best Years of Our Lives, they did. Before the first draft of my screenplay was completed, The House on 92nd Street made its debut. I did not feel about The House as I feel about The Best Years of Our Lives. While The House had a "newsreel authenticity" and a new approach to environment, which proved that the "factual style" could yield profitable dramatic entertainment, I believe it suffered from the same weaknesses as the wartime documentary technique in that it sacrificed deepened characterization for the purpose of emphasizing what was dramatic in authentically presented situation, (as differentiated from Boomerang which certainly does, in many respects, achieve this synthesis.) In the process of dealing with my story, a working definition was developed with regard to the people in it. I call it "documentary characterization." If the word "documentary" still has an odious or frightening, noncommercial sound, I readily accept other words like "authentic," "realistic," or "factual." All I mean, is a technique of unfolding character which is as dominant as the authentic factual revelation of dramatic situation and strikes the same tone and matter-of-fact spirit. By documentary characterization I mean a research into Jthe human data to the point where the people in each scene stand with equal dramatic importance as the / factually arrived at situations they are in and not at the expense of watering down either of these factors. (Documentary situation obviously is not based on case file material alone. It achieves stature whenever it is well-researched as in The Lost Weekend.) In the effort at synthesis I had to, of necessity, treat the dramatic situation as constant (meaning that while it was subject to and required imagination, it was not subject to distortion. The United States Department of Treasury saw to that ! ) This made documentary characterization variable, subject to test, re-test, work, re-work until the human values felt as sound, believable, exciting and factual as the constant situational values. The various artists who made The Best Years of Our Lives voluntarily assumed a kindred problem and solved it with remarkable success. William Wyler makes reference to it in his important article in the February issue of THE SCREEN WRITER when he says: "In the case of The Best Years, I should like to make the point that the picture came out of its period as a result of the social forces when the war ended. In a sense the picture was made by events and imposed a responsibility upon us to be true to these events and refrain from distorting them for our own ends." (My underscoring.) Elsewhere in this same article Mr. Wyler observes: "It is readily apparent that The Best Years is not a story of plot, but a story of some people facing real problems." The fact that Assigned to Treasury is a story of plot, real, factual plot, documentarily unfolded, by itself confronted us with some interesting riddles. Whether solved or not, of course still remains to be seen. If characterization was to be attempted at all, it required that the "human document" be as real as the "situational document" — that it never be forced and always remain consistent with the terms imposed by the plot and the understated, authentic style demanded by the "fact-drama" method of story telling. Among other solutions, in the middle section of Assigned to Treasury the girl is totally absent. She is kept alive in the story only by her bearing on it. In addition, in this same section, Mike Barrows (Dick Powell) is placed in the hands of his colleagues in Beyrut and in Egypt. They, not he, are the protagonists. Another by-product of this approach which starts with thematic viewpoint — is that it commits mayhem on a host of theatrical values bred by chauvinism. The narcotics operatives of the various nations of the world involved in our story are all men of stature. That is the truth in the file. Creating these new authentically conceived archetypes, with their own specific personality coloration was a willing labor. I think it is better to allow Gunga Din to achieve his dignity than to weep