The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

< > i— i Z <! DC H Z w w H pi >— i ft. members and Gerrit Lloyd, on April 5, just eight days later. The Treasurer's Report showed a cash balance of $861.67, and was approved. A unanimously carried motion reinstated Adele Burlington as a member. On April 6, still in 1933, the Annual Meeing of the Screen Writers' Guild was held at the Writers' Club', with Howard J. Green presiding. John Howard Lawson was elected President by acclamation. Frances Marion was elected Vice President, Joseph Mankiewicz, Secretary, and Ralph Block, Treasurer. Board members were Ralph Block, James A. Creelman, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Howard J. Green, Grover Jones, John Howard Lawson, Joseph Mankiewicz, Frances Marion, Dudley Nichols, Laurence Stallings, and Louis Weitzenkorn. Howard Green was given a unanimous vote of thanks for his work in keeping the Guild alive. President Lawson announced that a plan had been prepared for reorganization to vitalize the Guild. The new contract, constitution and by-laws were presented to the membership. This was a contract among members, not between the Guild and the producers. It contained a provision that no member might enter into an employment contract from the next day, April 7, to May 31 of that year, which called for his services beyond the May 31 date, single picture deals excepted. The contract, containing this much-discussed section, a Code, governing writer's actions, the new Constitution and By-Laws, were unanimously adopted. April 6, 1933, thus became the birthday of the new, reorganized Guild. The Board, meeting on April 7, passed a resolution providing that any writer who had paid the necessary $100, and signed the 1933 contract, automatically became a member of the Guild. There were 173 charter members. This Code Committee was appointed : Chairman, Samuel Ornitz, Members, Jane Murfin, Harvey Thew, Doris Anderson, Rupert Hughes, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Robert Riskin, Bert Kalmar, Howard J. Green, Samuel Behrman, John Bright, Malcolm Stuart Boylan, Houston Branch, Stuart Anthony, E. E. Paramore, Jr. On April 24, the Board approved Article 1 of the Code, drawn up by Lawrence Beilenson, covering general pay cuts, for submission to the membership for a mail vote. Article 2 of the Code outlawed the use by members of a general booking agency. A membership committee was appointed at this Board meeting, to recruit more members. It was voted to employ a Secretary for the Publicity Committee. The Board's recommendation was that he should be, preferably, an unemployed member of the SWG, and that he be paid $30 a week. On May 3, 1933, Article 3 of the Code was discussed by the Board. It provided that a member should not work in collaboration with a nonmember, or with a producer who was not a Guild member. There was lively discussion of whether a producer who discharged a member for such refusal should be declared unfair. At this meeting, a rule was adopted that any active member might file with the Secretary of the Guild a proxy, giving another active member power to vote in his stead. HP H ROUGH that summer and the -^ following winter, the Guild continued to work on the preparation of the Code of Working Rules. A vote of 75% of the membership was required. Articles 1, 2 and 3 were adopted June 14; Articles 4 through 10, June 28, Articles 12 to 16, on February 14, 1934. The minutes of that period do not tell us what happened to Article 11. By February of 1934, the Guild had 343 active members. Article 4 of the Code of Working Rules dealt with royalty contracts. It provided that the author of original screen material, whether in the form of ideas, synopsis, original story, treatment, or script, must require the return of his material to him, unrestricted in any way not later than six months from the dae of sale, if within that six months' period, the producer had failed to produce the material as a motion picture. A pro ducer could extend his option on the material for another six months by paying the sum specified in the royalty contract. This Article also included the right of the author to approve or disapprove, in writing, any changes in a script which was his original work; his right to require examination, by a Certified Public Accountant of his choosing, of the producing company's books; his right to require the producer to consult him in the selection of a director and the casting of a picture. The author's royalties were to be a percentage of the producer's gross receipts. Article 5 had to do with speculative writing. It provided that "any member may refuse to discuss with any motion picture producer the member's own .proposal for the screen development of material presented to him by the producer, until he is actually in the employ of such producer." Ethics and Discipline of Members were covered by Article 6. Our present Code of Working Rules covers the same ground. Writers were required to notify other members when they were assigned to the same properties. No writer was permitted to claim or accept a credit which did not truly state the facts of authorship. Any member, or any other person, including a motion picture producer, could file a complaint against any member, for violation of these rules. Article 7 set up rules covering relations of writers and producers or directors. Article 8, dealing with free lance writers, mentioned an already existing Writer-Producer Code of Practices. The Guild incorporated the provisions of this existing code in their own Code. Among them was this rule: a free-lance writer, who has worked on a week-to-week basis for not less than 10 weeks at $500 or less, shall be required to give, and shall be entitled to receive, not less than two weeks' notice prior to the termination of his employment. Article 9 again borrowed from the extant ProducerWriter Code. It provided that writers employed to write a treatment, for a "specified aggregate compensation," ("flat deal" to 26 The Screen Writer, April, 194