The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

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by Paul Gangelin and the leading lady go into the clinch? What if he perceives that "man's fate is tragic and his destiny shrouded in darkness" and has no glib reassurance to offer? Should the trail-blazing writer ignore the star system? A great love story could be written about two ugly people, really and hopelessly ugly, who find in each other, for the very reason of their ugliness, affection, tenderness, the illusion of being desirable. Every gesture of love between two such people would be a thousand times more poignant because they had been rejected of all the world and found acceptance and tragic happiness only through their common misfortune. COULD you find two stars who would make up to be really unattractive and stay that way through a picture, to the final fade out? If you could, could you find the audience that has been created for those stars in its usual seats in the neighborhood house? Not unless the girl took off her glasses and fluffed up her hair somewhere along the line and the man became his old self as soon as he had a shave and got into some decent clothes. Should we assail the writer because he does not write stories so far from the expected norm? Certainly not. We shouldn't even be too rough on the producer for not wanting them. The mass audience would not accept even such variants as "The Baker's Wife," "Harvest," or "Brief Encounter." All of us together, writers and producers, are the victims of extravagance and bigness and must, in common sense, submit to the demands which these impose. We do well within our prescribed framework every once and again. Mr. Goldwyn himself did well with "The Best Years of Our Lives." That was an excellent picture, as you needn't be told, but strictly within the narrow limits of the stock romantic fable. There was not one hint that the result of uprooting people in war is often real tragedy, there was no suggestion that all is not for the best of all possible world. The young banker found his money-grubbing superiors responsive to a few hortatory and bibulous words, the soda-jerk lost a bawd and won in her place a lovely girl, finding, meanwhile, his true vocation, and even the cruelly mutilated sailor gained a good greater than his loss, a depth of love and understanding which could never have been his but for the catastrophe he suffered. And, no doubt, they all lived happily ever after. There's nothing wrong with pictures based on love's finding a way, but they shouldn't be the only ones we make. Something can be done about that, which we'll discuss presently. First let us address ourselves to another aspect of Mr. Goldwyn's fallacy, one which screen writers themselves often use when they heap coals of fire on their own heads. This is the fallacious comparison of the screen writer and the dramatist of the theatre. Since there is no true basis of comparison between the situations of the producer of a play and the producer of a picture, there can be none between the men who prepare their wares for the one and the other. T N the theatre, even the Brothers * Shubert take a capital risk every time they open a play. They may engage good actors, they may have a good script, they probably own the theatre. But they still have no assurance that they won't lose a sizable part of their shirts. They gamble on every opening night, and all participants gamble with them, which makes enterprise in the theatre fairly truly cooperative. It is a single roll of the dice, but if it succeeds the writer has an asset which is his as long as he may live. If it doesn't, he still has his original property, while the producer has nothing but his memories and his and his angels' cancelled checks. In pictures the gamble of the producing companies is practically nonexistent, or the margin for error is so wide that it need not concern us. The motion picture producer knows that he will get a sufficient minimum of bookings to cover his expenses whether one given picture is good or bad. He knows that a certain star name or combination of names will inevitably yield him a reasonably calculable return. If his receipts are unsatisfactory he can wait years to recoup, until the reports are in from the shooting galleries and the exchange in Tasmania. Now, say writers are prepared to gamble with motion picture producers as we do with their brethren of the theatre. Then, if we put our salaries into the kitty, let them put in theirs, or give us a proportional drawing account, based on the amount of money that the picture can be anticipated to gross as a minimum, even before it is shot. Then, as in the theatre, when the picture is playing, cut us in on a percentage of profit over the minimum. And THEN, after the picture has run its course, as is the case of plays, let the property revert to us. You ask what about screenplays adapted from others writers' work? What about them? John Van Druten adapted "I Remember Mamma" from a novel ,and as often as it is played he, as well as the author of the novel, The Screen Writer, May, 1948 15