The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

It Isn't Me By LEONARD SPIGELGASS FROM Santa Monica came the wind that ruffled the ninon curtains and the sable hair of Miss Lind, who sneezed. "Do you want it closed — the window?" Mr. Brady's voice was warm with concern. Miss Lind shook her head. "Mr. Gort was saying how warm he was." Mr. Gort hastened to disclaim warmness, even offered to close the window. Miss Lind gave in gently, but, in the end, it was Mr. Clews who closed the window, closed it and turned to hear Miss Lind saying, "I love it. Understand that, I love it. I just feel that in certain scenes it isn't me." "Which ones exactly?" Mr. Brady used his firm voice with the fatherly overtone, so successful at varying times with Richard Barthlemess and Charles Coburn. Miss Lind grasped the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, each delicately enameled a faint shell. "I don't know. I don't pretend to know. But I have a sense, deep inside, that I'm not her and she isn't me. It's a feeling more than anything." "Of course it is," said Mr. Gort. "Instinct. I know. Let's take the opening, that walk through the forest, down from the crags, that search, that seek, that want — that's you. Isn't it? Isn't it?" "Yes." Miss Lind removed her thumb and forefinger from the bridge of her nose and fixed her eyes on Mr. Gort. "Yes, that is me. I can play it. I can feel it." "I knew it the moment Clews suggested it," said Mr. Brady cordially. "It was in the book," said Mr. Clews. "And I loved it in the book," said Miss Lind. "I really did, Mr. Clews. Only even then I felt something — I can't put my finger on it, something, well, I hate to use the word, God knows I'm not a prude, but something immoral." "She just killed a man," said Mr. Clews. "No, no!" said Mr. Gort. "It wasn't murder. Not the way, for instance, you'd say Ruth Snyder murdered. It was more instinct, psychological, impulsive, obsessive. That's the way I see it, psychoanalytical, right out of Freud." "But murder, Mr. Gort, wanton murder." Miss Lind's lips were tight. "I just don't see me doing it." "But we don't see you," said Mr. Brady. "That's the brilliance of the screenplay." "That's the way the book was," said Mr. Clews. "We find you coming down from the crag," said Mr. Brady. "We know you're tortured. Something's on your mind. You make your way to the station, wake up the sleepy agent, buy a ticket, you get on the train, and that's where you meet Derek Burke. It isn't until the end that we know, though we suspect, we don't know, but Burke knows all along and doesn't care, and then it's the climb up to the crags again that sets you free." "She doesn't climb up any more," said Mr. Clews. "Mr. Gort didn't want her to climb back up." "It's over, finished, done in the ice house," said Mr. Gort. "They'll be reaching for their hats, the moment Burke kills him." "I agree," said Miss Lind. "When a thing's over, it's over." "I kind of liked her climbing back up," said Mr. Brady stubbornly. "What happens to the body if she doesn't?" asked Mr. Clews. "The hell with the body," said Mr. Gort. "Who cares?" "Exactly my point," said Miss Lind. She smiled brilliantly. "I've a brainstorm." She turned to Mr. Clews and let him shine in the incandescence of her teeth. "I'm not a writer. I don't pretend to be one. But sometimes I get ideas that haunt me so I can't sleep. And I'm not even suggesting for a minute that you use it. Look, I'm no fool. I do my job, and you do yours. You give me the words, and I say them, and do the best I can to put whatever little I have in them. But I'm not exactly illiterate." "I'll say you're not," said Mr. Gort. "That dialogue you put in Recompense was brilliant. It was you." "Yes, it was, and I know Mr. Clews will hate me for it. I would if I were in his place. But I had to, Mr. Clews. I couldn't read the lines. They weren't me." "They altered the whole characterization," said Mr. Clews. "But I could stage it!" said Mr. Gort testily. Mr. Brady's sinuses forced him, at that moment, to blow his nose trumpetingly. He said "Excuse me," and added, "What's your idea, Miss Lind? I'm very anxious to hear it." "I'm not a writer," said Miss Lind. Mr. Clews said nothing. {Continued on Page 21) The Screen Writer, August, 1948