The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

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by Fred Zinnemann comprehend the crying need for the UNRRA's work and the enormous difficulties in the way of its accomplishment. Consequently, the UNRRA people welcomed an opportunity to help present the situation as it actually existed. From the lips of these workers and from the children themselves came the raw stuff from which The Search was made. Without drama, without emphasis, these people gave us material sufficient for ten such films. The curious part was that very few of them were concerned with telling us stories of atrocities. Rather, they dwelt — for subconscious reasons, I am sure — on the destruction of human dignity, on the disintegration of the human soul, which had been methodically induced by the Germans. Both the UNRRA people and the D.P.'s seemed a great deal more preoccupied with that dimension of their experience rather than with simple physical brutality. THE telling of those stories by the children is a story in itself. Even in 1947, these victims were fearfully suspicious of unfamiliar faces. But neither fear nor suspicion showed on their faces. Like automatons, they sat quietly until told to come forward and answer questions. In answering they spoke rapidly in a continuing monotone. With a shocking sort of quiescense they related their stories. Here the writer's discrimination and sense of story values expedited our work. Mr. Schweizer selected those incidents which would give flesh and blood to his story skeleton and develope it in the way it must structurally go. Mr. Schweizer returned to Swit zerland and wrote the screen treatment in six weeks, after we had compared notes. Once during that time we returned to Germany not only for additional material but also to "touch base." Later Paul Jarrico was brought over to Europe in order to give us authentic American dialogue. His contribution was immensely valuable. It transformed the somewhat stilted and literary dialogue into authentic GI speech. In doing so, the dialogue was pulled together and made more economic. After completion of the film, when Mr. Jarrico was asked regarding the type of screen credit he wanted, he suggested modestly and with a nice sense of humor, "Subtractional Dialogue." FROM then on, Mr. Schweizer worked mostly alone, and I went back to Germany to begin casting. Our main problem in casting was to have everyone be authentically of the nationality which he portrayed on the screen ; i.e., we wanted Czechs to play Czechs, Americans to be portrayed by Americans, Frenchmen to be French. There is no doubt in my mind that this approach helped tremendously in achieving a sense of authenticity even though it was a difficult method of casting. The main character to be cast was, of course, the boy. With that problem paramount in our minds, Mr. Schweizer and I had already peered into thousands of young faces in our tour of the camps. However, it took a special trip to Czechoslovakia before we found the child we were looking for. While in Prague, I was advised to look at a group of school children who were to sing on the radio. In that group we found Karel in the person of Ivan Jandl whose sensitive and serious face was the perfect prototype of all the faces we had seen. Also in Prague, we were able to persuade Jarmila Novotna, the Metropolitan Opera Singer who is herself a Czech, to play the role of the mother. Aline MacMahon and Montgomery Clift had been brought over from New York for the respective roles of the Camp Director and the GI ; Wendell Corey, who was to play a military government official, had been obtained in England where he had been appearing on the stage. The UNRRA carefully selected 600 youngsters for me ; from these were winnowed the forty who were in the foreground of the dramatic scenes. There was no need to look for atmosphere. Hundreds of other DP's and children made a living back-drop. At the risk of being insistent, I should like to say once more that the reactions of these children cannot be imagined. In addition, they cannot be anticipated even by the handful of especially trained, sympathetic UNRRA workers who were so close to them physically. THE story of the Jewish lad serving as an altar boy for Catholic services illustrates my contention. The incident, which Mr. Schweizer incorporated into the screen treatment, concerns a boy whose last admonition from his mother was "Never tell your name!" Bewildered and frightened but obedient, the child somehow found wisdom beyond his years. When a Christian name was called once, then twice and three times, and there was [Continued en Page 30) The Screen Writer, August, 194 13