The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

After Lunch By LEONARD SPIGELGASS MR. CLEWS returned from lunch with a slightly sour stomach and a vague sense of irritation. The first had been caused by the curry ravioli which, with his colitis, he should certainly not have eaten ; the second, he hated to admit, had arisen from the fact that for the third time in three days, he'd lost the match game. From now on, he would go to a drive-in and save himself the humiliation of participating in a contest for which he clearly had no talent. He sat down at his desk, toyed for a moment with the scissors and paper knife in their red moroccan case, and then forced himself to look at the first page of his treatment, now so neatly typed on yellow punched paper. It began with the word 'OPENING' in capitals, underlined, and it went on : "Girl comes out of subway. Looks back. Presses against building wall. Man with hat passes. Obviously looking for her. She flattens herself. He doesn't see her. She hurries down street, into Macy's. (Note: Find something different. Toy shop? Undertakers?) Take sequence from book in which she goes in looking one way, and comes out looking another." ■\ /TR. CLEWS thought idly about •^■^■how many pictures he had written about the way the girl goes into a place, looking one way, and comes out, looking another. Got to be a place, where you can get a wig, or dye your hair. Got to be a girl who's just murdered a man, or been released from prison, or a spy. Mr. Clews sighed regretfully when he thought of spies. How easy it had been with the Nazis. How easy it had been with Conrad Veidt. Now, with the Russians, you had no props. No scars. No monocles. No throaty Viennese accent like Mady Christians'. Maybe the thing to do was to write it for S. Z. Sakall. Yop. That was it. Sakall. He would call Mr. Brady and try Sakall out on him. He reached for the phone, and suddenly remembered that Brady was having a big Producer lunch with Mr. Cafferty, back only this morning from a conference with New York. Mr. Clews wondered who New York was exactly. For so long, now, New York wanted the title changed, or New York thought Miss Cresswell was poison at the box office, or New York decreed economy. NEW YORK clearly was decreeing economy at the Big Producer lunch. Mr. Clews remembered that the trades had reported a four day conference at the Home Office in which receipts, costs, foreign markets, and allied subjects were discussed. Mr. Clews felt rather sorry for Mr. Brady who was handling some of the Big Ones — three million dollar deals in technicolor. He would bear the brunt of Mr. Cafferty's stinging sarcasm, who had, in turn, just borne the brunt of New York's. Mr. Clews decided the brunt had gone far enough, and he crossed the subject of Sakall off his agenda for the afternoon. He got up, lay down on his couch, stared at the ceiling, determined to find a way to keep the action going for two reels, perhaps without dialogue. Yesterday Mr. Brady had given it as his considered opinion that pic tures should return to First Principles — action, movement, suspense. "Talk! Talk! Talk!" was what Mr. Brady had said exactly. "Yat-a-tat-yat-a-tatyata-a-tat. I'm sick of it. I want houses burning down, and cars going off cliffs. Let's get back to Creighton Hale and Pearl White." Try as he would, Mr. Clews could not force himself back to Creighton Hale and Pearl White so soon after lunch. He tried to remember a picture he had once seen with Bessie Barriscale which seemed to be oddly like the job in hand, but he couldn't remember it, nor was he convinced that it wasn't Mary Philbin, and he reached out for a trade paper and glanced at it. TJE saw that biz was down all -*■ -*-over, particularly in the key cities; he saw that studios were cutting personnel and announcing revised budgets ; he saw an editorial which denounced arty pictures, and message pictures, and the fiends who were responsible for them. He felt conscience-stricken, lying on the couch, wasting the studio's time and money. There he was, in a world in crisis. in an industry in crisis, malingering, half-sleeping, and he wondered about the Big Trouble that had come to Hollywood. What did he have to do with it? Well, he had over thirty screen credits in seventeen years, five Pictures of the Month, one Academy Award nomination, two sensational box office sensations, quite a lot of pictures that had made quite a lot of money, (Continued on Paijc 29) The Screen Writer, September, 194S 11