The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

Another Vicious Circle * AS a story editor, I cannot admit that I wait with much eagerness for the morning delivery of manuscripts. Yet I like to read, and am not of a dyspeptic or cavilling disposition. But, twice bitten, twice shy, I know that the various agents today as yesterday will present me with a large mass of undigested material, unrelated to the wants of our company, not fairly representing the talents of their writers. For instance, I am positive one agent, since this is Monday and he favors me weekly on that day, will send a bulky envelope containing at least six scripts. The stories will go something like this (and I am changing synopses only enough to avoid positive identification) : ( 1 ) The Archangel Michael takes over as pilot on the Stratoliner in response to the prayers of an elderly lady who, alone among the passengers is of a religious nature. In the course of the trip, quarreling lovers are reunited, goodness comes to a black marketeer, and the elderly lady has her foreclosed Missouri farm returned to her. Michael lands the plane in Chicago, instead of flying off with it to happier climes. (2) Jerry Dalton, a private detective, hired to find the missing Lansdowne diamonds, has hair-raising adventures with a local gang of thieves, only to discover the diamonds being worn by the innocent heroine who thought they were junk jewelry. (3) Bill, the orphan kid on the ranch, finds a stray dog running with the wolves. Although none but Bill will trust the dog, believing him savage, he leads Bill safely through many dangers, eventually bringing about the capture of the rustlers, who have been terrorizing the neighborhood. (4) A teen-aged baby sitter falls in love with the baby's father's brother, thinking he is the father, suffers for some time, but, as the hilarious complication is finally resolved, gets her man. (5) By force of hard work, John Dolliver builds the Upper Sheboygan brewery, so founding the great Wisconsin beer industry. He becomes a leading figure in the state, ending his career as Governor, but loses his beloved because beer came first. (6) A young radio advertising executive gets the chance of his life plugging puffed oatmeal, only to fall in love with the heiress of a puffed wheat company. I hasten to add that this hypothetical submission is made by one of the better known agents in this industry, who also shall be hypothetical. To start at the beginning: — Both the story editor and the agent are middlemen in the motion picture industry, made necessary by the abundance of writers and stories and by the huge number of pictures that must be produced annually. Ideally their functions should interlock, for both should represent steps in a process of selection. Clearly the average producer, be he independent or a hireling of the majors, cannot, in addition to performing all his other duties, plough through the morass of available material ; and so he must employ a story editor whose sole activity should be to search for a story suited to the producer's needs and talents. But the story editor, no matter how many analysts he may have aiding him, is also not capable of handling the situation. He must come more and more to rely upon the submissions of the many reputable agencies. The agent, in turn, should try, broadly speaking, to handle only professional material that shows taste, originality, and technical adroitness. (The good writer may well lament the necessity for these middlemen — but he can console himself by remembering that both must sell his work in order to keep their jobs.) CO far idealism. The actuality is ^indicated in the six stories listed. Apart from their merit as stories (how many acceptable pictures are made from material not much better than these is another discussion), the agent who would submit them en bloc is, because he has neglected to be selective, failing to work in either the writer's interest or the producer's or his own for that matter. True, he might apologize for the submission if it were made to the story department of a major studio on the grounds that the needs of a major are supposed to be insatiable and that a staff of analysts is always ready to read a multiplicity of stories. But such apology is not easily substantiated ; for even in the largest major, the individual picture comes down to the individual producer, and the story editor is by that limited in his choice. Nor are the specific requirements, either story or budgetary, of the various majors a secret. In making the same submission to an independent, the agent shows utter incapacity, since the story needs of each independent are simple, governed by the personality of the producer, and can be ascertained by a telephone call. . . . And how he can explain to his clients his non-selective presentation of their work should give him 12 The Screen Writer, September, 1948