The screen writer (June 1946-May 1947)

DPEN LETTER TO OUR FRIENDS, THE AMERICAN SCREEN WRITERS HENRI JEANSON We KNOW each other only through our films. We know you very well and you know us very little, because, if your messages get to us regularly and in industrial quantities, ours, more often than not, are left on our hands. They are shown to you only by the greatest chance and by way of documentation, when one of your producers, having unbeknownst to us bought one of our films to deform it as he sees fit and mutilate its meaning, considers it worthwhile to invite you to a private showing before turning over to some directorial mercenary the job of getting up an American remake, answering all the moral and profit-motive requirements. It is not the same with us. Your films come into our country and circulate freely; they get into our furthest hinterlands; French papers subsidized by Hollywood take care of the promotion and familiarize our public with the names of your stars and directors. You are the only ones who are neglected by these genial sandwich-men-of-letters. In film production writers are always held to be necessary nui¬ sances. By way of rights, the only right the screen writer seems to have is to shut up and make himself scarce. Incognito is the word for the screen writer. These films, which you have thought up frame by line and line by frame, give us, believe me, the greatest of pleasure. First because they HENRI JEANSON, distinguished French playwright, screen writer and journalist, is Secretary General of the French National Federation of Authors and Composers, and President of the Union of Screen Writers, a branch of the Federation of Entertainment Industries of the General Confederation of Labor of France. This article is translated by Harold J. Salemson from the French newspaper, “Spectateur,” of June 25, 1946. (For further news of the French film situation, see SWG Bulletin, page 42 of this issue.) 19