Variety (Jan 1949)

Z2 nCTIJRES Foriy.third USmSfT Anniver«>ry Wednesday* Jnnnaiy S, 1949 NOT A WASTED WORD By JEROME WEIDMAN - Terence Willett, the distinguished novelist, sat at the Duncan Phj^e desk in his Early American study and stajred at his postwar typewriter. It was an electric machine and brand new, because liis last novel had been a selection of I he Thiirsdav Afternoon Book Club, but Willett's concentrated gaze was not held by the beautifiilly molded mass of richly'gleaming r«etal, oiit of which came a low> steady hum not unuKe that made by a vacuum cleaner in action. ;■■ .1,.;,,'■■t'^. As a matter of fact, WiUett was not. even staring at the sheet .whrte,. Hammarmill bond rising stiffly ; B'oin I ' the platen; he had given up .using yellow copy paper for his first drafts .Jerome WeiUman ?,h9>-tly after he won the Pulitzer .■ -.Prize.'.-■ , Willett's troubled glance was fixed on one of his sev- eral, handsome, leather-bound scrapbooks. It was propped against the ebony pipe rack he had bought after his hvsl movie sale. The scrapbook was open at a page on which was mounted a newspaper clipping; Willett had been call- ing them press cuttings ever since he had sold the British rights to his second novel. The clipping was a review of Willett's last book by Wynne Lawrence, the influential daily critic for the N. Y. Blade. Willett's lips moved worriedly as, for the sixth or ieventh time that morning, he read; "It is deplorable that, in an age where only he who runs may properlv be said to have the opportunity to read, a novelist of Mr. Willett's potential stature and far from niggardly experience should not yet have sloughed off the undisciplined and embarrassingly youthful ineptness of redundant verbiage; in point of actual fact, it is dis- tinctly shocking that a writer with so much to recommend - him. with SO much solid achievement behind him and so miich prflimise ahead of him, should not yet have dis- ciplined himself to the use of that spare, stripped, leanly muscular prose, in which not a word is wasted, employed by all the giants of letters, from the beginning of time, to Compose their imperishable works." Terence Willett's troubled glance shifted, from Mr. Lawrence's stern rebuke, to the page In his typewriter on which the novelist had pecked out: "She sat down beside her and took her hand in hers." The sentence had looked all right, a little while ago, before Willett, pausing to light his pipe, had begun absent- ly to thumb the scrapbook and it had fallen open to Mr. Wynne Lawrence's review. The sentence on-the sheet.of Hammerhill bond looked far from all right now. Willett cast another uneasy glance at the scrapbook, counted the words in the sentence he had just written, crossed them all out, and wrote: "She sat down and took her hand in hers." That brought the sentence down to nine words. Nothing could be more spare, more stripped, more leanly muscu- lar than that. With a smile of satislaclion, Willett struck a match and brought it to the bowl of his pipe. The smile of satisfaction started to fade and, just as it began to take on ther unmistakable contours of a puz- tering itself and approximately $200 worth of laboriously broken-in, straight graia briar. , ,. ^ , <?iipkine his burned thumb, probing delicately at tna lumn rising on his bruised tm blinking his eyes daTedly to dispel the ringing pain in his ears. Terence WUlett saw his wife standing in the doonvay. "Good God," she said, staring at the wreckage in which he lay. "What on^arth ate you doing there/ "Never mind." Terence Willett said with dignity as hO; stnieeled to his feet. "What are you doing here.' ■The papei just came, and 1 wanted to show you Wynne I avvrence's review of that novel everybody >yas ta kmg bout at dinner the other night/' mfe said Ijoldm^ out a folded back copy of the H. V* Blade. 1 ttiougnt 'te^rencewmett reached for the paper, winced, topk it w'ith his other hand, and read; • "It is a matter for rejoicing tlial, at ^onsja^, a ^vnter has come forward who, coolly disregardmg that iiritat- inslv spare, stripped, leanly muscular prose which has become the depressing hallmark of so """^h that's writ- ten in our frenetic day. as though our novelists felt that only he who runs has the opportunity to read—it is, to Repeat, a matter for rejoicing, indeed for dancing in the streets to come fipon a writer who dares to employ once again that wonderfully rich, lushly embroidered, un- ashamedly redundant prose in vyhich, unlAe tlie present day s devotees of that cult which eschews at all costs the wasted word, the giants of letters, from the beginning of time, composed their imperishable works The N. Y. Blade dropped gently among the fragments of Bennett Cert hadn't „ . , „ , bothered tb come in and—Terence ence, for God's sake!" she cned. "That desk cost $600! For Laughing Out Loud By PAUL GERARD SM\TH You. are listening to a guy who has been an active in- gredient in two wars. From each one he came home to what intellectual people caU an "aftermath.*' Each of the aftermaths was peculiarly similar in most details—same beefs—same investigations—same housing shortage—same high prices-same haste to unsoldier one's self and start in pursuit of the elusive buck. But there was one big difference. - At the end of the first war I returned to find a nation of laughing people, happy because the clambake was over. The universal slogan seemed to be, "Whoopee—Let's go!" And to add to the general don't-give-a-damn-and-to-heli- with-tomOrrow spirit that prevailed, we went'for one of the funniest gags ever pulled: Prohibition. It was a daffy time. People did daffy things. Broadway was abuzz with great shows that attracted great crowds. Everybody was happy. And then indicated it by laughing at the slightest excuse—right out loud, in front of everybody. The laugh- ter sounded good and it spread all ov^j,' and made it a gay and happy time indeed. But on mv return from this last and more recent mis- take, I found a different setup. No laughter. Whispers, suspicions, finger-pointings, chips-on-shoulders, but no laughter, It had been replaced by a thing called "fear." Yes. sir, folks are scared to laugh. It attracts attention, How lon^ Can They Be? (Historical Novels Over 1,000 Pages Long Should Be Declared Out of Bounds!) By BENNETT CERF Horace Flutterbee was a novelist who brought joy to frustrated housewives, children of eight, and book-dub proprietors yrith his standardized, sexladen historical ro- mandes in the best bust-and-bottom manner. "The Blade of Sir Blatherskite" was 1,007 pages long, "The Bape of Lady Liederkranz" ran to 1,224* and VThe Loves of Adam Bidet" bumbled on to 1,410. A free truss was given with every cdpir of "Adam Bidet," on: the theory that everybody who tried to lift a copy would need one. Flutterbee's publisher felt that jhii author had gone too far, however, when the script of "Naked in King Charles' Court" turned out to be twice as long as "Adam Bidet." It was deliverefl by the 20-mule team that once hauled borax. "Do you know what it costs to produce a book of this length today?" blustered the publisher. "We'd have to price it at S8 6 copy to break even. If it's ever filmed, they'll have to serve free lunches and dinners to audiences who want to see it through. I think our editor Blivens better cut it a bit. Nothing serious, you understand—just 600 or 700 pages." Flutterbee took this about as quietly as expected, mak- ing scarcely more uproar than a crowd of 80,000 seeing an underdog home team score a winning touchdown in the final five seconds of play. "Not a word comes out." he shrieked. "Editors always want to mutilate masterpieces. They hate great authors like me because we represent what they'd like to be Ihemselves. 1 reftise to be crucified to salve the ego of some disappointed Dostoyevsky. They didn't cut 'The Brotliers Karamazov,' and you're not going to cut 'Naked in King Charles' Court'." * Editor Blivens, the advertising manager, and the pub- lisher himself pleaded for cuts until they were blue in the face, and Horace Flutterbee asked meaningfully for. the telephone number of Simon & Scuster. "You win." groaned the publisher. "Your book will go to press with every'last comma intact." "And every last cliche," added Blivens under his breath. Flutterbee departed .with an air of tridmph and a dinner date with the new blonde receptionist. There is only one thing to'add to this story. "Naked in King Charles' Court" was duly published and distributed - to the 4,000,000 members oC the God-Forbid-You-Should- Have-to-Think Book Club. Editor Blivens kept his feelings in check until he read the review by Edmund Orville Bazoom in the New Amsterdam Magazine. ."Flutterbee's : new novel," thundered Bazoom. "cried out for .blue-pen- cilling. What good are editors who fail to perform the function for which they supposedly are hired'/ Had a competent editor ruthlessly deleted the last 14 chapters ... . etc., etc." •■ Editor Blivens walked quietly into the bathroom and cut his throat. 1 oegan ro taKe on tne unmisiaKame .^^^^^ ^^^^^ laughing, instantly be- ~^l««.^'=?^!r^5*'^!!^^Ti?i^*^:'l'/*j7^?.?:?^' comes liighlV sensitive, and instead of joining in as here- reached the tender flesh of his thumb, Retake He flung away the match, put the injured finger into; fais mouth, and-frowned at the sentence. It was leaner, all right, but Willett found himself wondering what it meant. Who had taken whose hand? Uneasily. Willett fumbled'for his notebook. He leafed nervously through the scrawled pages until, with a ga,sp of relief, he found the list of names he had invented for his characters. He studied them for a long moment, then turned back. to the humming machine. . Again he crossed out what he bad written and, very carefully, he typed: "Amy sat down beside Regina and Amy took Regina's hand in Amy's." Willett read it over several times. Then he nodded to himself. It was clear enough now. Willett leaned back and blew out his breath in a long, relaxed sigh. A fierce shower of singed tobacco dust filled tlie room. The disr tinguished novelist had forgotten to take the pipe out of his mouth. He did: so now. Anyway, he tried to do so. ' The pipe clattered to the floor as Terence Willett uttered an ex- plosive monosyllable that would have raised the Pulitzer Prize Committee's collective e.vebrows: he had seized the pipe with his burned thumb, on which an angry blister was coming up. ' Willett shoved the thumb back into his mouth, kicked the ■ pipe across the room and, using his-left hand, he brushed the tobacco erumbs from his lap. Willett did. it- without looking. His eyes, in which a hard,; bright . gleam was beginning to flicker, were fixed on Mr. Wynne Law^ rente's review. From the mounted clipping, Willett turned back to the sentence he had just rewritten. His lit": . slightly com- pressed, moved stifl^ly as he counted, 'i xe revised sen- tence . was now twelve words long. As he started to utter again tJie explosive monosyllablei Willett's glance was caught by something on his lap. Appalled, he saw that the process of brushing away the crumbs of tobacco had left several long black streaks of smudged carbon on the creamy, expensive flannel. The inono!3.vlIable, rising once again to his compressed lipSi stopped. Willett had suddenly become ■ aware of, an in- tense silence in the room. ! 'orrified. he stared at the brand new electric type- wi nr. It h£d stopped humming. The shower of singed tobucco had done something to the motor, or the gears, or whatever it was that made electric typewriters hum. Dipping down desperately to peer under the keyboard. Tei't'nee Willett's injured thumb brushed across the space bar. At once, even as he winced witli pain, the silent motor sprang into renewed life. The carriage, moving dutifully and propelled, as advertised, by the one-six- teenth of one horsepower motor, caught the crouched Terence Willett neatly on the side of his head. The dis- tinguished novelist jumped wildly, teetered crazily, and clawed at the desk to recapture liis balance. As he fell, the ebony pipe rack crashed to the floor beside him, slia'- comes „ tofore, he becomes suspicious that your laughter is di- rected at him, personally; that you have gone out of your way to-pick him out of the crowd to ridicule; The chances are he knows in his heart lie's a pretty ridiculous guy, but ha aims to keep it secret and try to sell the idea that he's : somebody he ain't. And the way he keeps it secret is-by painting himself Vermillion and installing neon lights on his silly habits—then the bum resents it if somebody hap- pens to chuckle at something entirely different in passing. Yes sir. you gotta he careful these days. What used to be known as good natured kidding has now elevated itself to the importance of an international incident. You dassen't say: "AH the darkies are a weepin'" any more. It's gotta be "all the, people.'' It. hurts feelings. If the Palace were open and two yucks came out and sang "Yes, ■ We Have No Bananas." the International Fruit Co. would send a diplomat to Washington to declare war on Albee. Ben Welch would have to talk with a brogue—and then the micks would get sore. Eddie Leonard would have to white up. The organized blondes would raise hell with Jesse Lasky's Red Heads. And Fink's Mules would be in receipt of communications from the Horse Breeders of America; asking link what he meant by such discrimina- ■.tion.-'.:-. ■ J Everyhody Too SeU-Conaciona? | We used to go round looking for laughs. Nowadays it appears folks go round looking for something to get sore about. ^ Some years back there was in Santa: Monica Canyon a club. : It was called the Uplifters club. Its membership was mainly, tycoons; magnates, millionaires; landed gentry, 'counsellors-at-law.. the judiciary and legal brains of Los Angeles. They banded together way back when^a small group—because one of them played the piano, one sang bass, one was funny and all of them were tliirsty. And the club grew until'it took over enough acreage in Rustic Cannon so that the ultra mob could play polo at one end and the results had to be , sent, to the clubhouse by pony express. And when they got there Aobody gave a damn— they were too busy having fun. The club members extended welcome arms to showfolks. They took in such doleful people as Will Rogers, Vic Moore, Irvin Cobb and a host of other pallbearers. They liked to have them handy, because they liked to laugh— you know those laughs that start in the lower regions and bust out like well nudged jet bombs, spreading their jovi^ ally contagious repercussions to all within earshot.' They welcomed guys who played ban,1os, and sang, and made funny noises, and gave hotfoots, and pulled chairs Out from under you. 1 remember one year Mike Langc paid 200 bucks for the rental of an elephant. He turned it loose in the dining room in the Jhope it would commit a nuisance in somebody's souffle. Each year we had an outing, Nowadays it would b< ; called a blitZi : It lasted for three days. Yes. for 362 days—363 in leap year—these Southeri' California gentry carried on in their businesslike Peck- sniflian and Babbitty way. Then for three days they ad- journed to the canyon, where the.^ put jjinold.clathesLjet _ their bsjx down and each one became a Hitz Brother. Mayhem and hokum reigned supreme. One year I wet the audience down with a fire hose. One year two tractors bulldozed the entire set of "Romeo and Juliet" into the Los Angeles river and left Juliet, in the person of Fred Santley, dangling from a sycamore tree. ■ ■ I Ufg the Kid That Started It | And then Hitler walked into Czechoslovakia. The mem- bers beganto wonder about each other's birthplace; they began to whisper about the other fellow's politics. Don't go down looking for the Uplifters club any more. There's a name and a building still there. But-there • :hasn't been a laugh in the grove since,the Mad Mustache went beserk. The wind has a melancholy sound as it soughs through the trees. - Laughing suddenly went out of style. You mustn't chuckle any more, same as ladies are old hat if tlieir knees show. It has effected everything, but mainly the theatre. Today to be acceptable to the general modern crowd, a play must be psycopathically incomprehensible. It must concern prostitution, juvenile pregnancy, black market • fathei'Si frustrated mothers, oppressed minorities, sadisnii masochism, sex in reverse or people who dream in Tech- nicolor, or it is not highly recommended. If it provokes laughter it is undignified, unserious, crass, vulgar, outre ■ and anyone who admits liking it nominates himself a moron. If it has a simple story about people and ordinary things, and it can be understood—it stinks. We'll get over it. You can't keep a good laugh down. . People are looking for them; but when they find them they're astiamed to use them. They label themselves lowbrows. And yet a laugh in time can work miracles. Mussolini took his first step towards the garage, where they hung him upside down when he put on that little Ethiopian. King's (joat of Lion Skin and had his picture took. « showed Jiim up for the clown he was and the laugh it startedTwas the beginning of the end. . If Hitler's suspenders had busted while he was dancing aroiihd the Surrender Car in the newsreel, the war woulo have ended in a wow. . lit Molotov ever gets the hiccups while in the midst oi a vitriolic'speech, you can write Russia off that second-^,. If! we had more belly laughs "xVe'd have fewer ulcers and'heart conditions. When people ain't afraid to laug" they ain't afraid of nothin'. Some day soon laughing » going to come back into style. It's the only form ot en- joyment you don't have to pay taxes on. Besides l^^j-Ji ing is a Godlike quality. The Creator must have a sense of humor. He created the greatest collection o^.f .'llS ever assembled—the human race. And if you don t tn«» each of us is something to laugh at, you're blind, dumu, egotistical or guilty of personal discrimination. . . It's high time we got next to ourselves, for laughing ou oud.