Variety (January 1957)

10 Wednesday, January 9, 1957 WCTCRES ~ Fifty-fim p^SziETY ^»»“»er»«ry 25 Years of Motion Picture Writing Some Amusing Harkbacks to the Holly¬ wood Scripting Mills By CLAUDE BINYON A quarter of a century of motion picture writing lias left me with these memories, some cherished, some still rankling: My first script ^.iC to a studio was in 19?1 vhilc I was still employed in the Hollywood office of Variety. Eddie Buzzell was direct¬ ing and starring in a one-reel series called “Bedtime Stories,’* and I sold him a dilly titled “Blonde Pressure” for $250. Eddie decided to give a quick little preview at a Pico Blvd. theatre and invited me to share the glory. When we arrived at the thea¬ tre we found to our consternation that the manager was expecting a feature picture preview and was advertising our one-reeler as such outside the theatre. Inside, we found eight rows roped off for us and the rest of the house filled with an anticipatory crowd. _ . . It seemed an eternity before the preview notice flashed on the screen— and when the audience realized what it was getting there was a round of booing that chills me even in memory. As I recall we didn’t get a single laugh from the disgruntled audience, and those that chose to leave in a huff paused to glare at us as we sat alone in our eight roped-off rows. I felt like a criminal. Buzzell finally gave me a com¬ forting pat on the shoulder. “This isn’t a fair test, ’ he said. “I don’t think the audience is with us.” * * * In 1932 I joined the Paramount writing staff and was assigned to script a story 1 had written called * Otho The Great.” Percy Heath was the producer, and he told me with his typical gentleness that my story didn’t provide enough complications for its hero. ‘'Get him into ^ the ivorst mess you can possibly create,” said Heath. “ Get him into so much trouble that you can’t figure how to get him out of it. Then we'll go on from there together.” I did just that. I got the hero so involved in such cata¬ strophic situations that T marvelled at the very thought of Heath being able to bring order out of this chaos. The morning I brought my unsolvable mess to the studio for Heath’s magic touch the studio flag toas at half mast. Heath had died suddenly of a heart attack. And “ Otho The Great” remains in Paramount’s pos¬ session to this day — probably unknown and certainly un¬ produced. 7 * * In one of those early years B. P. Schulberg was pro¬ ducing a picture starring Eddie Lowe. Deciding his script needed a good laugh line in a certain scene, he called in five writers and told us to give the scene just one sharp line. Then we were crowded into one little office, where we tried to think. It seemed that hours went by in ab¬ solute silence. Finally I offered an idea, “How about this?” I said. “Eddie and the girl are walking along and they come to this pile of coal.” “What pile of coal?” asked Frank Butler. “The pile of coal they come to,” I explained. “The girl is tired, and her feet hurt, so she decided to sit on the pile of coal.” “Why would she sit on the coal?” asked Walter deLeon. “You weren’t listening,” I said. “She’s tired. But so she won’t get her dress dirty she takes out a tiny hand¬ kerchief to sit on. And when she opens it up, Lowe looks at the handkerchief and then at her, and says: Don’t flatter yourself.” Butler got up from the room’s only chair. “Let’s tell it to Schulberg,” he said, “but make sure he knows it’s Binyon’s.” The line was in the picture, and so help me. it was a laugh. * * * Bill McNutt and Grover Jones, both now deceased, were a powerful writing team at Paramount in the ’30s. Par¬ ticularly were they impressive in telling a story or in writ¬ ing a short treatment. I remember being distressed over the thought of telling a story I wanted to sell to the studio, and I confided this to Grover Jones. “You’ll never sell it with that attitude,” Grover told me. “You’ve got to believe in yourself and your story. Look at this;” He showed me a treatment he and McNutt had just prepared for submittance. I’ll never forget its opening line. “This,” it read, “is the greatest love story since 'Romeo and Juliet.’ ” >:■ * * For a while the late Ernst Lubitsch and Henry Herzbrun shared the post of production chief at Paramount, and at one time Herzbrun was confined to a hospital. Lubitsch told me he wanted to send a funny telegram to Herzbrun, and asked me to write it for him. It was qui'e a job trying to write a wire worthy of Lubitsch, but fi¬ nally I produced one to his liking. That night I got a call at home from Herzbrun saying he had received a funny wire from Lubitsch and would like for me to write a funny answer. Now I worked myself into a lather being funny for Herzbrun. The next morning Lubitsch called me into his office, threw a telegram onto his desk and looked at me ac¬ cusingly. “Look at that wire,” he said. “Herzbrun topped me! Now it’s up to you to top him!” Years ago I wrote a play, and the late Charles MacArthur was kind enough to read it. He told me tactfully that it had possibilities but wasn’t fully developed. Later I mentioned this to Sidney Skolsky. “MacArthur is right,” I said. “It’s not all there. Something is missing.” Skolsky offered to read the play, and when he had fin¬ ished it was obvious that he had discovered something of importance to him. “MacArthur certainly is right,” he exclaimed. “Something definitely is missing — and what’s missing is a story I’ve just written 1” So in our spare time during the next week we com / bined his story with my play and sold it to I ox. It was produced as “The Daring Young Man.” * * * For a while I was teamed with Frank Butler, a former actor, and one of my great pleasures was watching him act out the scenes we were discussing. One day he was performing a telephone conversation, using an imaginary wall phone. “Wher he hears that,” said Butler, “he hangs up an¬ grily and leaves the room.” And he hung up the imaginary phone and walked out the real door. I waited in the office for a few moments, then looked into the hall. Butler was gone.) He had lived the part so well he had gone all the way home. So I went home, t»°* What s My Playing Attitude? — Continued from page V — sss maging through his drawers for cigars, peanuts, raisins, aspirin and other soporifics. “I thought it might be amusing, Old Boy, to begin the story around the time when King James was having that hilarious hullabaloo over the Old Testament with the' Archbishop of Canterbury, and Anne of Clews in the North was raising a fresh army to overthrow the king, determined to put an end to the dissolute band of Knights under Baron Giles, Pretender to the throne of Wales.” The producer nods, "Why not?” Occasionally a brave soul will ask: “What the . hell has all that got to do with the story we want to tell?” Johnny Bull is always ready with an answer: “Tiffs is merely a literary parallel, laddie, the situations are sim¬ ilar in spirit — in short, I wasn’t being literal.” This last depth charge always pierces the armour of the literal-minded producer, for the last thing he wants to be known as is a literal-minded producer. He usually tries to solve the problem by adding an American col¬ laborator — marrying Dame Edith Sitwell and Phil Rapp. Another advantage to being British, is that you can criticize your own work in advance, beating the Producer to the punch with running comments like: “As I’m sure you suspect, old fellow, the second act is rather hollow but I’m still fiddling with it — ” “Naturally there are a lot of loose ends I must gather up, but I do think it all adds up to something hardly pdestrian — ” Then he deftly gets the producer on the subject of the English hand-made shoes he is wearing — the producer is wearing, that is. The British writer buys all his at Florsheim’s. The producer warms to the subject and tells about "the amusing little bootmaker in London and the funny little Dickensian cobbler — the only man to ever solve the problem I have with my left foot — ” Type C: CALICO JIM This is another type of superior fellow who quickly gets the drop on the producer because he has written 208 Southern, Western, rural, homespun, frontier television dramatic successes and has overnight become a Bernard De Yoto-like authority on Period Americana. You might say that he doesn’t write with a typewriter, he uses a guitar. A writer of the Chekov ■ school, he is long on mood and short on plot which he openly despises. He usually plays a couple of folk song records for the producer before telling his original. The producer feels it would be almost un-American not to like the story Which features “Tall, hard, lean men and round, soft, brave, understandin’-willin’-to-die-for-their-menand-their-country kind of women.” These writers shoot first and think later, and bludgeon the producer with a grabbag of similes during the recital. It seems that our American ancestor couldn’t make a single statement without turning it into a simile or a wise old saw. “Land sakes, that boy’s like a bullfrog down in Miller’s pond durin’ matin’ season.” Calico Jim waits for his laugh, for in all his TV dramas these rustic similes are greeted with gales of laughter — from the actors in the drama. The whole thing makes the producer very nervous be¬ cause it’s hard to know when to smile. Sometimes there are sad similes along with the riproaring ones and. then there are the historical references that you have to cock your ears for ’cause they might contain a mite of plot. “Land sakes, old Hickory’s as jumpy as a bullfrog down in Smiiher’s pond durin’ matin’ season.” Translation: Andrew Jackson is thinking of running for President, but he is afraid of what the pressure of politics will do to his happy homelife in Tennessee. Sometimes Calico Jim digs his own grave, and the earweary producer, tired of the Cumberland Gap black-eyed peas and men 10 feet tall, drops the period project and decides to do a modern musical about the adventures of four naked girls in Paris. * Type D: SMUTTY SAM This familiar type reduces his tale to essentials, takes the man-to-man approach and describes his characters mostly in four-letter words. “This . little broad is real hot pants for this guy who wants to . ” He’s not the man to tell “Romeo and Juliet.” CHAPTER 9 WHEN TO TELL YOUR STORY? “Timing” is very important in selling a story. As a quick case in point, Groucho Marx and I, in 1938, wrote what Norman. Krasna called “The most unsalable original every written.” for it satirized Congress, the U.S. Navy and a famed aviatrix, and was submitted to Paramount the day the headlines announced that the latter was lost in the Pacific. Again on the subject of “timing,” a! Goldwyn Studios the huge gas storage tank, visible across the street from Mr. Goldwyn’s office, used to act as a barometer of the boss’ moods. When the tank was high and full of gas, Mr. Goldwyn was nervous because Ben Hecht • had once planted the seed that it might explode. So when the tank was full the Goldwyn writers noticed that Mr. Goldwyn turned down stories. When it was low he was relaxed and mellow and in a buying mood. CHAPTER 10 WORDS TO LIVE BY. Tt was Moss Hart who said, “Writing is comparatively easy — 90% of a writer’s job is selling.” And it was Jerome Kern who said as lie sat down at the piano to play a new score, “I want you to give me your reaction.” Then the corrected himself, “No, I don’t — I want you to like it!” CHAPTER 11 THE WRITER IN ELIZABETHAN TIMES. I think it only fitting that this monograph include, some Prohibition , Hindu Style , Helps India’s Boxoffice By N .V. ESWAR Madras. India’s amusement industry could describe 1956 as the best year since it is inflation (that bogey of all countries at all times) which has fattened payrolls and helped the boxoffice. Count, too, the receding spectre in this popu¬ lous inland empire of food shortage. Something peculiar¬ ly Indian as a stimulant to paid amusements has been the adoption of prohibition. This means that funds once di¬ verted to strong drink have been diverted to theatres. There was also, in 1956, the fertilizing effect of a much increased “exchange” of cultural attractions with other countries, some of them, but not all of them Communistic. These last helped in bringing Indians out of their usual reserve to understand and appreciate other Art forms. Indirectly, this wider interest led to an increasing pa¬ tronage of films. The year sharply pinpointed the acute shortage of thea¬ tres in important cities and towns. There was an increase in the number of mobile cinemas all over the country after such mobile cinemas had previously faced extinction, but with the adoption of a liberal policy by the State Gov¬ ernments, more mobile cinemas were enabled to function in populous towns within a radius of two miles instead of the usual four miles. These rules were still further relaxed towards the end of the year, which will help more mobile cinemas to function within a mile of a permanent theatre in a town. The number of mobile cinemas in South India alone went up to 400 from a mere 90. Here also the mobile cinemas are patronized by villagers and audiences which otherwise would be spending their time at the pubs. The surprise picture of the year in the foreign field was “Rock Around The Clock” which ran for twelve weeks in Bombay. Pictures which did consistently good and outstanding business were “Helen of Troy,” “Th.e Court Jester,” “20.000 Leagues Under The Sea,” “Vanish¬ ing Prairie” and “Ulysses.” On the production side, film improvement was not spec¬ tacular, either in Bombay or Madras Studios. Although there were announcements of a large number of pictures than was projected in any previous year, releases were but average. Tamil films were diminished in number, bal¬ anced by larger number of Telgu and Hindi dialect pic¬ tures dubbed into Tamil. There is something peculiar in this. Exhibitors were very, much against dubbed versions of pictures even in Indian languages, and business on dubbed versions has been poor. It was paradoxical that exhibitors of Southern India had to depend on dubbed versions towards the close of the year. There was an accent on “slapstick” comedies or action subjects in the Indian pictures, in departure from the conventional mythological stuff of yesteryear. An improvement in the foreign picture market was very visible. Estimated takings on English features showed a rise of nearly 40/50% for every distributor. In some cases the increase can be placed at 75%. Also the num¬ ber of situations which play English pictures for matinees and morning shows, increased by about 30% over 1955. • historical material to highlight the writer’s problem through the ages and particularly in Good Queen Bess' Day. In fact, I have a sketch handy that will prove my point — a sketch once performed at the Screen Writers' Dinner in Hollywood with a wonderful cast: The late great Louis Calhern playing the Elizabethan producer, Sir Milton, and David Niven as Bill Shakespeare. Quote: Bill ad libs from a rough manuscript and sits hunched forward in a chair facing Sir Milton, BILL ... Oh I die, Horatio: The potent poison quite orecrowes my spirit, ( As Sir Milton listens, he rubs his hand over his face , opening his mouth wide — a nervous habit.) I cannot live to hear the news from England, but I de prophesize the election lights ( Sir Milton breathes a depressed sigh, morosely nib¬ bles at grapes.) On Fortinbras, he has my dying voice, so tell him with the occurrents more or less, which have solicited. (Pause) The rest is silence. < Looks up) He dies. (Through this t Sir Milton, startled, studies Bill sharply.) Horatio: Now cracks a noble heart — I'm just ad libbing — I’ll polish later — (Through this. Sir Milton opens a desk drawer, takes out a bottle of eye-wash and an eye-dropper, tilts his head back and put dro2>s in his eyes.) Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest. (Bill looks up — explains lamely) Anyway — Fortinbras with the English Ambassador comes in for a tag I’m working out — and I give Fortinbras the last speech. (reads) Let four Captains bear Hamlet — SIR MILTON (looks up, frowning) Who? BILL Hamlet — (hastily) But it can be any name — (reads) Bear Hamlet — (to producer) for now — Hamlet (reads) like a soldier to the .stage, for he was likely, had he been put on to have proved most royally — ( Sir Milton, fidgety, toys with mirror, glances into it, examines face, teeth, tongue.) And for his passage, the soldiers’ music and the rites of of war speak loudly for him. (Sir Milton rises, turns over his seat cushion, sits.) Take up the bodies, such a sight as this becomes the field, (Sir Milton doodles with quill pen thoughtfully.) But here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot. . . . Then they exit marching, after which a peal of ord¬ nance is shot off. (He finishes, waiting for Sir Milton’s reaction.) The producer keeps staring down at desk, unaware story is over. H6 looks up, reacts, then after a thoughtful pause: SIR MILTON Bill, what would you think about working with another writer? Ht * *:« T can only say in conclusion that if I’ve been any help to you, any contribution, no matter how small, will be gratefully accepted. And years from now when you talk about this — and you will — please be kind.