STORIES FOR FILMS

Hokitika Guardian, 27 May 1933, Page 3

STORIES FOR FILMS

WODEHOUSE’S EASY £20,000. PAYMENTS FOR A NAME. There is an altogether mistaken idea about'film stories. Some people seem tc think that they are written by author.-,, comments Air Edgar Middleton, in a witty article recently published. /J hey imagine a magnificent figure reclining sultan-\vise m a _rir.mipitab.-e chair beside the set 'surrounded by obsequious film directors wi.til notebooks. Actually, the film producers take ms story and start to play a game of conseguefices with it. Everyone in the studio with a pencil and a piece bpaper will add Ins own particular contribution.

Most film stories are like (Monday s mutton. They are not making., then debut. Usually they have appeared before, either as a play, a novel, or a short story. .The princple is sound enough. Already -having been published, or tue resulting publicity has created a goodwill, which makes the story worth While to buy second-hand.

That is where the film company' is «o much wiser than, sav, tile average newspaper. A newspaper buying the second lights of a story only pays half rates. The film company, on the other hand, pays double, tre-me and often ten times the original price. It is one of those, little tilings which give the average author sueir a sympathetic interest in the development of the film industry.

It is true that by the time it has been produced as a film it.is almost unrecognisable as a story; But the title is usually tlie same. There is on record the. case of a Hollywood firm which secured a novel from an English author/ They did not like the book, but to secure the tule they paid thousands o. pounci». They spent thousands more on concocting an entirely new story. Then, after they had finished producing the film, they found that after all they did not like the title. So it way scrapped. But the author was paid! P. G. Wodehouse has admitted that one Hollywood company 'paid Him £20,0(10 for a year's work. All he did was to change a couple of lines oi dialogue in one film 1 . Then there was the'case of a wellknown German author. He was engaged to go to Hollywood at a fabulous salary to write films', Every day he reported the studio. Nothing happened. No one oothered about Inm. lie wrote and complained that be had nothing to do. There was no answer. This went on tor three months. At the end of every week, regular as clockwork, his cheque was left on Jus desk. At last being conscientious, though hi) author, he could not stand it afiy longer, lie packed up and went back to Germany. He had not been there long when lie had another offer from the same company at almost double the salary. Back •he went again to Hollywood. When lie got there lie found the weekly cheques under his previous contract all neatly -piled up on his desk.

/ h may well he asked: Why bother about au author? Why not just take an idea and let the studio staff worry it out for themselves? The answer is a simple one. Even an author serves Ins purpose. He can be used as a firstclass alibi. Hi s name tan be put up in the credit titles for the critics to shoot at. If, on production, lie fails to- recognise his own story, it is not •or him to complain.