Nothing New Under the Sun - Hollywood Writers

Or consider S. J. Perelman's concise description of Mike Todd, the exhausting dynamo for whom he worked on Around the World in 80 Days. Perelman had once said that producers "had foreheads only by dint of electrolysis," but none of the others he had encountered quite prepared him for Mike Todd. Perelman wrote his impressions of the impresario in a letter to Betsy Drake, and the profile would probably not be very different if he had lived long enough to be employed by Joel Silver or Don Simpson: "Todd interfered in every conceivable department of the production, not excluding my own; indeed, so far as I know, he is now rewriting the picture as he goes along, grinding the crank, building the sets, unnerving the actors, and generally qualifying as an up-to-date Leonardoda Vinci. It's inaccurate to describe his cyclonic conduct as energy or vitality-it's much more a violent frenzy I'm sure the headshrinkers could classify."

Perelman was even shrewd enough to predict, some 40 years ago, the not-so-subtle product placements that have become a routine feature of movies. "The day is dawning," Perelman foretold, "when film and department store may fuse into a single superb medium, with mighty themes like Resurrection and Gone With the Wind harnessed directly to the task of merchandising winter sportswear and peanut-fed hams...it should surprise nobody to hear Miss Loy address Mr. Powell in some future Thin Man: 'Why, hello, dear, long time no see. Yes, this divine mink coat, tailored by mink-wise craftsmen from specially selected skins, is only $578.89 at Namm's in Brooklyn.'"

One habit that particularly astonished these independent-minded writers was the sycophancy endemic to Hollywood underlings. Perhaps the wittiest record of movieland servility was penned by P. G. Wodehouse in a short story from his book, Blandings Castle. Wodehouse, who made a few forays into Hollywood in the '30s, created the character of Wilmot Mulliner, who has the less-than-exalted job of Nodder in Hollywood. What precisely is a Nodder? "It is not easy to explain to the lay mind the extremely intricate ramifications of the personnel of a Hollywood motion-picture organization," Wode house wrote.

"Putting it as briefly as possible, a Nodder is something like a Yes-Man, only lower in the social scale. A Yes-Man's duty is to attend conferences and say 'Yes.' A Nodder's, as the name implies, is to nod. The chief executive throws out some statement of opinion, and looks about him expectantly. This is the cue for the senior Yes-Man to say 'yes.' He is followed, in order of precedence, by the second Yes-Man-or Vice-Yesser, as he is sometimes called-and the junior Yes-Man. Only when all the Yes-Men have 'yessed,' do the Nodders begin to function.. It is a position which you might say, roughly, lies socially somewhere in between that of the man who works the wind-machine and that of a writer of additional dialogue."

The favorite theme of writers, however, their recurring lament, was the disdain for their own profession that prevailed among the bosses in Hollywood. As Anita Loos wrote in one of her volumes of memoirs, "Irving [Thal-berg] didn't have a great deal of respect for us scribblers. We irritated him as a sort of necessary evil. 'Damn it,' he told me one day, 'I can keep tabs on everybody else in the studio and see whether or not they're doing their jobs. But I can never tell what's going on in those so-called brains of yours.' "

S. J. Perelman wrote a delicious sketch about a trial held on the backlot. The studio boss Max Plushnick was presiding over the disciplinary session. "A writer had been caught trying to create an adult picture," Perelman wrote. With a grim visage Plushnick handed down the punishment for the crime: "I condemn you to eat in the studio restaurant for ten days and may God have mercy on your soul."

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