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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
In the 1930s, Dorothy Parker wrote to Alexander Woollcott that the “Kiss of Death has come.” She was referring, in her inimitably morbid way, to a contract from the Paramount Film Corporation, and in so doing became one of a long line of writers to establish themselves as different than and superior to the Hollywood script factories, while welcoming that vampirish — but lucrative — kiss of death. Behind Parker's remark lies an already long history of writers struggling to reconceive their authorial functions, their professional standing, and the nature of their literary work in an age of mass culture. One of the most remarkable moments in that struggle was Theodore Dreiser's suit in 1931 against Paramount-Publix Corporation, which was brought in at attempt to halt the release of an (in his opinion) “inartistic” version of An American Tragedy (1925).
1. Quoted in Fine, Richard, Hollywood and the Profession of Authorship, 1928–1940 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1985), pp. 95–100.Google Scholar
2. Kraft, H. S., “Dreiser's War in Hollywood,” Screen Writer 1 (03 1946): 10.Google Scholar
3. More precisely, Dreiser sold the motion-picture rights for $80,000 in 1926 and the “talkie” rights for $55,000 in 1931. Paramount at first intended Sergei Eisenstein to direct the film (to Dreiser's delight), but his script was accounted “so long as to be utterly impractical,” according to Paramount's attorney William T. Powers (see Deposition for Dreiser vs. Paramount Case, 1931, University of Pennsylvania, Special Collections, p. 2). For detailed analyses of Eisenstein's neverproduced script, see Cohen, Keith, “Eisenstein's Subversive Adaptation,”in The Classic American Novel and the Movies, ed. Peary, Gerald and Shatzlein, Roger (New York: Ungar, 1977), pp. 239–56Google Scholar; and Murray, Edward, The Cinematic Imagination: Writers and the Motion Pictures (New York: Ungar, 1972), pp. 116–21.Google Scholar
4. Letters of Theodore Dreiser, ed. Elias, Robert (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), p. 522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Henry Herzbrun, Deposition for Dreiser vs. Paramount Case, 1931, University of Pennsylvania, Special Collections. Paramount's witnesses in fact make much of Dreiser's attacks on censorship and social and religious mores, clearly seeking to allow the writer's own extreme positions to damn him. William T. Powers, for instance, writes that von Sternberg “pointed out that the Corporation had to consider its reputation and the requirements of the various censorship boards. Mr. Dreiser said he was not concerned either with the reputation of the Corporation or with censorship problems and that he definitely insisted that the picture should display and emphasize all of the violent attacks against society and religion which he had, he claimed, carefully developed in the writing of the book” (Deposition, pp. 15–16).
6. “Mr. Dreiser's Suggestions: An American Tragedy,” 03 1931Google Scholar, University of Pennsylvania, Special Collections, p. 14. This 14-page document probably represents the collaboration of Dreiser and H. S. Kraft, who followed the author to Hollywood in order to aid him on the film script.
7. In one amusing altercation, according to the deposition of Henry Herzbrun (an attorney for Paramount who was present at the discussions), Dreiser arged that von Sternberg had not made Clyde “‘sweat enough’ while under crossexamination in a scene that had been viewed by them, and that said von Sternberg expressed the opinion that the character had been made to sweat to a point beyond which an audience might become hysterical” (p. 9).
8. Dreiser, , Letters, p. 530Google Scholar; and Swanberg, W. A., Dreiser (New York: Scribner's, 1965), pp. 368–78.Google Scholar
9. Dreiser, , Letters, p. 530.Google Scholar
10. Graham Witschief, Memorandum, 1931, University of Pennsylvania, Special Collections, p. 3. Witschief is probably borrowing here from William T. Power's deposition, where he recounts the following disagreement between Dreiser and von Sternberg at one of their meetings: “Mr. Dreiser frequently stated to us that his book constituted a violent and bitter attack on American society and on American religion and that he wanted this attack to be carried out and emphasized in photoplay. Mr. von Sternberg pointed out to him that he did not read the book as containing a violent attack either on society or religion nor did Mr. von Sternberg believe that the book would be so interpreted by minds not already prejudiced against our social institutions and religion” (p. 15).
11. In a 1932 article, Dreiser quoted the judge's remarks and contented himself with remarking “Such being the case, that spells the end of art, does it not?” (see Dreiser, , “What are America's Powerful Motion Picture Companies Doing?” University of Pennsylvania, Special Collections, p. 3).Google Scholar
12. Dreiser, , Letters, p. 511.Google Scholar
13. Dreiser, , Letters, p. 522.Google Scholar
14. Dreiser, , Letters, p. 530Google Scholar. Equity refers here to a body of rules developed to “supplement and remedy the limitations and the inflexibility of the common law.”.
15. Kraft, , “Dreiser's War,” p. 12.Google Scholar
16. Wilson, Christopher, The Labor of Words: Literary Professionalism in the Progressive Era (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985), p. 204.Google Scholar
17. Most commentators on the case in fact argue that if Dreiser were victorious at all, it was on the pragmatic grounds of gaining more recognition for writers in Hollywood. James Lundquist, for example, comments, “He had made Hollywood more aware of author's rights and, once again, had fought a battle that would benefit other writers” (see Lundquist, , Theodore Dreiser [New York: Ungar, 1974], p. 24Google Scholar). Others reach similar conclusions: “Dreiser won a partial moral victory, nevertheless. He had forced Paramount to make some concessions, made novelists more aware of the need for honest filming and shaken Hollywood's complacency a trifle” (Swanberg, , Dreiser, p. 377Google Scholar). Edmund Wilson writes that Dreiser's “protest had its moral effect” and claims that “its reverberations in Hollywood can still be heard” (see The American Earthquake [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958], p. 399Google Scholar). And Kraft claims that after the trial there was “less indifference to films and more caution on the part of novelists; the individual screen writer, often in the dual role of writer-producer, recognizes the aspiration of the novelist and approaches the screen play with greater thoughtfulness” (“Dreiser's War,” pp. 12–13).Google Scholar
18. Dreiser, , Letters, p. 527.Google Scholar
19. Hays, Arthur Garfield and Hume, Arthur Carter, “An American Film Tragedy. Film Version. Pending Legal Contest,” 06 26, 1931, University of Pennsylvania, Special Collections, pp. 1, 4.Google Scholar
20. Quoted in Swanberg, , Dreiser, p. 371.Google Scholar
21. It is noteworthy that Paramount's defense attempts to play Dreiser's strategy against him, for several of the company's witnesses sought to show that the film company had represented the novel more accurately than Dreiser himself remembered. Powers, for instance, writes, “It was apparent that the director, Mr. von Sternberg, had a more detailed and fuller knowledge of Mr. Dreiser's novel than did Mr. Dreiser himself. At various times during the discussions, Mr. Dreiser would deny and Mr. von Sternberg would assert that the novel contained certain episodes or dialogue which had been reproduced in the picture and in each instance it developed that Mr. von Sternberg was right and Mr. Dreiser was wrong” (Deposition, pp. 14–15). Indeed, each deposition stresses the fact that Dreiser, against the wishes of the company, wished to escape from a too-faithful reliance on the text: “On more than one occasion when Mr. von Sternberg proved to Mr. Dreiser that he was wrong Mr. Dreiser said ‘the book be damned’” (Powers, Deposition, p. 15); “Dreiser objected to certain matters contained in the script on the ground that they were not contained in the novel, and that when said von Sternberg pointed out that they were contained in the novel, said Dreiser shouted ‘Damn the book,’ an expression which he reiterated from time to time throughout the meeting, and expressed the opinion that the script should not have followed so literally the book” (Herzbrun, Deposition, p. 10). It appears that, in private, Dreiser countered his public rhetoric with a more pragmatic understanding of the exigencies of another medium — a fact that was subsequently used against him by Paramount.
22. Culver, Stuart, “Representing the Author: Henry James, Intellectual Property, and the Work of Writing,” in Henry James: Fiction as History, ed. Bell, Ian F. A. (London: Barnes and Noble, 1984), pp. 114–36.Google Scholar
23. Larson, Magali Sarfatti, “The Production of Expertise and the Constitution of Expert Power,” in The Authority of Experts: Studies in History and Theory, ed. Haskell, Thomas L. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 61, 35.Google Scholar
24. Hastings, Charles, “The Current Cinema,” Brooklyn New York Times, 07 26, 1931.Google Scholar
25. Affidavit sworn July 20, 1931. Paramount's “jury” included authors Robert E. MacAlarney and George S. Vierreck, play producers Lewis E. Gensler and John Golden, and writer and critic Corey Ford, along with several others. Their affidavits were not, incidentally, mindlessly supportive of Paramount. Author Owen Johnson, for instance, thought that the film was “an unusually sincere attempt to reproduce the vital qualities of the novel, insofar as the motion-picture traditions and audience will permit” (July 21, 1931). More commonly, writers sought to distinguish between what was appropriate to the media of film and book: “Certain scenes in the picture, especially in the courtroom, are more effective than in the book. The screen version is less effective where it follows the book too closely, and it is more effective where it relies upon effects indigenous to its own medium” (Vierreck affidavit, July 21 1931).
26. “Dreiser Waits Decision on Court Suit,” Los Angeles California Herald, 07 23, 1931.Google Scholar
27. “Dreiser in Court Calls Lynch Liar,” White Plains New York Press, 07 22, 1931.Google Scholar
28. Eighteen years as an editor, writer, and director, including, von Sternberg is careful to point out, director of a recent film (Dishonored) starring Marlene Dietrich.
29. Von Sternberg, Deposition, 1931, pp. 6, 7.
30. In addition, Herzbrun, Hoffenstein, and Powers each describe Dreiser's unfamiliarity with the requirements of censorship boards and with the various scripts von Sternberg was using.
31. Davis, Forrest, “Dreiser Will Have Jury of Literati to Pass on Film Version of ‘Tragedy,’” New York Telegram, 05 1, 1931.Google Scholar