Word: screening
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Last week, when their tiny Screen Plays, Inc. released its million-dollar movie, So This Is New York, Hollywood had another word for it: luck. It was that-and considerably more...
...honest pressagent," took options on 30 of the late Ring Lardner's stories. They picked The Big Town for their first picture, changed the title and went looking for a star to fit the script. What comedian could handle Lardner's light touch without seeming all thumbs? Screen Plays eyed radio's Henry Morgan. After reading the story and a 100-page "treatment," Morgan said: "You're the first guys who had the brains to imagine that I might be interested in what kind of a movie...
...Screen Plays' tiny poke had already shrunk to a mere $7,000. It was high time to go to the bank. Negotiations began with a bang. "Who," asked the Bank of America, "are you? And who is Henry Morgan?" After some fast talking, the bank was persuaded to lend $650,000. That left about $500,000 still to be found. Screen Plays wrote off about half of it in deferred salaries and studio overhead charges, sold a 50% interest in the picture to raise the rest (including $150,000 to be put up as additional security for the bank...
Then, in August, Great Britain slapped the 75% ad valorem tax on all U.S. films. The Loew-supported bottom fell out of Screen Plays, Inc. That night, trying to drown their sorrows in gin, the partners succeeded in refloating their enterprise on a tipsy wave of optimism. In four days of desperate rewriting, Screen Plays, Inc. shelled $339,000 off the picture's "nut," without sacrificing the essentials of the story. Loew agreed to stay in. In September, So This Is New York finally went into production-and came out $30,000 under the final budget. Even silent Stan...
...This Is New York (Screen Plays; Enterprise; United Artists) is worth its birth pangs. Though not as funny as Lardner's original, it is still a nice little farce-comedy of contrasting manners...