Tom Barnes's Blog: Tom's 'RocktheTower' Blog - Posts Tagged "robert-benchley"

This Week
Algonquin Round Table West
Tungee's Gold: Review
Writers Notebook: Katharine Hepburn

Algonquin Hotel 59 West 44th Street
Banter at the Round Table
What started, as a two-hour roast became a gathering place for talented writers, journalists and actors to banter, boast and brag with an air of lighthearted conviviality.
Through the twenties there were dozens of Algonquin Round Table participants, but to keep the numbers reasonable I'll use the characters pictured in Al Hirschfeld's famous cartoon drawing of the affair and call them the regulars: Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Robert E. Sherwood, Alexander Woollcott, Heywood Broun, Marc Connelly, Franklin P. Adams, Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman.
Most of the Round Table regulars found their way to Hollywood at one time or another during their career.
This might be like mixing metaphors, but here goes. It's too bad that Oscar winning writer Frances Marion didn't spend more time in New York and take a chair as a Round Table regular. Her humor would have fit right in with the others. In Marion's biography 'Off With Their Heads' she tells about a market strategy session at MGM, which included title ideas. They were discussing a sophisticated film starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert directed by Edmund Goulding. When the title came up for discussion several ideas were tossed around and considered, but finally somebody said, 'I've got it. I've got a wow that'll bring 'em into the theater in droves!'
Frances said they all leaned in eagerly waiting for the word to come out. 'It's 'Heat.' It'll be great. Never been used before. What do you think, Frances?'
'I think it would be a good ad for Dante's Inferno, but I'd hate to see on the billboards – 'Greta Garbo in Heat.'
Edmund Goulding doubled over with laughter. The meeting finally settled down and came up with a more sensible title, 'Love.'
But whether it came out of New York or Hollywood wit and humor were infectious during the days of the flappers, speakeasies and bath tub gin.
A snippet or two on some of the regulars:
Alexander Woollcott; NY Times drama critic, “The most interesting things in life are either immoral, illegal or fattening.”
Franklin P. Adams; a well known NY newspaper columnist, who could be counted on by his friends, to keep their careers alive by frequent mentions in his around town column called “The Conning Tower.”
Dorothy Parker; a versatile writer and the sharpest wit at the table, “That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say no in any of them.”
Robert Benchley; humorist raconteur and the most easy going person at any lunch, if he ever made a cutting remark it was usually about himself, like this one, “It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.”
Robert Sherwood wrote Abe Lincoln of Illinois, Idiot's Delight and The Petrified Forest among others.
George. S. Kaufman once said, “Satire is the play that closes on Saturday night.”
Edna Ferber; this little lady painted her words with a wide brush and turned out works that matched her strokes, Showboat, Cimarron and Giant.
The group as a whole has been called intellectual lightweights and while this may be true, they turned out a lot of good work with more than a dozen Pulitzer prizes among them. Best pals in the group were Parker, Benchley and Sherwood. At one time they all worked for Vanity Fair magazine. Dorothy was doing a critic's column and blasted producer Flo Ziegfeld’s wife Billie Burke who was playing the title role in “Caesar’s Wife,” on Broadway. Ziegfeld had enough clout, with all his advertising, at the magazine to have Parker fired. Benchley and Sherwood showed their loyalty by following Dotty out the door.
Parker and Benchley rented a small office to work out of; Cable code PARKBENCH. They poked a lot of fun at themselves about the smallness of their office. Describing the size of their workspace, Benchley once said, “One cubic foot less and it would be called adultery.”
Once when Benchley and his wife were on vacation, Dotty wrote him and said it's so dull I'm thinking of putting three letters on the door, to liven the place up a bit, M E N.
Dorothy Parker and her second husband Alan Campbell came to Hollywood about the middle of the great depression. And they followed the pattern of many writers in from the east and rented a cottage at The Garden of Allah. It was a good central location and they could be assured of companionship because many writers in from the east stayed there. Dotty's old pal Robert Benchley was a resident there and many others took up short residences including William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Elmer Rice and Thornton Wilder.
The Garden was a piece of antiquity and history of early Hollywood, a stones throw from Schwabs Drug Store where Lana Turner was supposed to have been discovered.
Dorothy and Alan both signed short term contracts with Paramount Pictures. But their main Hollywood work came from freelance writing, and they did a lot of that, a few scenes on this picture a batch of dialogue on another.
Their largest pay check came when they signed a contract with David Selznick to collaborate with Robert Carson and write the screenplay for 'A Star if Born.'
The film was nominated for seven academy awards and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay.
Dorothy was a friend of Lillian Hellman writer of Little Foxes, which probably lead to her work writing additional dialogue for the Little Foxes film.
Another Academy nomination came to Dorothy Parker when she worked with Frank Cavett on a film called Smash Up, The Story of a Woman starring Susan Hayward.
Dorothy Parker's most lasting works came out of a collaboration with an old Round Table regular Alexander Woollcott to produce an anthology of her work as part of a series published by Viking Press for servicemen stationed overseas. Somerset Maugham wrote the introduction. The volume was made up of Parker short stories along with selected poems such as Enough Rope, Sunset Gun, Death and Taxes.
The book was released in 1944 with the title The Portable Dorothy Parker and it was only one of three of the portable series along with The Bible and William Shakespeare to remain in continuous print.
Dorothy Parker quotes have great longevity, the best known being 'Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.' One with a little more substance is 'The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.'
That is no doubt the kind of thinking that made Dorothy Parker an icon .
(To be continued)

Tungee's Gold Review
Tungee's Gold, The Legend of Ebo Landing is an exciting story with a twist for an ending. As I read it I began to wonder if the story was true so I "Googled" the words "legend of Ebo landing" and several sites came up, including Glynn County, Georgia where Ebo Landing is located. The thought that the story may have really happened makes it all that much more compelling.
Tom Barnes does a great job of using description to set up his story lines. His smooth conversations lend to a more believable text. Just as his first book, Doc Holliday's Road To Tombstone was a novel based on real facts, Tungee's Gold is a historically accurate novel.
Barnes' stories are timeless but teach us about certain periods in history. I really enjoyed this book. It gives you the other side of slavery. The dialog with the slave king gives the reader an understanding of what it was like to be one of the African slaves being brought to America on a slave boat.
I highly recommend the book.
Sally Rains author of The Making of a Masterpiece

Writers Notebook:
Several years ago Paula Zahn was interviewing Katharine Hepburn on the CBS morning show. Paula asked about the main difference in films today versus earlier motion pictures. Miss Hepburn’s answer was, “Writers, Writers, Writers. Wit… Humor… You see when I started out there was great wit and humor, there isn’t now.”
Miss Hepburn’s words are as true today as they were when she said them. Lighten up writers and laugh at yourself once in a while.
Robert Benchley once said, “It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.”

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels Tungee's Gold, The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
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http://thehurricanehunter.blogspot.com
www.tombarnes39.com

This Week
Benchley, Hollywood and New York
King Kumi Talks to the Children
Writers Notebook: Ernst Lubitsch

New York to Hollywood and back.
Robert Benchley was one of the Round Table regulars that worked in Hollywood even before sound became a part of the motion picture industry. His heart was always with the New York theater even as he traveled to and from the West Coast.
Unlike many of his Round Table pals Benchley's humor was not satirical or cutting. It was in fact subtle and self deprecating. Benchley's humor matured during his time at Harvard and his work with the Lampoon Society. During that time his style formed and matured into a genteel kind of humor.
His earliest work in Hollywood was writing screenplays for Jesse L. Lasky at Paramount. He also wrote dialogue cards for silent films. The first in that arena was for Raymond Griffin’s film 'You'd Be Surprised.'
Robert Benchley's first short film was 'The Treasurer's Report' released in 1928 and was both a critical and financial success. He participated in two other talking films that year 'The Sex Life of a Polyp' and another starring, but not written by him 'The Spellbinder' all made in the Fox Movie Tone sound on film system.
What set Benchley apart from most actors was the fact that he was a natural performer and had such a laid back kind of delivery that the audience hung on his every word.
Hollywood could see a good thing and signed him to produce more films before he took the train back to New York. Benchley's travels between east and west were a classic example of the times and for him it gave him a number of days to relax and get away from the business of writing. The fact is that was when he actually got some of his best writing done.
It was during the early years of the depression that Benchley got his real introduction to the motion picture industry. When he arrived in town he would almost immediately get calls from studios and while he was more interested in writing than acting his talent for both was sought after. He did film work at Universal Pictures, RKO and MGM.
One of his more important roles as an actor was a salesman in the RKO film Rafter Romance with Ginger Rogers. That gave him a showcase and attracted other offers. MGM offered him a lot of money to do a series of short films. Benchley accepted the offer, since he almost never turned down a job.
During that same period William Randolph Hearst signed him to do a syndicate column, which worked out fine for Benchley because he could film the shorts in New York and write his column at the same time.
Before heading back to New York he did an acting role at MGM on a film called 'Dancing Lady' starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable and featuring Fred Astaire, Nelson Eddy and the Three Stooges. Benchley was also featured in a film called China Sea that starred Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery and Rosalind Russel.
Back in New York Harold Ross signed Benchley on as theater reviewer for the New Yorker. The Robert Benchley generation of readers loved his decade of New Yorker theater reviews. As an actor and writer, he adored the drama. One of Benchley’s great strengths as a comic humorist were his unexpected one liner twists. Here are a couple of good review illustrations. 'As far as this week’s drama page is concerned, you are over into the advertising right now. There need be nothing to detain you here, unless you like the monotonous hissing of plays on the pan—and not very much of that. For Spring, the Great Reaper, is here, and the pall of vernal death is slowly settling down on Broadway.'
This one takes a different turn, after viewing a great acting performance in Marc Connelly’s The Green Pastures, Benchley opines, 'If the Lord is really anything like Mr. Harrison, maybe I have been wrong all these years.'
During the mid 20's Benchley's pal Dorothy Parker was between marriages and her choice of male companions was just awful. Mark Connelly once said, 'Dotty was always falling in love with some bum. He was always handsome and had the romantic responsibility of an alley cat.'
Dorothy had terrible bouts with depression and a number of times she wound up in the hospital with razor cuts to her wrists. Early one morning after one of those scenes her pal Robert Benchley eased along side her bed, leaned over and said, 'Dotty, you've got to be more careful, or one of these days you're really going to hurt yourself.'

Tungee's Gold: The Legend of Ebo Landing
Excerpt: On Board the Slave Ship MFC
The MFC had plowed into the lower Caribbean and was within forty-eight hours of their destination. The bell struck midnight. King Kumi and his inner circle were all sitting near the forecastle. Kumi looked up at the stars and sucked in a deep breath of the cool night air and sat in silent meditation. He was well aware that as a political and religious leader, he had to walk a fine line between his people's old traditions and the ways taught by the missionaries.
Kulando came awake from a nap and began to wipe the sleep from his eyes. He sat across from Kumi, between Sasika and Isbele. The boy stretched and yawned. "I have just returned from a long journey."
"Where have you been, my son?" Kumi asked.
"I know not where, but I do know it was with the gone befores. The spirits of my ancestors."
"Your mind is receptive and much of what we have told you may be firing your imagination," Ekoi said as a wry grin played across his face. "Perhaps they are expanding your dream world."
"I heard them talk. I saw them take the evil mask and exchange it for the good."
Isbele gripped the boy's hand.
Kumi sighed. "You have been somewhere and that somewhere is your own private place, a part of the world that you will share with no one. You may tell of it, but you will not truly share it with anyone."
Kulando was no longer a child. His face bathed in the moonlight had grown far beyond his age. Maturity and wisdom had knocked and the messenger had opened the door and welcomed them in.
Kumi prayed. "May my Lord be tolerant and forgiving in a way that will allow some contact with our spirit world. May we ask our gone befores to mark the path? God, please allow the spirits of our ancestors to guide me and my people across the river."
Siepe cautioned. "Let us all remember this. We are Christians and I have no wish to disavow my Ebo heritage, but please be aware that when our Lord saved us, we turned away from many of our past beliefs. Are you, Kumi, asking us to go back to those ways just before the end?"
"No, my dear. My thinking is this, we should ask God to allow our gone befores spirits to shed some light on the most important act of our lives. It is God's help that we are all seeking." Kumi then looked toward the sky and chanted. "Vultures are the birds of death, scavengers who hover over the dying ready to claim their corpses silently, patiently waiting for the end. Those scavengers have made a pact with death and death has made war on my house. Queen Sarai and our firstborn have died at the hands of that war, where greed in the form of money hungry men of the trade plundered and pillaged mankind. They take one man's freedom, jail his spirit, extracting a profit for one on the back of another.''
Ekoi put his hand on Kumi's and quietly said. "Amen."
Kumi looked into all their faces and said, "My children, I am not asking you to follow me like sheep, just for mine and Sarai's sake, but follow if you must for those of future generations. We must tell the world that no one has the right to sell his fellow man the way he would bargain away a sparrow."

Writers Notebook:
Here's a bit about Ernst Lubitsch. Garson Kanin in a conversation with Billy Wilder told about the way George S. Kaufman, Carol Reed and other writers would begin work on a story with lots of enthusiasm. And that lasted for a while, but later on they’d begin to find fault, then pick it apart and eventually abandon the project. “Not me,” said Billy. “I always come back to it – so I can tear it down and abandon it again.”
“You know who did not work like that?”
“Who?”
“Our hero, Ernst Lubitsch. He always concentrated on the affirmative aspects – and kept looking for what was good and sort of ignoring the bad, sweeping it under the carpet – and finally he’d built so much strength that the weaknesses didn’t seem to matter.”
“We can’t all be Lubitsch,” Billy said.
“We can try.”

Tom's Books and Blogs
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels Tungee's Gold, The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
Facebook and Twitter
http://thehurricanehunter.blogspot.com
www.tombarnes39.com