Saroyan on Screen

Episode Notes Sources for this episode include the William Saroyan journals in the William Saroyan Papers collection at the Green Library at Stanford, The Daring Young Man by John Leggett, and the letters collection of Forever Saroyan. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Transcript Saroyan & MGM After The Human Comedy While there was at least some accrimony still following Saroyan’s leaving MGM after not being chosen to direct The Human Comedy, it was not actually the end of Saroyan’s association with the studio, nor those who worked there. There was, however, some issue between Saroyan and Mayer that Saroyan absolutely played up for the Hollywood gossip mongers. It’s true that Saroyan did often refer to Mayer as “The Con” for what he saw as a bait-and-switch when he bought Saroyan’s treatment for The Human Comedy but did not let him direct the picture. All this played out publically while Saroyan and Mayer spoke on the phone, exchanged at least a few letters and telegrams, and encountered each other at least once in person. A complicating factor here was that Saroyan had enlisted in the Army and was newly-married. Saroyan had been in contact with MGM throughout the production of The Human Comedy and one letter, in particular, showed that Saroyan wasn’t happy with MGM and was talking about it. “I am now at work on a new play, tentitively entitled “Get Away Old Man” which I shall produce in New York very early in the coming season. The play is now half-finished and will be finished this Sunday, May 10. If purchased now by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, sight-unseen, I will let it go for $250,000.” He added that after May 10, he’d be auctioning off the work with the starting bid being $300,000 dollars. Get Away Old Man is a play about a Hollywood executive and a writer. The Executive, Mr. Patrick Hammer, hires a writer, Mr. Bird, to write Ave Maria, the greatest story ever written for the screen. The two go back and forth, with Hammer calling in his bulldog fixer, Manheim, to get Bird to finish Ave Maria. In the meantime, Bird has fallen in love with Martha, a player at the studio, and goes off to marry her, leading Hammer to have to figure out exactly how much it’s going to cost him to get the Ave Maria script out of Bird. Storywise, it doesn’t bear much resemblance to the situation between Mayer and Saroyan during the lead-up to The Human Comedy, but there are some things that make it clear what’s going on and who is who. He makes sure to feature a player piano. Saroyan had requisitioned a player piano and a number of piano rolls for it when he got an office of his own on the MGM lot. That fact had been widely reported on in the trades, including by Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, which would make it instantly recogniseable that Saroyan was Bird, though many audiences would have figured that anyhow. Much of his audience figured that all of Saroyan’s works were autobiographical. Manheim was clearly meant to be Eddie Mannix, and he was presented as a heavy. Mannix was considered to be exactly that by most in the MGM orbit. He was the legendary cleaner, erasing scandals for Mayer constantly. The real key to this is the way that Hammer is presented which clearly commented on Mayer. The first is that Ave Maria was specifically being written as a way for Hammer to atone for his sinful life and leave behind something of true loving value. Mayer had wanted Saroyan to write a piece that was a celebration of America and full of Saroyan’s well-known optimism. That may actually be Saroyan mythologizing himself in his writing. It was clear that Mayer liked Saroyan, enjoyed talking with him despite seemingly having little time to spend with him. The ‘sinful life’ that Saroyan wrote about would have been shocking at the time, but today is absolutely old hat. Hammer calls a young starlet with the intention of bedding her. In the 80 years since, this theme may feel a bit played out, but it was still fresh at that point. Later biographers of those around MGM noted that Mayer likely abused several of his young starlets, including Judy Garland. That sort of thing was never made public before, and if Get Awat Old Man had been a newspaper report or newreel, it would have been quashed by Mannix. That it was being said in a play made it a much more difficult matter. While Saroyan had written the play, it was not performed until November, 1943, and not published until May, 1944. The existing letters between Saroyan and Mayer seem to end shortly after the release of The Human Comedy, the latest being from April, 1943. Saroyan, for his part, claimed the Hammer was not Mayer, but was an amalgamation of many Hollywood types. Either way, the play was a flop, and George Stevens, famed filmmaker and later Army buddy of Saroyan’s, said he couldn’t understand how a talent like Saroyan, having written a masterpiece like The Human Comedy, could turn around and write something as bad as Get Away Old Man. And that was from his friend! The critics savaged the piece, and it ran for only 13 performances. As noted in our last episode, Saroyan had said he had let go of his anger over their professional differences in a letter written after Saroyan had paid a visit to the set of The Human Comedy. Mayer sent a very nice note to Saroyan on February 27, 1943, after the initial release of The Human Comedy to theatres. “I know you will be thrilled and happy over the splendid reception given The Human Comedy by the press and everyone who has seen the picture. The reviews are wonderful and all unanimus (sic) in feedling that this is a picture the public will love and enjoy and which will be an insperation (sic) to everyone. My Congratulations to you. Louis B. Mayer.” It was already well-known that Saroyan was unhappy with the picture. He expressed this privately, and according to an entry in his journal from March 10, 1943, he was going to telegram Mayer a piece of his mind. Whether or not he did can’t be established today, but by that point, it’s likely that Saroyan was just too hampered by being in the Army to send pieces like that to Mayer. Saroyan did stay in contact with several figures who he thinly veiled in the play, including Eddie Mannix. One letter was written by Saroyan on April 25, 1944, while Saroyan was with the Army Pictorial Service. This would have been after Get Away Old Man had come and gone through Broadway, though slightly before it was published. It also would have been about a month-and-a-half after The Human Comedy had been released to theatres.  Saroyan notes, “It was most kind of you to remember me, and to let me know, even though in theory at least – or accoriding to the gossip columns- you and I are not speaking, and all that sort of nonsense.” His portrayal of Mannix as Manheim was certainly gentler than his portrayal of Mayer as Hammer, and thus perhaps there were no hard feelings. After all, Eddie Mannix certainly under stood that it was Show BUSINESS and hurt feelings aren’t matters for business. Saroyan makes an interesting confession in the letter: “I must let you know that not long ago I got in touch with your people here and had them let me have another look at my two-reel one-reeler The Good Job, which I have been thinking of ever since it was made as perhaps the nobles little film ever made, and discovered that it “stink”, as you and Mr. Mayer put it*.* I think it was the word “stink” that burned me up, but “stink” it does, and there is no use any longer for me to imagine that it doesn’t.” Saroyan mentioned that Mannix should say hello to his ‘buddies’ still affiliated with MGM: Sam Katz, Mr. Mayer, George Cukor, and “music boy Freed” who he saves for the final name. This letter, like those with Mayer, might have been trying to smooth over things with the studio at a time when he knew waters were going to get rough. Saroyan may well have been trying to make sure that the MGM door remained at least slightly cracked open if he ever wanted to get back into the pictures. At the end of the letter, Saroyan hints that he’d like to get back into the movie game noting, “After the War I am going to make a picture I know you are going to like.” An interesting note was a letter Saroyan sent to MGM, specifically Sam Katz, Eddie Mannix, and Louis B. Mayer on March 2, 1946, asking if they were interested in selling back the motion picture rights to The Human Comedy. A couple of weeks later, Arthur Freed sent a telegram asking Saroyan to call him at the studio, and then an official response letter was sent on April 15, 1946. In it, three copies of a contract for The Human Comedy that had not been signed in 1943, and an explanation of why they were sending them for his signature. It turns out that as Saroyan was away in the Army, some paperwork had fallen through the cracks regarding the separation of movie and book rights. It’s unclear what Saroyan was thinking about doing with the rights, but this was not the last time he was in contact with MGM on that very subject. Saroyan began exchanging letters with Dore Schary by 1950. Dore started in theatre and came to MGM, was fired and worked with producers like David O. Selznick, and then back to MGM. IN 1950, MGM was in a bit of trouble. They had posted their first annual loss in 1948, and Schary was brought in to bring the studio back to life. In 1950, Saroyan got in touch as Schare was producing an anthology film: The American Saga, which would be released under the name It’s a Big Country: An American Anthology. It told seven different short stories each with its own production team, one of which was led by Clarence Brown, director and producer of The Human Comedy. It’s unclear if Schare had gotten in touch with Saroyan, or if Saroyan had cold-called him to try and get his stories into Schare’s film. The Stolen Bicycle, a story from Saroyan’s Dear Baby collection, was specifically mentioned, as was The Parsley Garden, though it wouldn’t be filmed until more than 35 years later. He also mentioned that his collection The Assyrian, where The Parsley Garden had appeared was just out and that those stories would be appropriate. Dore didn’t want any of them. A few months later, Saroyan wrote Schare about potentially filming his newest short play: The Bad Men. In that letter, he comes out and says “I would be interested in an exclusive arrangement with Metro. If you speak with Mr. Mayer about it, please tell him I send him my best.” At that point, Schare and Mayer were already butting heads in a power struggle at MGM, one which would eventually force Mayer out of the company he co-founded. Saroyan had significant money issues at the time, and they would only get worse as the 1950s continued. He clearly wanted a deal in Hollywood, and while pursuing Schare at MGM, he was also in communication with King Vidor, David O. Selznick, RKO, Twentieth Century Fox, and Hal Roach Studios. While Saroyan’s more recent filmed offering, The Time of Your Life, had not done particularly well at the box office, he was hoping to get more film work. He was also began to look at television writing work. Schare had not managed to turn around MGM’s fortunes fully, but had given them a bit more comfort at the box office. Saroyan sent a screenplay for My Heart’s in the Highlands to MGM, but Schare didn’t believe it was a compelling screenplay. “I’m sorry, but the material is too scattered for me to believe that it would make an effective and commercial motion picture.” Schare responded. It’s unclear if this was the same script that would be used for the television adaptation of My Heart’s in the Highlands that would be produced later in the 1950s. Saroyan apparently wrote several versions of the play for the screen between 1950 and 1968, though it’s difficult to tell which were ever commissioned and which were simply Saroyan preparing for a hopefull purchase. Saroyan sent many stories over the next three years, until Schare was fired from MGM in 1956 after a string of flops. Saroyan was also in contact with Mel Ferrer. Ferrer, the co-founder of the La Jolla Playhouse, was familiar with Saroyan and when Ferrer joined MGM in 1952, almost instantly Saroyan got in touch, pointing out that his play Jim Dandy would make a good picture. He even had a cast in mind: Charles Boyer for Fishkin, Jimmy Durante for Jock Arithmia, and Ferrer himself as Johnny. It seems as if Saroyan was as interested in getting a film made of one of his stories as he was of getting one of his plays produced at the La Jolla Playhouse. With Ferrer, he could double-dip.   Saroyan’s closest associate at MGM was Arthur Freed. Saroyan’s drinking buddy when he arrived in Hollywood in 1941. The pair were friends and much of Saroyan’s studying in the lead up to his planned directing of The Human Comedy had been visiting Freed’s set. He had provided some advice on Freed’s film Panama Hattie over a long lunch. The first cut of the film was something of a wreck, but Freed saved it and turned it into a money-maker. How much impact Saroyan had is unknown. One of the more interesting dead-ends in Saroyan’s relationship with MGM was the 1956 film Invitation to the Dance. This was the first film directed solely by Gene Kelly, Saroyan’s friend from the days of The Time of Your Life’s first Broadway run. The film was produced by Freed, who had brought Kelly to Hollywood. Freed contacted Saroyan about providing naration for the anthology dance film. Perhaps Freed felt that the audience of the time would need narration to fully grasp the meaning of the dances. Saroyan was receptive to the idea, and since the film had no dialogue, simply dance, that perhaps a narrator would help clarify things for audiences. The picture included a lovely Hannah-Barbara carton dance segment called Sinbad the Sailor. Kelly danced live with cartoons, as he had done with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh a decade before. The contract offered Saroyan two-hundred and fifty dollars for writing the narration himself, and a total of one thousand for delivering the narration. Saroyan saw an early cut of the two live action sequences and declared them “great.” He wrote short introductions and transistions between the chapters, and some of the writing is as poignant as Saroyan could muster. The final film does not contain any narration at all. Saroyan wrote a letter to MGM detailing that he had been contacted by Freed to provide the narration, and he had written it and sent to to Freed. He had spoken with Freed and Gene Kelly and both indicated that it was good stuff. In Stanford, there is a Telegram from Freed to Saroyan: “Liked the suggestions and would like to complete this with you. Agreement is being drawn up. I will be back in the studio Thursday or Friday.” Saroyan visited MGM the following week, and spoke with many of those involved in the production.  Saroyan had wanted some changes to the contract, but MGM never got in touch, and he was still asking for one thousand dollars. It’s not clear as to what changes were needed, but he certainly wanted that thousand dollars. “I have never made any cagey point of pretending I don’t need money when I do, and if ever I needed it I need it now.” Notably, the film was a flop, another in a string during MGM’s rough patch. It appears that was Saroyan’s last attempt at a direct project with Freed, and it’s clear that Saroyan took the Invitation to the Dance fiasco as something of a personal slight. Saroyan’s money issues were real, and Freed letting him down does seem to have spoiled their relationship for a while, though not too long. In 1960, Saroyan and Freed were in contact again, this time about The Subterraneans, a film based on the novel by Jack Kerouac dealing with the Beatnik scene. Freed sent Saroyan a copy of the script, along with a few records. Saroyan apparently greatly admired the records. Saroyan replied to Freed’s contact, “This is a special area of art (and reality) which has its specialists, especially Kenneth Rexroth who know Jazz, San Francisco, poetry, the kids who have tagged themselves beat or beatific, and people in general inside and out.” Saroyan met with Rexroth, who had always been an admirer and would correspond with Saroyan several times. Rexroth sent Saroayn a note after Saroyan had spoken with Freed, “Let’s hope something comes of the movie. I still wish you’d write it. Most fun would be to appear in it. Tell the man that record does not represent the Jazz poetry bit at all. I have a very good band. The best musicians in the area and we have come far beyond that. I can send him tapes.” The film was released with Leslie Carron and George Peppard starring, and was one of Freed’s final films for MGM. Reviews were largely negative, and it was also a box office bomb. The soundtrack, composed by Andre Previn, was well received. The Beats, especially Allen Ginsberg, hated the film. Of course, Saroyan was always trying to leverage The Human Comedy, and as early as 1953, he was in contact with MGM about securing the rights for a television series. He wrote Dore Schare in 1953 to get a copy of the original contract “to find out by reading the tedious text if usage of the title The Human Comedy is available to me in a television series, if the characters along with new characters are available to me for usage in new situations and stories: that is, in new writing.” He also added that he was willing to do a new edit of the original film with any unused footage and “write and recite a writer’s introduction to it, and furnish the studio with a brandnew money-making property (with just a little royalty of the gross for myself.)” In early 1963, MGM was apparently in the midst of creating a new televsion series using the characters and setting of The Human Comedy. While the original contact letters are not in the Saroyan papers, a Since we own all Saroyan hated that he had sold the rights instead of ‘leasing’ them, but leasing rights was a practice almost unheard of in Hollywood at the time. Nearly every property was bought in full and in perpetuity by the studio. It’s unclear whether or not this led to the pilot that was eventually shown on the CBS Summer Playhouse. In 1970, he made contact with MGM again in an attempt to wrest the rights to The Human Comedy away when the rights were coming up for the then-required Copyright renewal. Instead, MGM sent Saroyan a contract simply stating that he would continue to hold the rights he always had, notably the publication rights, but that MGM would renew their copyright on the rest. This appears to have been Saroyan’s last contact with MGM. MGM, at least the MGM that Saroyan had interacted with since the 1930s, died several deaths. Many point to the purchase of MGM by Kirk Kerkorian in 1969 as the end of what had been Mayer’s MGM, even though Mayer himself had been gone from the studio for almost fifteen years, and dead for twelve. Kerkorian had grown up in Fresno, not far from the Saroyans and one street over from the Minasians, Saroyan’s cousins. Kerkorian sold off portions of the studio, including their back catalog, and used the proceeds to fund mega-resorts like the MGM Grand. Saroyan would not completely abandon the pictures, even in his final years he was working to get studios interested in his stories for adaption. Next time, we step back in time a bit to World War II and Saroyan’s time writing for the Army, and working with George Stevens in the Special Unit of the Army Pictorial Service.

## The Human Comedy (1943) – Show Notes \& Research Links **Directed by:** Clarence Brown**Screenplay:** Howard Estabrook**Story by:** William Saroyan**Starring:** Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig, Marsha Hunt, Fay Bainter**Studio:** Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)**Release Year:** 1943 *** ## 🔗 Primary Film References IMDb[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036000/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036000/) TCM (Turner Classic Movies)https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/78965/the-human-comedy AFI Catalog Entryhttps://catalog.afi.com/Film/613-THE-HUMAN-COMEDY Rotten Tomatoeshttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/human\_comedy\_1943 AllMoviehttps://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-human-comedy-v23823 *** ## 📚 Literary Source – William Saroyan **Original Novel:** _The Human Comedy_ (1943)Author: William Saroyan Library of Congress Recordhttps://lccn.loc.gov/43011845 Open Libraryhttps://openlibrary.org/works/OL45809W/The\_Human\_Comedy Goodreadshttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143284.The\_Human\_Comedy William Saroyan Biography – Poetry Foundationhttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-saroyan William Saroyan – Encyclopaedia Britannica[https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Saroyan](https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Saroyan) Forever Saroyan - http://www.foreversaroyan.com *** ## 🎭 Cast \& Key Figures **Mickey Rooney**IMDb: [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001683/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001683/) **Frank Morgan**IMDb: [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0604607/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0604607/) **Spencer Tracy** (Uncredited cameo)IMDb: [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001805/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001805/) **Clarence Brown (Director)**IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0113673/ *** ## 📰 Contemporary \& Historical Context World War II Homefront Overview – National WWII Museumhttps://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/home-front-during-world-war-ii MGM Studio History – Encyclopaedia Britannicahttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer-Inc Academy Awards (1943–44 Ceremony)[https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1944](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1944) *** ## 🏆 Awards \& Recognition Academy Award for Best Story (William Saroyan)Oscar Database Entry[https://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/](https://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/) National Board of Review – 1943 Winners[https://nationalboardofreview.org/award-years/1943/](https://nationalboardofreview.org/award-years/1943/) *** ## 📖 Themes for Discussion - Small-town America during WWII - The emotional toll of wartime telegrams - The American postal system as narrative device - Idealism vs. realism in Saroyan’s writing - MGM wartime sentimentality - Spencer Tracy’s surprise appearance - Saroyan’s complicated relationship with Hollywood *** ## 🎧 Suggested Companion Viewing / Reading _The Time of Your Life_ (Saroyan play)https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Time-of-Your-Life The Saroyan Prize – Stanford Universityhttps://english.stanford.edu/creative-writing/william-saroyan-international-prize-writing Fresno County Historical Societyhttps://valleyhistory.org/

Episode Notes Sources for this episode include Saroyan's letters and journals at Stanford's Green Library, letters at the Fresno Public Library, The Daring Young Man by John Leggett, Saroyan's books Not Dying, Here Comes There Goes You KNow Who, and Places Where I've Done Time.

Episode Notes Thanks to Stanford University's Green Library, the Fresno Public Library, and UC Berkeley libraries for the research opportunities that made this episode possible. For more information, see Foreversaroyan.com. Other sources include The Daring Young Man by Leggett, and You Must Remember This podcast