The Voice of James M. Cain by David Madden

Author:David Madden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2019-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

7

Past All Dishonor

THE DIVORCE SETTLEMENT HAD BEEN DRAGGING ON FOR ALMOST A year, because Elina’s demands were clearly all out of reason, but in June 1943, when he had a little money, they reached a final lump settlement of $27,500, which in the divorce racket was quite a killing for her side, and put the freeze on any leftover friendliness.

In mid-summer after twenty-two weeks and $34,000, the Signal Corps project ended, with no picture in sight, Universal, the studio he had sued, hired him right away to do a script called Gypsy Maid, about a princess raised by gypsies, for Maria Montez. George Waggner gave him two weeks to turn this weird concoction into something passable, but he set his own sights a little higher than that.

“Cain,” he said, “you’re going to do the best script they ever read.”

He thought movies had gotten better, and was actually studying them: The Little Foxes, The Major and the Minor, discussing them with film cutters, editors, and the more cultivated producers who had come on the scene. He turned in the script a little over the deadline, and stopped in to see Waggner.

“I see you’re rewriting it,” he said, with that sinking feeling.

No, Waggner said, he was only putting in the baby talk for Montez. “You’ve tightened and simplified it and tuned it and re-dialogued it and it’s a beautiful thing.”

That made him feel he was at a turning point in his script-writing career, so when United Artists sent for him, he took on The Moon, Their Mistress, based on Chekhov’s The Shooting Party, at a higher salary—$1,250.

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