The making of a motion picture is an enterprise that requires at least a million decisions—great and small—to see it from conception to completion. A successful film is one on which most of the decisions have been correct; an unsuccessful film is the opposite. It comes down to the question: Who makes the decisions?
Professor Albert Einstein and his wife were being interviewed by the world press on the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary. They were asked the routine question: “To what do you attribute the success of your marriage?”
Professor Einstein took his wife’s hand in his and replied, “Well, when we were first married fifty years ago—
Gott im Himmel!
—fifty years—we made a pact. It was this. That in our life together, I would make all the
big
decisions and she would make all the
little
decisions. And we have kept to it for fifty years. That, I think, is the reason for the success of our marriage.” Then, he looked up and added, “The strange thing is that in fifty years, there hasn’t yet been one big decision.”
Things have changed, but in Hollywood, until the 1950s, the final decisions, great and small, were made by the front offices, or by surrogates of those exalted founts of wisdom.
The head of the studio or the vice president in charge of production had his way. No writer, no star, no director of that period had the final say. Important directors were often replaced in mid-picture. Worse, they sometimes completed their work, only to have it taken out of their hands, recut, reshaped, and even reshot by the front office.
From the executives’ point of view, they were behaving correctly. They had a responsibility to the banks and, as they often reminded you, to their stockholders. They had no responsibility to anything as abstract as the creative spirit, an artistic concept, or an instinctive feeling.
They were in business. A picture that did good business was a good picture. A picture that did poor business was a poor picture. Never mind what the critics thought, or the experts, or the scholars. If the mass audience did not turn up, willing to buy tickets in abundance, the work was a failure.
So it can be seen that the trouble with motion-picture art was (and is) that it is too much an industry and the trouble with the motion-picture industry is that it is too much an art. It is out of this basic contradiction that most of the ills of the form arise.
I have known many Hollywood producers and studio heads. Some are literate, sensitive, intelligent men. Others are two-fisted, business-oriented politicians. Still others are lucky idiots.
Harry Cohn was the founder and, until his death, head of Columbia Pictures. If it were necessary to describe him in a word, that word would be “tough.” He was also courageous, stubborn, energetic, ruthless, amiable, comical, attractive, gregarious—but above all, tough.
He had fought his way out of the hopelessness of poverty and had moved on to the periphery of show business. Because his innate talent lay in the area of salesmanship, he became a song plugger. Song pluggers were one of the principal means by which songs were promoted in the days before television, radio, and an extensive recording industry. They worked for the music publishers, and it was their job to get the publishers’ songs performed in vaudeville, music halls, cabarets, restaurants, saloons, and stores. Most of them were performers of a sort. They would go around town, stand up, and sing the song.
Harry Cohn built a $400-million motion-picture empire but he was not as proud of it as he was of the fact that he alone had made a hit out of “Ragtime Cowboy Joe.” He could not recount this adventure without growing misty-eyed.
“Everybody said it was nothin’. They said it was too fast and then somebody else said it was too hard, and mostly, right there at that time, it was ballads, but I don’t know. Somethin’ about that goddamn little song got me. Y’know what I mean? It got me right here. And I started peddlin’ it.
Jesus
, did I peddle it!”
Snapping his fingers on the afterbeat, he would begin to sing the catchy, bouncy words.
In mid-chorus, he paused. “Well, listen, I see what they meant about hard. Even now, I see it, but I didn’t care. I liked that song. Liked! I
loved
it. Would you believe it? I would sometimes sing it fifty, sixty times a night. I’m talking about all over New York. Rector’s, Shanley’s. Reisenweber’s, in dressing rooms, in agents’ offices. I knew it was catchy and I knew if I plugged it enough, it would have to catch on. Because it was catchy. I was right. It did. Do you realize people still play it? And sing it? Even now? And you know how long ago I’m talking? Forty-five years. He taught me somethin’, that ‘Ragtime Cowboy Joe.’ He taught me if you believe in somethin’ and you stick with it and with what you believe in, no son of a bitch around is going to get ahead of you.”
He picked up from precisely where he had left off and continued, this time punching his right fist into his left palm on the afterbeat and beating time with his foot. The finish was triumphant. Harry would sit there flushed and pleased.
He did not often go to parties, but when he did, he would always manage to find a spot in the course of the evening to get on and plug “Ragtime Cowboy Joe” with all the desperate energy of his younger self.
Harry Cohn was given to expressing himself with great vehemence. As he railed at his staff one morning about an unavoidable accident, an associate sitting close to him said, “Take it easy Harry—you’ll get an ulcer.”
“I don’t get ulcers,” shouted Cohn. “I
give
’em!”
There are many who worked with him across the years who would testify to the accuracy of this statement.
Norman Krasna was an early adversary. Young Krasna had written a play called
Louder Please
, which was produced on Broadway and was something of a success. He returned to the studio in minor triumph, hoping for a great promotion, a plum assignment, or a raise. None of these was forthcoming. In an effort to break his contract, Krasna took to hectoring Cohn on every occasion.
Once, in the dining room, Cohn announced to the table, “I’m going to London next week.”
“Take me with you, Mr. Cohn?” asked Krasna.
“You? What the hell do I need
you
for?”
“Interpreter?” suggested Krasna.
On another occasion, Cohn told his staff he was leaving for New York. In those days, such trips were made by train. Krasna spoke up. “This time, Mr. Cohn, you’ve
got
to take me with you because on trains, you have to write out your order for your meals.”
“So what?”
“So what?” screamed Krasna in his high voice. “
You
can’t write. You’ll starve to death!”
Harry Cohn seemed to thrive on friction. He believed instinctively that it was only out of hostility, conflict, and abrasiveness that superior work could be created.
Considering all this, my own contacts with him were comparatively cordial, although we did have disagreements, battles, and long periods of nonspeaking.
Shortly after the end of World War II, he made me a remarkable offer.
“Tell you what I want to do,” he said. “I want you to take this check, this certified check for a hundred thousand bucks, and I want you to go ’way and I want you to bring me back a screenplay. And it better be good, you bastard, because you’re takin’ my money in advance. Who gives writers money in advance? Nobody. Only schmucks like me. But you’ve heard me say it before and you’ll hear me say it again. I kiss the feet of talent.”
“Harry,” I said, “thank you. I suppose it’s the most generous offer I’ve ever had in my life and I'm flattered and honored that you should make it, but I really can’t accept it.”
“Why not? Here’s the check.”
“I’d like to take it, Harry. Who wouldn’t? But I don’t think I can work that way. I mean, under the kind of pressure of having to come up with something that’ll be worth what you’ve already paid me.”
“Take it,” he said seductively.
“I’ll tell you what I
will
do, Harry. Just to show my appreciation of your gesture.”
“What
gesture
? I mean it.”
“I know you do, but what I’d rather do is write something and then give it to you, and no one else, and then, if you like it and want it, you can give me the hundred thousand.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said. “If you do it that way and if I like it and if I want it, I’ll
tell
you what it’s worth. Maybe it won’t be
worth
a hundred thousand.”
“No,” I said stubbornly, “it goes both ways. If you want it, that’ll be the price. Maybe it’ll be worth
more
on the open market, but you’re going to get it for that.”
“If I want it,” he said quickly.
“That’s right.”
He studied me for a time, then said, “You know what I think you are?”
“What?”
“Nuts. You’re nuts. I’m offerin’ you here a check. A certified check. And you’re turnin’ it down and gonna go and beat your brains out and speculate. You don’t think that’s nuts?”
“Not really, Harry. I have to work my own way. I just couldn’t take the responsibility.”
“What
responsibility
? I
trust
you. Doesn’t this prove I trust you? Listen, I know if you take my hundred thousand, you’re going to write me somethin’ good, somethin’ I can use and nothin’ controversial—like
niggers
or God!”
It was one of the few times in our relationship that I had my way.
It is often difficult to distinguish between courage, stubbornness, and principle— particularly as Harry Cohn exemplified these qualities.
When the notorious witch hunt was on, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was combing the film industry for signs of subversion. It was an ugly period and brought out the worst in many: cowardice, fear, greed, vindictiveness, deception, informing, and lying.
A solemn group of Cohn’s executive assistants came in to see him late one afternoon on urgent business.
“What’s a matter?” said Cohn, lighting a cigar. “You guys look like a funeral.”
The group exchanged a look. The spokesman began.
“Listen, Harry. Those Washington guys from the Committee? You know. They’re around.”
“The hell with ’em,” said Cohn.
“Take it easy, Harry. It’s not so simple. They’re moving, studio to studio, and they’re going through the list of every single person on the payroll in every single department.”
“So, what about it?”
“Thank God we got tipped off. It cost something but we got tipped off.”
“Cost what?” demanded Harry. “How much?”
“Never mind that for now. That’s not important.”
“It’s important to
me
. It’s my money!”
“Will you shut up, Harry, and listen for a minute?”
This sort of outburst from an associate—rare, unbelievable—conveyed to Cohn the gravity of the situation and he did indeed fall silent. The spokesman went on.
“The way they work it is this way. They’ve got their own list. Not just the
Red
Channels
thing but their own list and that’s what they use to compare it with our list and anybody they find makes us look bad, because we’re not supposed to employ Communists.”
“We don’t,” shouted Cohn.
“Wait a minute, Harry.”
“Name me one!”
“Take it easy.”
“Name me one,” shouted Cohn. “I dare you!”
“All right. John Howard Lawson.”
Cohn jumped up and struck his desk top with his open palm. A characteristic act. He had learned that it made a more startling noise than the conventional fist thumping.
“Who says so?” he demanded.
“He does.”
“Who does?”
“
He
does.”
“Who’s
he
for Christ’s sake?”
“John Howard Lawson.”
Cohn sat down again and stared at his staff, incredulously.
“John Howard Lawson
says
he’s a Communist?” he asked. “He says so
himself
?”
“He doesn’t make any bones about it, Harry. It’s his political affiliation. He doesn’t hide it. He admits it freely. He takes the position that there’s no law against it and that he has a right to be a member of any legal party there is.”
“The Communist party is legal?” asked Cohn.
“It is so far.”
Cohn shook his head. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said.
“So there you are.”
“Where?”
“We’ve got to get John Howard Lawson off the lot right now. Today. Off our payroll, off our list. Off our property. But right away, Harry. It can’t wait.”
Cohn stared at the faces in the room, one by one. Everyone knew what he was thinking. They were thinking the same thing: John Howard Lawson had written the screenplay for
Sahara
, one of the studio’s few profitable films of the previous season. In fact, the
most
profitable. Without it, the company report would have made depressing reading for the stockholders.
John Howard Lawson had done a brilliant adaptation of a Russian film. Zoltan Korda had reproduced the original picture with great fidelity, and Humphrey Bogart had given one of his superlative performances. In the way of the Hollywood world, the next move was obvious. Put the same team together—Lawson, Korda, Bogart—and go again. Lawson had suggested another war subject, a Russian play titled
Counterattack
. Korda and Bogart agreed and all were convinced that it would top
Sahara
. John Howard Lawson was the man of the hour at Columbia, and as they say in the business, “Hot.” The idea of removing him from the scene was equivalent to the notion of removing the star pitcher from the line-up just before the crucial game. No wonder the atmosphere in the room was grim.
Cohn sat and thought. His associates seemed to disintegrate before his eyes. The room fell away. Time stood still. He was alone with his problem. Now, characteristically, he made his decision. He rose. The conference was suddenly reconstituted.
“I ain’t gonna do it,” said Cohn.
“But Harry—”
“I ain’t gonna do it, I don’t care what. I ain’t gonna louse up that picture that’s gonna do three million, two domestic. I need Lawson and he stays right here. They can’t make me.”