“Shut the phone
off
?” he said, aghast. It was as though I had suggested he shut off the left ventricle of his heart.
“Just for an hour or so,” I persisted. “Just till I finish reading.”
“That’s
more
than an hour,” he said.
“I’ll read fast.”
Reluctantly, he made arrangements for messages to be taken.
Flushed by this small victory, I went on. “Another thing, Harry. Don’t interrupt me and don’t ask a lot of questions until it’s over. And don’t get up and walk around the way you sometimes do. It’s very distracting.”
“Jesus!” he said. “You’re a real scoutmaster, you know it? I know you’re a director, but don’t direct
me
, d’you mind?”
“All right, Harry,” I said. “I’ll begin. But I swear if you do any of those things, I’m going to stop and leave and that’s it.”
“You’re also a pain in the ass,” he said. He sat down, planted his feet firmly before him as though he were an emperor on a throne, lit his cigar, and motioned me with his head to begin.
I read badly that night and sensed that the material was not getting over. I noticed that Cohn shifted in his chair uncomfortably from time to time. Compounding my seeming failure, I mistakenly began an attempt to compensate by speed, by volume, and by generally overacting.
I began to dislike the script myself. Cohn was increasingly restless and crossed his legs several times, left over right, right over left. About halfway through, I regained equilibrium and began to make contact. For fifteen minutes or so, it went well. Feeling better about the whole thing, I began to perform rhythmically, not so much turning the page at the end of each one but slapping it. Finally, I slapped one too hard and the whole sheaf of loose pages from which I was reading went flying all over the room. I was on my hands and knees immediately picking up the pages and trying to get them back in order. I felt something, someone brush behind me, looked around, and saw Cohn dashing out of the room.
It took me no more than a couple of minutes to reassemble my script. As I took my position again, Cohn came rushing back in and leaped back into his spot.
Irritated, I gave him a hard look. He looked back at me innocently, pretending, in a way, that he had not left the room at all. Before I could begin again, he leaned over, took the cigar out of his mouth and said petulantly, “I hadda go to the can. Did I
miss
anything?”
I went on and finished. Harry responded with special enthusiasm because he needed a picture for Judy Holliday.
I had not directed a commercial film since
Tom, Dick, and Harry
just before the war but I was anxious to do this one on several accounts. First, I enjoyed working with Judy Holliday. Second, the film could probably be made in New York. Also, it would be the first time I had ever directed anything of my own for the screen, and I was eager to learn if such an undertaking was practical.
Cohn agreed and negotiations began simultaneously with production plans. I told my agents to make the best deal they could but to insist on one point only, and that was that I would have the final cut.
Cohn made a fair offer for the screenplay and an overgenerous offer, I thought, for the direction. However, he dismissed my major condition out of hand.
The agents argued with him for several days and reported to me that it was no use. Cohn would not yield on this point. I decided to confer with him myself.
“You’re a jerk,” said Cohn, looking at me and shaking his head sympathetically. “Here I’m turning over my whole studio to you to help you make your picture and all you’re worried about is the final cut. You haven’t even got a
picture
yet so what are you worryin’ about the final cut? Make the picture, then we’ll see.”
“No, Harry, then it’ll be too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“Look,” I said. “This is how it seems to me. Try to see it from my point of view. This is my story. My characters. My dialogue. And I think I know how the picture should look and sound.”
“Who said no? If I didn’t think so I’d throw you the hell off the lot.”
“But my point is that if I direct a picture from my own screenplay and my own story, I don’t think it’s right for anybody then to take it away from me and mess around with it.”
“Who’s goin’ to do that?” said Cohn.
“I’m not saying you
would
do it. I’m just saying you
could
do it.”
“I
could
bust you in the mouth,” said Cohn, “but
would
I?”
“Who knows?”
“Listen,” he said, “it’s your story, it’s your picture. I give you my word you’ll have it your way.”
I said nothing.
“You don’t take my word, huh?” he guessed.
“It’s more complicated than that, Harry.
You
know that. It has to be in writing. It has to be in the contract.”
“I’ll
die
first!” he shouted.
“That’s another thing,” I said.
“What other thing?”
“What if you die?”
He looked at me as though I were the Dark Angel in person.
“No, seriously,” I went on. “Suppose you gave me your word and suppose I took it. And then suppose you died?
Then
where am I?”
“Where are
you
, you dirty son of a bitch? If I die, where am
I
?”
“I don’t know, Harry. That’s not up to me,” I said.
For once, Cohn was completely flummoxed. He looked at me scornfully. “You know,” he said, “you’re really no good. You’re supposed to be some kind of gentleman and you got the nerve to come in here and tell me, a man with a wife and two small children, that I’m gonna die. Would you say that in front of my children?”
“You’re way off the mark. I didn’t say you were going to die. I just said, ‘What if?’ from a business point of view.”
Cohn began to yell in his habitual way. “That’s it! I’m
finished
! I’m sick of the whole thing. I gave you my best shot. You don’t want it, don’t take it. The hell with it. Don’t make the picture.”
It was all off.
I was disappointed. Preproduction work had been going smoothly and imaginatively. Judy Holliday was built into this movie and since she was under exclusive contract to Cohn, all other avenues were closed. I decided to abandon the plan and to offer the script to Cohn on an outright-sale basis.
We planned to leave Hollywood on a Monday. On the preceding Saturday, during a long Beverly Hills walk, my wife urged me to try once again to reach a compromise with Harry Cohn.
“Maybe working in the theatre has spoiled me,” I said. “That Dramatists Guild contract of ours is a masterpiece. The playwright has the final say. I don’t see why that shouldn’t be the same here.”
“Except that here,” Ruth pointed out, “you’re well paid in advance for your work. In the theatre, it’s all speculation. You might work a year on a play, then it runs two nights and you’ve earned nothing.”
I stopped walking and said, “Hey, wait a second! Maybe that’s it. Let’s get back to the hotel. I’ve got an idea.”
I phoned Cohn and asked if I could see him.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said brusquely. “Today I’m busy. I’ve very busy doing nothing. So tomorrow morning. That’s the best I can do for you.”
“What time?”
“Any time in the morning. I’ll be out by the pool.”
At ten o’clock on Sunday morning, I went to Cohn’s house, was shown out to the pool. He assumed I had come to surrender and so was surprised at what he heard.
“Harry, I’ve been thinking, and here’s a new proposal. You like the script. Your guys like it. Judy likes it.”
“Get to the point,” said Cohn.
“The point is, I’ll give you the script for nothing. And I’ll direct the picture for nothing. And I promise to make no major changes without your permission. And I’ll get it on schedule. And on budget. And by the censors.”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“If the picture’s profitable, we split fifty-fifty. If it makes nothing, I get nothing. And, by the way, I know all about cock-eyed movie bookkeeping so you’re way ahead there.”
“Go ahead,” said Cohn evenly.
“All I ask is that you let me make the picture my way. I’ll discuss anything with anybody reasonably—”
“But the final cut, huh?” said Cohn.
“That’s right.”
“You see that water there in the pool? If you drank up that whole pool right now, standing here, I wouldn’t give you final cut.
Nobody
!”
“I’m not thirsty,” I said.
“You’re not thirsty. You’re
crazy
,” he said. “Here I’m offerin’ you a fortune for the script and I’m willin’ to pay you more than you’re worth to direct the goddamn thing and give you a piece of the action, what’s more, and you’re willing to gamble so that you could wind up with nothing. You don't think that’s crazy?”
I explained slowly and carefully the work methodology of the theatre to which I had become accustomed.
“That’s a different business!” he roared. Birds fluttered away. “God damn it! Can’t you understand
anything
? I give you the final cut and the next thing Stevens wants it and then Wyler wants it and when all you bastards finally get it, what about
me
? The board of directors in New York says to me, ‘All those guys get the final say. What the hell do we need
you
for?’”
The argument went on for an hour serving only, as do most arguments, to make each adversary cling more firmly to his own view. The following day, I sold the script to Harry Cohn and went to Europe for three years. I realized, sadly, that for the moment, there was no place in Hollywood for me.
Harry Cohn, not much of a partygoer, was a considerable party giver. He was especially proud of his annual New Year’s Eve celebrations, for which he and his wife traditionally provided superb food and drink, a stellar cast, and outstanding parlor entertainment.
In December 1943,
Cover Girl
was shooting on the Columbia lot. In the cast were two of the town’s most accomplished parlor entertainers, Gene Kelly and Phil Silvers. Kelly was invited to the Cohn party welcoming 1944, and accepted. Phil Silvers went to see Cohn.
“The only thing, Harry—is like this. I know the reason you’re asking me is you want me to get on and do some of my stuff. Right?”
“Right,” said Cohn.
“But for what you want I’ve got to have my piano players. Like for instance, when I do my Jerry Kern auditioning ‘Ol’ Man River’ for Paul Robeson—”
“Kern’s gonna
be
there,” said Cohn.
“Great. But I can’t do that number without Saul. Or when I do my singing lesson bit, not either.”
“Yeah, that’s a good one,” said Cohn, laughing. “Hey! You could do it with Sinatra.
Sinatra’s
gonna be there.”
“Fine,” said Phil. “But—”
“Who’s Saul?” asked Cohn.
“Saul Chaplin.”
“Who’s
he
?”
“Saul Chaplin, Harry. The songwriter. Cahn and Chaplin. I thought you knew about songwriters.”
“I know about songwriters,” said Cohn. “More than anybody.”
“Well, Saul’s one of the best. He’s never off the Hit Parade. And he’s my friend. And he always plays for me.”
“So where
is
he?” asked Cohn.
“Whaddya mean where
is
he?”
“I mean can we get
ahold
of him. That’s what I mean.”
“Why, he’s right here,” said Phil with some surprise.
“Right here in California?”
“Right here at
Columbia
.”
“Columbia?”
“Well, sure, Harry. He’s working with us on
Cover Girl
.”
Cohn beamed as he said, “You mean he’s workin’ for
me
?”
“Sure. Don’t you know that?”
“Of course I know it,” said Cohn. “What the hell do you think?”
“So anyway, Harry, I’ll be glad to come. I accept your invitation with pleasure. But if you want me to get on and do anything, you’ll have to ask him, too.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Cohn. “He’ll
be
there. That’s all,” he added, waving Phil out.
He flipped the key of his Dictograph.
“Yes, sir?”
“Get me—what’s this guy’s name?” he called out to the departing Phil Silvers.
“Victor Herbert,” said Phil.
“Get me Victor—hey!”
“What?” asked Phil at the door.
“Don’t kid around with me. I don’t need you to be funny in here. I need you to be funny on the set. In the picture.”
“Oh,” said Phil. “And
not
New Year’s Eve?”
“Get outta here!” said Cohn.
“Saul Chaplin,” said Phil, and left.
Ten minutes later, Chaplin, a tall, thin, talented, and diffident man, stood nervously before Cohn.
“The trouble is, Mr. Cohn—I wish I’d known earlier.”
“He didn’t
tell
me earlier,” said Cohn.
“But my wife and I, we’re giving a party, too, and—”
“Okay, okay,” said Cohn. “You can bring your wife along. Okay?”
“But what about
our
party?”
“Call it off,” said Cohn.
“We’ve asked a lot of people.”
“What’s the difference?” said Cohn, irritated. “What kind of people could be coming to
your
party? Not
important
people.”
“They’re important to us, Mr. Cohn.”
“Jesus Christ!” said Cohn. “What’s a matter with you? I’m tryin’ to put you over and you’re fightin’ me. What’s your wife’s number? I’ll call her.”
“No, Mr. Cohn,” said Saul. “We just can’t do it. It’s too late. I’m sorry.”
Cohn continued for another ten minutes, determined to have his own way. He pleaded and begged and charmed and cajoled and threatened. He hinted at improved billing, further assignments, and important opportunities. Saul Chaplin remained adamant.
Finally, exhausted, Cohn said, “All right, the hell with it. You don’t want to come— and bring your wife? So all right. So
don’t
come.”
Saul started out, regretting the meeting’s sticky ending. At the door, he turned back and said, “I’m really sorry, Mr. Cohn. Maybe some other time?”
“Some other time,” said Cohn without looking up, “I can’t
use
you!”
Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur had written a screenplay entitled
Gunga Din
. Their agent, Leland Hayward, was offering it for sale to the various studios. The accepted method at that time was to submit a property to the head of the story department of each of the studios on the same day, then wait for the offers, if any. In this way, agencies could not be accused of favoritism.