Page:Screenland October 1923.djvu/17

SCREENLAND Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars Are Annually Thrown Away in Pictures because of Ignorance, Vanity and Wilfulness.

By HELEN STARR

, the playwright, wrote a story with a motion picture angle. He offered it to a big film producer, who put a ridiculously low price on it.

"Originals, they are no goot," said the big producer. "But your name, it might sell it. How about fife hunderd dollars, nicht?"

"Nicht," said Halsey decidedly, and put his story on the shelf. A month later he wrote a play around the plot, and secured a brief Broadway run for it. But after that it faltered and died, as so many Broadway plays do, and the storehouse received it.

But an agent, who knew the psychological processes of big film producers, asked to be allowed to sell screen rights for the play. He named a figure he could get for it—twenty times what the first offer had been. Halsey laughed at him but told him to go ahead.

Within thirty days the agent came to Halsey and asked if he would accept a check for $20,000 for the screen rights to his story. The offer was from the same producer who had originally offered him $500. When Halsey came out of his delirium, he accepted on the spot.

The reason for the enormous increase? Simply that the scenario was no longer an "original"; it had had a stage showing. And although the publicity value as far as the country as a whole is concerned to the producer was worth about a thin dime, yet he was impressed by it to the tune of $20,000.