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
