“That’d be a swell idea, wouldn’t it!” he says. “Here is a story that Supreme was trying to get for Dennis Byrne and we beat them to it and buy it for Kavanaugh and you want us to leave him out of it!”
I told him I didn’t believe Supreme had Byrne in mind when they made the offer for the book, if they ever did make an offer.
“You’re crazy!” he said. “Those fellas at Supreme are just dumb enough to think ‘Harridan’ is an Irish name and you can bet they were wild when Wallace told them we’d beat them to it. And they’ll be wilder yet when we spring a handsomer Irishman than they’ve got in the very story they were trying to land for Byrne.”
A day or two later, L. N. announced that he and Kavanaugh were going out to Hollywood. He’d talk over the story with Driscoll, our star director, and Earl Benham, who he’d picked to write the scenario, and he thought that by seeing Kavanaugh and getting acquainted with him, they’d have a better idea what he wanted.
So that’s the last I saw of him for a month. Day before yesterday he got home and the first thing he asked me was to get a hold of Wallace again. So when Wallace came in, he says: “Wallace,” he said, “I want to get your permission to not use your name in connection with that picture.”
“But as I told you before, Mr. Bauer,” said Wallace, “everybody knows I wrote Harridan and if you call your picture Harridan, people will naturally think of me.”
“We’re not going to call it Harridan,” says L. N. “We’re calling it The Jade Necklace.”
Wallace and I were both goggle-eyed.
“We’ve changed your story a little,” says L. N., “but we’re basing it on your idea; that is, I got the idea for the picture we’re making from the title of your story. One of the meanings of ‘Harridan’ is ‘vixen’ or ‘jade.’ Well, I couldn’t figure out anything along the lines of a vixen, but jade was a setup. Everybody knows what jade is. So I gave Driscoll and Benham a rough outline of what I had in mind and the picture’s about half done already. The gang sails the day after tomorrow to shoot the balance of it—in Japan.”
“Japan!” said Wallace.
“Yes,” says L. N. “Of course a person naturally thinks of China when you think of jade, but somehow or other, Japan seems like a more romantic place and they’ll be there just in time to get some beautiful shots of the cherry blossoms.”
“I’d kind of like to hear the story,” says Wallace.
“I’ll give you an outline,” says L. N., “but I’m going to ask you to keep it under your hat. The story starts with the Pacific fleet of our navy—they’re going to cruise across the Pacific and look in at Japan and China and those places. Across the Pacific. Well, the story starts where they are leaving on this cruise. The hero is a lieutenant in the navy. Gifford Dean plays the part and you ought to see him in a naval uniform. Immense! The story starts where they are leaving on this cruise, across the Pacific, and they are saying goodbye to their Wives and sweethearts. The lieutenant—that’s the part Gifford Dean plays—he’s supposed to be married. Thelma Bowen Plays the wife, the lieutenant’s wife. They say goodbye to each other—she’s crying and hates to see him go. He tells her he’ll think of her every minute; that is, while he’s gone.
“We see the fleet leave after all the farewells and everything, and then we shoot over to Japan and we see them landing there. The sailors are going to enjoy themselves. And the officers, too. The lieutenant—that’s the hero, the part Gifford Dean plays—he is lonesome and he doesn’t go and drink or cut up with the rest of the men; that is, officers. He’s lonesome and he happens to meet a beautiful Japanese girl. And you ought to see Maida Guthrie as a Japanese! She’ll be a sensation! Maida’s playing the Japanese girl, the heroine in the picture, that falls in love with the lieutenant. That’s Gifford Dean.
“Well, the love-affair goes on; that is, he’s just homesick and misses his wife, but it’s a serious thing with the girl, the Japanese girl. That’s Maida Guthrie’s part. Finally the lieutenant sees that he can’t possess the girl unless he goes through with a Japanese marriage; naturally the marriage don’t mean anything to him, especially as he is already married, but he goes through with it in order to possess the girl, though one of his brother officers tells him it ain’t right. But he goes through with it.
“They pull off the Japanese: wedding, with the girl’s father and mother, both of them Japs, both there. And a girlfriend of the girl, another Japanese. And the lieutenant’s officer pal.
“Pretty soon the fleet sails away, back to America. The lieutenant: promises he’ll return to his Japanese ‘wife.’ Then we’ll show she and her Japanese girlfriend pining away for the lieutenant and after a while there’s a baby born and we’ll show the girl comforting herself with the baby and telling the baby that its daddy will come back some day.
“Then the fleet lands back in America, out on the Coast, and we show the lieutenant being welcomed home by his regular wife—Thelma Bowen. Then there’s some home shots and then the fleet takes another cruise across the Pacific, only this time the lieutenant’s wife goes along. And it winds up with the lieutenant’s real wife—the American wife—she meets the Japanese girl that only thinks she’s his wife, and when she finds out she ain’t his real wife, she kills herself and the kid. Or maybe we’ll end it a
