Americana

Sunday, July 4th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Edgar Selwyn has been here for the weekend. Edgar gave me some good tips about screen-writing. He said: "You haven't got to write for London, you have to write for Thorpe." I added to this and said: "You have to write for a Thorpe man who can't hear and who can only read simple words." I see that any projected revolution in the film can only be done gradually.

Edgar told me that the rents of N.Y. theatres ran from 40 to 70 thousand dollars p.a., and that the Morosco was $45,000. I already knew how much the Morosco holds. It held $16,000 a week for "Sacred and Profane Love". Edgar read two acts of "The Bright Island" while he was here and I doubt if he saw anything in it at all. He said that political plays always failed in U.S.A., and that you could not interest the U.S.A. people even in politics themselves, to say nothing of plays about politics. I don't believe either of these statements.

Speaking of the labour question in U.S.A., Edgar said that for the big Labour meetings the streets were always choked with cars - and not Fords either. It is obvious of course that if there are 12 million cars in use in U.S.A. a vast number of working men must possess cars. It means one to less than every nine of the total population, men, women and children.

See also, 'Sailing for home' - November 30th., http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/sailing-for-home.html