Tales of a Script Girl

When we film buffs talk about movies, there are certain people we discuss. This includes actors, directors, writers, cinematographers and composers. One person we hardly ever discuss is the script person. That is why an article that discusses what it is like to be a script girl immediately caught my eye when going through old movie magazines. To make this article all the more interesting was that it was written by a script girl herself, Jeanne de Korty. Here is that article, dated 1931, from Picture Play Magazine and titled "The Ups and Downs of a Script Girl."

"'You're fired!' Director George Archainbaud wrathfully eyed his twenty-year-old script clerk Willy. The company had just returned from location at Catalina Island; and the script clerk, who possessed the only copy of the scenario which contained complete notes on action, wardrobe, and other detail on 'The Storm Daughter,' had left these valuable notes at Catalina.

"The company was in a quandary. A director depends on his script clerk to make notations of action and wardrobe and to assist in matching scenes. Remembering all the little details that go into the making of a picture is a tremendous task, almost impossible without the script clerk's notes, in many instances and Willy had lost all the valuable data which had been recorded during shooting the scenes on location.

"Willy's gait as he left the studio, was confident and carefree. He had been fired and having been in America but a short time; talked with a marked German accent; but his misfortunes could not squelch Willy - he knew what he could do and the opinions of other mattered little to him.

"Director Archainbaud was not so carefree. Upon his shoulders had fallen the task of recalling from memory all the things which Willy's notes should have informed him. A mistake might cost hundreds of dollars.

"What an awful situation that kid Willy got the company into! He had no business trying to break into motion pictures. Nobody could play around the day he did and succeed in the business.

"Not long ago director, William Wyler sat in his chair watching action on 'The Storm' a success was doubly difficult, since it was a great box office hit as a silent picture, and must be an even better talkie, in order to command public attention.

"Willy had, at the age of 28 become one of the most promising directors of Hollywood. To him had been entrusted the making of a picture that involved a small fortune. His cast included Lupe Velez, William Boyd, and Paul Cavanaugh, whose salaries alone amount to several thousand dollars a week.

"In studio jargon Willy had become a big shot. Director Archainbaud may be hard on script clerks - we won't discuss that question- but woe to the girl who makes a mistake on a Wyler production.

"Consider the time when Jeanne, the script girl on 'The Storm,' forgot that in one scene Cavanaugh was smoking a cigarette. Close ups of the shot were made several weeks later, and the heavy had no cigarette in his hand. Retakes of the scene cost the producers somewhere between $1000 and $1,500; and if you don't think Jeanne got the dickens - well just ask her.

"'The nerve! The very never of any one suggesting that a girl with my brains become an actress!' Carmelita Geraghty, she of the big brown eyes and personality which has delighted thousands of fans was speaking. 'I was a script girl. It takes brains to be a script girl despite popular opinion that all script clerks are a little bit crazy, but all one has to do to be an actress is look pretty - anyway that's what I thought before I tried it.'

"It took a mistake to convince Carmelita that she might be wrong. She was just another script girl to Mickey Neilan who was directing 'Fool's First,' at the old Metropolitan studio. The company had been shooting almost sixteen hours without a rest and Carmelita being a healthy child still in her teens was growing sleepy.

"The company had moved from an interior to an exterior set. The cameras were grinding, the actors were emoting and Mickey Neilan was engrossed in the scene. Carmelita glanced at her notes. Heavens! There it was along the side of her script - 'Ray Griffith - beard'! While inside the house, the leading man had displayed a luxuriant growth of a bread and now, in the exterior scene, his beard had like a magic cloak in a Grimm fairytale, suddenly melted into thin air!

"'It must have cost at least $1200 to remake that scene,' laughed Carmelita. She can afford to laugh now. To the girl who once worked night and day for $35.00 a week, that modest stipend has become a mere pittance; but at the time the occurrence was so serious that the script girl decided to become an actress at the very first opportunity, because she was a dismal failure as a taker of notes.

"Dorothy Arzner, at present the only really famous woman director, was one script girl who made a mistake - but then Dorothy is like that. She is perhaps the only director who does not depend upon her script clerks to help her remember details.

"'I think a script clerk is of my value to the cutter than the director,' says this unusual young woman. 'I never worry about my script girls. I know they are doing their work well; if they weren't, they wouldn't be working for me. I believe it is the director's duty to remember everything that happens on the set. He is responsible for the picture and should not have to trust anyone else for things he should know. I know that if I attend to my business while working on a production everything will be alright. I never worry about the other fellow.'

"Miss Arzner directed 'The Wild Party,' with Clara Bow, 'Sarah and Son' and 'Anybody's Woman,' with Ruth Chatterton, and she is next to direct Claudette Colbert.

"For anyone who wishes to break into any branch, particularly scenario writing script work is extraordinary experience. The script girl works constantly at the side of the director. Her job includes making notations of all the costumes worn the action of each scene and since the advent of talking pictures, to check all dialogue.

"If a heroine wears a coat in one scene, she must be seen removing the coat, or she must continue to wear the coat for the rest of the sequence. It is the script girls job to see that this is done.

"Matching scenes is one of the difficult tasks in making a picture. Usually a master scene is made in medium or long shots. When this is completed, the camera is moved to get closeups of the characters. In close ups each actor must go through the same actions or business in the long shots, so the scene can be cut at any point of action, from a long shot to close up or vice versa, and the scene will continue smoothly.

"If a man is seen in a standing position in a long shot, he cannot suddenly be seated in a closeup, but must be shown in the act of sitting down. If he is seen in one end of the room, he cannot suddenly fly to the other end of the room without taking a step, but must be seen walking across the set.

"Often mistakes are made by the cutter for which the script clerk is blamed. A man may apparently jump from one end to the other, although a scene showing him walking across has been taken. The script clerk may be blamed for neglect, while in reality it is the cutter who has omitted the scene from the picture.

"In sound pictures it is as important for dialogue to match as it is for action. Exactly the same words must be spoken in long shots as in closeups, so that the cutter can change from one shot to another in the middle of the word, should he so desire, and the sentence will continue smoothly, without repetition or omission of words.

"Many cutters have broken into this specialty as script clerks. Other script clerks have become writers, as in the case of Marion Dix, Paramount's twenty-four-year-old writer, who only a short time ago was just a script girl. She made use of every opportunity to talk with scenario writers and directors and, through her constant contact with them, she was finally given an opportunity to prove she could write.

"Alice White is another former script girl who took advantage of her opportunity to meet and talk with directors - the only script girl to become a star.

"A visitor walking onto the set may envy the script girl her job as she sits on her chair apparently doing nothing. If the same visitor attempted to keep track of action, dialogue and a hundred other details at the same time, he would realize that the script girl has no easy task. She takes the blame for her own mistakes and those of nearly everybody else on the set - in fact the poor script girl stands plenty of gaff! No wonder they say that all of them are crazy."