Hollywood Bound

Nothing succeeds quite like a Broadway success; but when playwrights really clean up it is by selling their smash hits to Hollywood. In 1939 Hollywood paid almost $1,000,000 for 17 Broadway plays. In the first two months of 1940 it paid about half that for five. But though plays are selling faster and for generally higher prices this year than last, most of Broadway's fanciest merchandise is still on the counter.

Of the plays sold since Jan. 1, none has brought anything like last year's $250,000 plus royalties for The American Way, $225,000 plus royalties for Abe Lincoln In Illinois. The Male Animal went to Warner Brothers for $150,000; The Little Foxes to Samuel Goldwyn for $100,000 (minimum guarantee) ; Night Music to its backers for $25,000 plus percentage; Too Many Girls to R. K. 0. for $100,000; Two On An Island to R. K. O. for $50,000.

Still unsold are Broadway's two super smashes, Life With Father and The Man Who Came to Dinner. Life insists, naming no names, that it has had offers up to $300,000. The Man insists that it is not for sale, that its authors, George S. Kaufman & Moss Hart, will film it themselves.

Other unsold successes: Clare Boothe's Margin For Error, William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, the bawdy musicomedy Du Barry Was a Lady, which if filmed would have to be housebroken or probably go in one Hays Office door and out the other; the John Barrymore fandango, My Dear Children; and, despite many reported deals, The Philadelphia Story.

A dud on the bargain counter for six years, Tobacco Road is suddenly being fingered as quality merchandise. Hollywood's new theory is that people have just got to see a movie made from the play that has busted all Broadway records. Meanwhile Tobacco Road, which fancies it is good for another two years on Broadway, and an eon on the road, feels it can afford to sit tight until it fetches a big fat price.

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