$500,000 Down

For nearly three years the ten owners of Life With Father sat tight and looked haughty. They were in no hurry: oil was gushing in their own backyard, and Hollywood's checks could be waved away. The ten owners--Producer Oscar Serlin, Adapters Lindsay & Crouse, Mrs. Clarence Day, John Hay Whitney and the rest--saw Life With Father gross $973,000 on Broadway the first year, $860,000 the second, could still count on a tidy sum the third, while road companies grossed $2,000,000 more. Inwardly they rocked with laughter thinking of the $15,000 Warner Bros, had once offered for the film rights; but last year when Mary Pickford offered half a million, their no was just as brusque.

Last week the ten owners finally unbent. With Producer Serlin about to go in the Army, they announced to the movie industry that Life With Father could be had. It was hardly an announcement; it was more like a proclamation. The unprecedented terms at which the bidding could start would have satisfied even Father:*

> $500,000 down, plus a percentage of the gross receipts.

> The film rights revert after seven years, and only one film can be made.

> The picture must be made entirely from the material in the play.

> Mrs. Day and Lindsay & Crouse are to have editorial jurisdiction over the movie, especially in matters of "good taste," and can stop any script they dislike from being filmed.

> No radio or television rights go with the sale.

> The picture cannot be released before the end of 1944. (The owners believe that Father will run for five years on Broadway.)

In Hollywood, cinemakers first gasped, then gulped. The general feeling was that the terms were fantastic, and if accepted would create a dangerous precedent. Warner's Charles Einfeld came closest to a favorable reaction about Father: "It's a tough deal but ... a terrific property." Most other people think that Serlin & Co. may have overreached themselves.

Husky, Polish-born, 41-year-old Producer Serlin once played football for Catholic De Paul University, where he was the only Jew in the student body. Stagestruck, he became a smalltime actor, later a smalltime producer, putting on several flops while rejecting such hits as Once in a Lifetime and Room Service. He found his feet as talent scout for Paramount, where he discovered Cary Grant, Margo, Gladys Swarthout, many another. Sniffing a hit in Clarence Day's Father sketches, he tied up the stage rights, commissioned Lindsay & Crouse to write the play. His last chore before entering the Army will be to produce their new one, Strip for Action, which reaches Broadway late this month.

* In real life the late Clarence Day Sr., crusty Wall Street broker of the horsecar days, son of the New York Sun's Founder Benjamin Day.

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