Ring Lardner

Winifred Times/September 7, 1928

To the Editor:

In a recent letter I give my readers the story of a friend of mine name Joe Cooper that was not getting along so good in his regular job and finally began to take correspondence courses by mail in other lines like short-story writing and expert acct and cartoonist and etc., and after a wile he got so as he was knocking out close to 50 thousand per annum for his spare time.

Wile theys still another field yet that Joe hasn’t went in it and that is writeing photo plays and great big money is promised for good ones because god knows they are a rare bird and if they is some of my readers that finds trouble making both ends meet the other and could use a couple 100 thousand a year extra earned in their spare time, why here is the field to go into.

You can pick up most any magazine and find a dozen ads of correspondence schools that learns you how to write photo plays or movies as I have nicknamed them, but how are you going to know that the people that run them schools has ever wrote a photo play themselves and for all you know you may be paying your tuitions to a bird that ain’t done anything all their life but pluck pimples off a putting green.

So in order to protect my readers from these kind of vipers I have made it up in my mind to start a school of my own along these lines and my qualifications is that I have wrote 2 photo plays and they both flopped like the sure thing and my system of teaching will do to learn my pupils to write photo plays opposite to like I wrote.

The big money in the screen game today lays in reel comedys.

The things that is necessary in writeing 1 reel comedys is (1) a catchy title (2) a funny idea (3) plenty of laughs (4) witty sub titles. As a sample of what will go and go big, the Ring School of Photo Play Writing gives the following speciment of a 1 reel comedy.

As a title for this picture we have chose “The Finny Tribe” which in itself will knock them for a goal.

Characters:

GEORGE WOTTLE, a fishmonger (comedy lead)

GERTRUDE WOTTLE, his wife, (comedy lead)

MINNIE QUAGMIRE, her rival (soubrette)

AL SWAMP, a private detective (heavy comedy)

BABY WOTTLE, the Wottle baby (Juvenile)

A Minister of the Gospel, Wottle’s clients, etc.

Continuity:

Scene 1—George is in his store sorting fish. A client comes in and looks over the stock. Sub-title: “The customer asks for a flounder.” George picks up a fish and hits the client in the eye with it, knocking him down. Sub-title: “I guess that will flound you.” Another client comes in the store. Sub-title: “The customer asks for finnan haddie, but George tells him he only keeps weak fish.” The client falls down and tears his trousers.

Scene 2—Gertie is at home sitting on the lounge and pulling superfluous hairs out of Baby Wottle’s head. The telephone rings. Gertie goes to answer it. Sub-title: “The wrong number.” Baby Wottle falls off the lounge and lands on his bean. Sub-title: “Oh, what a headache.”

Scene 3—George and Minnie are spooning in the hammock on the Wottle porch. Gertie comes out of the house and catches them. Sub-title: “Caught in the act.” The hammock breaks and the lovers set down suddenly on the floor. Sub-title: “It couldn’t of been a very good hammock.”

Scene 4—George goes to Swamp’s detective agency and hires Al Swamp to take up the case. Al puts on his shoes and starts out with Gertie. Sub-title: “The plot sickens.” As they are leaving Al’s office a swinging door hits them in the eye and knocks them down. Sub-title: “In again, out again, Finnegan.”

Scene 5—George and Minnie are spooning in the fish store. Minnie steps on a eel and falls down. Sub-title: “Minnie says her eel slipped. George tells her she ought to wear rubber ones.” Al and Gertie come in the store and surprise the lovers. George runs to a fish box and sets on a perch. George tries to get down but falls and tears his trousers. Al tries to pick him up but slips on the slippery floor and tears his trousers. Sub-title: “Al thinks theys more to be patched up than the marital affairs of the Wottles.”

Scene 6—They all go to the Wottle home. Minnie loses her interest in George and falls in love with Al. They decide to get married. Sub-title: “Al asks the fair Minnie to become his bride. She says O.K.” Al summons a minister and him and Minnie are married with the Wottles as witnesses. Sub-title: “The knot is tied.”

Scene 7—The party adjourns to the dining room where a fish breakfast is served. Sub-title: “London Bridges is falling down.” In the midst of the hilarity, Baby Wottle chokes on a fish bone and croaks. Sub-title: “Eat jelly fish. No bones.”

There you have got your catchy title, your funny idea, your laughable situations and your humorous sub titles. Further and more the construction is perfect you might say.