New Cliché Wanted

By SGT. SCOTT CORBETT

EVERY time there’s a movie about a song writer, the same thing happens — he plays a song for some big publisher smoking a dollar cigar who assures him it’s a sour apple, and all the time we recognize the song to be “Ida” or “Shine On, Harvest Moon,”and wonder how the publisher could be so stupid. I’ve seen that episode twenty times, nine of them in technicolor.

After a while you begin to wonder how these alleged big-time song publishers ever got so big, if they can’t ever recognize a great new song writer, not even once in twenty times. Why, the way they act in movies, they’d never add a new song writer to their lists in a million years. But I can’t believe it. They couldn’t be that stupid and live. So just out of fairness to big music publishers, I’ve written a scene in which they get to be the smart people for a change; and if any movie studio would like to use it in a movie, they’re welcome to try it.

In this scene Bopp & Terwilliger, big-time Broadway publishers, are sitting around in their office and Bopp happens to glance out the window.

BOPP: There goes that young feller who was in here last week.

TERWILLIGER: Who’s that, Bopp?

BOPP: You know, Willie, — young Herbert. Think I’ll call him in. We haven’t anything to do till Delmonico’s opens, and he might have something new. Mark my words, some day he’s going to come through with a smash.

TERWILLIGER: You’re telling me. I sensed it from the first.

BOPP: Well, that’s your job. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be a big-time song publisher. (Goes to window and calls down.) Hey, Vic! Got a minute?

HERBERT (from below): Sure!

BOPP: Good. Come on up, will you?

(There is an interval during which Bopp & Terwilliger tell a two-line joke to give young Herbert time enough to get up off his knees outside the window, walk around the corner of the set, and enter door left.)

HERBERT: I ran up the eight flights of stairs as quickly as I could.

BOPP: Well — ha-r-rumph! — we don’t like to be kept waiting, but it’s all right, my boy. Sit down.

HERBERT: Thank you, Mr. Bopp.

BOPP: Now, then, Vic. I called you up here because we thought perhaps you might have knocked out some new number or other since we saw you last week. Have you ?

HERBERT: Wel-l-l, I did write one song, if you can call it a song.

BOPP: Fine! Let’s hear it!

HERBERT: Oh, it’s nothing, really. It’s nothing that would ever go over.

BOPP: We’re the best judges of that. After all, that’s our business.

HERBERT: Well, all right, I’ll run over it for you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you’ve got anything else to do — I don’t remember the words offhand, but I can play the tune for you, if you can call it a tune. (Strikes a chord and begins to play, singing carelessly as he plays.) Ah, la-dum-dumdummy-dum — at last I’ve found you, ah-h, dee-yummy-dummy — secret of it all. . . . (Plays rest of song, while Bopp & Terwilliger listen enrapt, the fire of recognition glowing in their eyes.) . . . Tee-yum-dee-dum — ‘Tis the answer, ‘tis the answer — la-dee-yum-dum, dum-dummy-yum-deedummy-dum — dum — DUM! . . . (Turns from piano disgustedly.) Dumb is right! Isn’t that a dog, though?

BOPP (shaking head indulgently): You composers! You wouldn’t know a hit if one crept up and bit you. (Impressively) My boy, that song you just played will become famous overnight!

HERBERT: Gosh! Honest, Mr. Bopp?

BOPP: Absolutely. Right, Willie? Don’t answer that — I know you agree. Vic, this is an old story with us. Reminds me of another time, when another young jackanapes tried to tell us a song he’d just written would never get anywhere. Lad named Payne.

HERBERT: That so? What was the song?

BOPP: “Home, Sweet Home.”

(Blackout)

That’s the kind of music publishers I want to see movies about!