Review of Some Time in the Sun by Tom Dardis (1976)
Some Time in the Sun:The Hollywood Years of F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Nathanael West, Aldous Huxley, and James Agee. By Tom Dardis. New York: Scribner, 1976. 274 Pages.
By Patrick Charsky
Never before have the “Bad Old Days” of Hollywood’s Golden Age been so rehabilitated then in Tom Dardis’s Some Time in the Sun. In a very well researched work of Film History, Tom Dardis revealingly portrays the lives, struggles, and successes of five famous writers who sought fame and fortune in Hollywood. Tom Dardis was a Writer and Professor for many years He published several books including a biography of Buster Keaton. Dardis died in 2001. Dardis’s book is unique in that it finds positive outcomes to the careers of writers who have, traditionally, been thought of as failing in Hollywood. Dardis makes mention of biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald which all paint his last years in Hollywood as utter failures. Dardiss does his research and finds that Fitzgerald had some successes including regaining his creativity that he thought he had lost.
It is discoveries like this that make the book enjoyable to read. There were several reasons that the five writers in this book made the journey to Hollywood during the Depression and World War II years. Financial, a passion for movies, and creative are what are paramount in this short book of Hollywood lore.
Financial reasons are the most important for Fitzgerald and William Faulkner. Both writers struggled in the 1930’s to make ends meet. They couldn’t support themselves by writing short stories and novels; they had to find other ways to make money from writing. Dardis details the struggles of Fitzgerlad and Faulkner by using sources like letters from the writers to their publishers. Fitzgerald writes to his publisher that he desperately needs money. Faulkner sends out telegrams also begging for an advance. These short messages show just how desperate Fitzgerald and Faulkner were for any kind of money. Dardis provides many details about how much Fitzgerald and Faulkner made. Still they fared better than Nathanael West who worked on “poverty row” in Hollywood.
Dardis shows how Fitzgerald, for a time, got out of debt and became solvent for his short stay at MGM. Eventually he was released and had to find another source of income. Contrary to myth, Dardis shows that Fitzgerald was mostly a hard working, sober, employee who made some ill advised decisions which led to his contract non-renewal at MGM. Fitzgerald’s time in Hollywood was not a complete failure
According to another Hollywood myth, William Faulkner detested Hollywood; he disliked the people, the climate, just about everything aggravated Faulkner when he was working in Hollywood. If he hated it so much, why did he come back time and again for a period of almost 30 years? He needed money. And Dardis’s research shows Faulkner having too many dependents and not enough money to support them. Still, Dardiss shows that Faulkner was influenced by his Hollywood work. One of his best novels, The Wild Palms, shows the influence of his screenwriting work on his fiction. Faulkner was similar to Fitzgerald in that he made some good sums of money for his work at several major studios. Dardis writes of Faulkner’s attitude toward working in Hollywood, “was to be fun, but profitable fun.”
The large, quick sums of money the Studio System offered in those days drew in many writers. Even a writer of such stature as Aldous Huxley who never endured the hardships that Fitzgerald or Faulkner endured was a contract writer in Hollywood for sometime. And while Fitzgerald and Faulkner struggled to master screenwriting, Huxley wrote superb screenplays and was welcomed back after the success of his two literary adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.
In contrast to Huxley, Fitzgerald, or even Faulkner, Nathanael West made “schlock” films for very low pay at the bottom of the Studio System. His films are hardly remembered and difficult to find on a website like Amazon.com. Only his novel, The Day of the Locust, and it’s 1970’s film adaptation survive in easily accessible form. The film is, in many ways, the antithesis of Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon. The Last Tycoon shows the romance and beauty of an Irving Thalberg like Studio Executive. This is in stark contrast to all of the characters in West’s book, most of whom are movie extras or art designers trying to make ends meet. It shows the underbelly and artifice of the Golden Age, whereas The Last Tycoon shows that same World from the top of the food chain. As will be discussed later, these two classic books show how Fitzgerald and West experienced a rebirth or high point in their creative output for fiction.
Dardis doesn’t pick just writers who went to Hollywood for the money. In a short, but interesting chapter, he talks about James Agee. Agee is the one writer who had the most passion for films in the book. Very different from Faulkner who had no interest in movies, Agee was a passionate supporter who became a famous film critic in the 1940’s. Dardis writes that Agee thought Hollywood films of the 1940’s were “routine junk.” Dardis shows how Agee was developing as a Screenwriter and Film Director only to have his life shortened by bad health brought on by heavy drinking and smoking.
Fitzgerald also showed an interest in films. He was “the high priest of the Jazz Age” and his tastes changed little from that era of decadence. He was obsessed with money and class, which led to his spurning of many of the creative workers in Hollywood. Fitzgerald never made friends with Directors during his time working for the Big Studios. Instead he made friends with producers, thinking there would be more money by associating with the money people. Dardis shows that this was ill advised on the part of Fitzgerald, for he never met a Director like Howard Hawks who greatly aided William Faulkner in his time in Hollywood. Or even Agee who was aided by his association with John Huston. Even so, Fitzgerald thought he could make great films and have an effect on American Cinema.
Working in Hollywood might have been most beneficial for Fitzgerald, particularly for creative reasons. Time and again, Dardis writes about how Fitzgerald was rejected over and over for his short stories, and how he couldn’t “get started” on a novel. By the time his short life came to end he had written another classic novel; The Last Tycoon. Dardis shows that Fitzgerald experienced a creative rebirth of sorts by working in Hollywood. Dardis writes, “The Last Tycoon is undeniable proof that Fitzgerald enjoyed a second brief, brilliant rebirth in Hollywood.”
I found out about this book by reading Patrick McGilligan’s Backstory 1: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Backstory is a superior text than Some Time in the Sun. It shows the range of screenwriters and reveals their anecdotes and personalities in ways that Some Time in the Sun doesn’t. Still, Some Time in the Sun has quality writing and debunks lies told in other sources, particularly the book about Fitzgerlad’s years in Hollywood, Crazy Sundays. Dardis does an excellent job in tearing apart the myth that Fitzgerald was a beaten, broken man portrayed in Crazy Sundays or in Bud Schulberg’s The Disenchanted. In other parts of the book it reads, many times, as a scandal sheet for drunken episodes by Fitzgerald or Faulkner.
The other chapters are rather light on sources. Huxley, West, and Agee are given a rather short treatment that makes for introductory reading that could be source material for longer treatments. Perhaps, they are short because Huxley and Agee didn’t write all that many screenplays. I would assume that most of what West wrote for the “Poverty Row” studios is either lost or inaccessible when Some Time in the Sun was written in 1976.
I think Dardis’s book is an adequate foray into the lives of five famous screenwriters who sought fame and fortune in Hollywood. The book debunks myths about Fitzgerald and shows the life of West; the life of a low paid Screenwriter who was all but forgotten at the time of his early death. That being said, it can’t be denied that there is a definite thread of literary snobbery that runs through the book from each of the writers save James Agee. Faulkner looked down at Movies. So did West. And Fitzgerald. They only used Hollywood jobs to fund their living expenses because their Fiction didn’t sell. All of them, with the exception of Huxley who advocated LSD usage, were alcoholics. Dardis succeeds well here by showing how alcohol abuse negatively affected Fitzgerald, Agee, and most in detail Faulkner. One can only guess at how their creative process and production was affected by periods of extended inebriation.
Most of the modest success of these five writers pales in comparison to screenwriters documented in McGilligan’s Backstory 1. With the exception of Faulkner’s contribution to The Big Sleep, none of the films written by the five writers in Some Time in the Sun has stood up while to History. Dardis makes clear, however, in his introduction to the book that the work these writers did in Hollywood “is superb, and some of it is quite bad by any standard; but nearly all of it is interesting.” I think the same statement could be applied to Dardis’s book; it is quite good, some parts are only adequate, but on the whole it is an interesting read.
By Patrick Charsky
Never before have the “Bad Old Days” of Hollywood’s Golden Age been so rehabilitated then in Tom Dardis’s Some Time in the Sun. In a very well researched work of Film History, Tom Dardis revealingly portrays the lives, struggles, and successes of five famous writers who sought fame and fortune in Hollywood. Tom Dardis was a Writer and Professor for many years He published several books including a biography of Buster Keaton. Dardis died in 2001. Dardis’s book is unique in that it finds positive outcomes to the careers of writers who have, traditionally, been thought of as failing in Hollywood. Dardis makes mention of biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald which all paint his last years in Hollywood as utter failures. Dardiss does his research and finds that Fitzgerald had some successes including regaining his creativity that he thought he had lost.
It is discoveries like this that make the book enjoyable to read. There were several reasons that the five writers in this book made the journey to Hollywood during the Depression and World War II years. Financial, a passion for movies, and creative are what are paramount in this short book of Hollywood lore.
Financial reasons are the most important for Fitzgerald and William Faulkner. Both writers struggled in the 1930’s to make ends meet. They couldn’t support themselves by writing short stories and novels; they had to find other ways to make money from writing. Dardis details the struggles of Fitzgerlad and Faulkner by using sources like letters from the writers to their publishers. Fitzgerald writes to his publisher that he desperately needs money. Faulkner sends out telegrams also begging for an advance. These short messages show just how desperate Fitzgerald and Faulkner were for any kind of money. Dardis provides many details about how much Fitzgerald and Faulkner made. Still they fared better than Nathanael West who worked on “poverty row” in Hollywood.
Dardis shows how Fitzgerald, for a time, got out of debt and became solvent for his short stay at MGM. Eventually he was released and had to find another source of income. Contrary to myth, Dardis shows that Fitzgerald was mostly a hard working, sober, employee who made some ill advised decisions which led to his contract non-renewal at MGM. Fitzgerald’s time in Hollywood was not a complete failure
According to another Hollywood myth, William Faulkner detested Hollywood; he disliked the people, the climate, just about everything aggravated Faulkner when he was working in Hollywood. If he hated it so much, why did he come back time and again for a period of almost 30 years? He needed money. And Dardis’s research shows Faulkner having too many dependents and not enough money to support them. Still, Dardiss shows that Faulkner was influenced by his Hollywood work. One of his best novels, The Wild Palms, shows the influence of his screenwriting work on his fiction. Faulkner was similar to Fitzgerald in that he made some good sums of money for his work at several major studios. Dardis writes of Faulkner’s attitude toward working in Hollywood, “was to be fun, but profitable fun.”
The large, quick sums of money the Studio System offered in those days drew in many writers. Even a writer of such stature as Aldous Huxley who never endured the hardships that Fitzgerald or Faulkner endured was a contract writer in Hollywood for sometime. And while Fitzgerald and Faulkner struggled to master screenwriting, Huxley wrote superb screenplays and was welcomed back after the success of his two literary adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.
In contrast to Huxley, Fitzgerald, or even Faulkner, Nathanael West made “schlock” films for very low pay at the bottom of the Studio System. His films are hardly remembered and difficult to find on a website like Amazon.com. Only his novel, The Day of the Locust, and it’s 1970’s film adaptation survive in easily accessible form. The film is, in many ways, the antithesis of Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon. The Last Tycoon shows the romance and beauty of an Irving Thalberg like Studio Executive. This is in stark contrast to all of the characters in West’s book, most of whom are movie extras or art designers trying to make ends meet. It shows the underbelly and artifice of the Golden Age, whereas The Last Tycoon shows that same World from the top of the food chain. As will be discussed later, these two classic books show how Fitzgerald and West experienced a rebirth or high point in their creative output for fiction.
Dardis doesn’t pick just writers who went to Hollywood for the money. In a short, but interesting chapter, he talks about James Agee. Agee is the one writer who had the most passion for films in the book. Very different from Faulkner who had no interest in movies, Agee was a passionate supporter who became a famous film critic in the 1940’s. Dardis writes that Agee thought Hollywood films of the 1940’s were “routine junk.” Dardis shows how Agee was developing as a Screenwriter and Film Director only to have his life shortened by bad health brought on by heavy drinking and smoking.
Fitzgerald also showed an interest in films. He was “the high priest of the Jazz Age” and his tastes changed little from that era of decadence. He was obsessed with money and class, which led to his spurning of many of the creative workers in Hollywood. Fitzgerald never made friends with Directors during his time working for the Big Studios. Instead he made friends with producers, thinking there would be more money by associating with the money people. Dardis shows that this was ill advised on the part of Fitzgerald, for he never met a Director like Howard Hawks who greatly aided William Faulkner in his time in Hollywood. Or even Agee who was aided by his association with John Huston. Even so, Fitzgerald thought he could make great films and have an effect on American Cinema.
Working in Hollywood might have been most beneficial for Fitzgerald, particularly for creative reasons. Time and again, Dardis writes about how Fitzgerald was rejected over and over for his short stories, and how he couldn’t “get started” on a novel. By the time his short life came to end he had written another classic novel; The Last Tycoon. Dardis shows that Fitzgerald experienced a creative rebirth of sorts by working in Hollywood. Dardis writes, “The Last Tycoon is undeniable proof that Fitzgerald enjoyed a second brief, brilliant rebirth in Hollywood.”
I found out about this book by reading Patrick McGilligan’s Backstory 1: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Backstory is a superior text than Some Time in the Sun. It shows the range of screenwriters and reveals their anecdotes and personalities in ways that Some Time in the Sun doesn’t. Still, Some Time in the Sun has quality writing and debunks lies told in other sources, particularly the book about Fitzgerlad’s years in Hollywood, Crazy Sundays. Dardis does an excellent job in tearing apart the myth that Fitzgerald was a beaten, broken man portrayed in Crazy Sundays or in Bud Schulberg’s The Disenchanted. In other parts of the book it reads, many times, as a scandal sheet for drunken episodes by Fitzgerald or Faulkner.
The other chapters are rather light on sources. Huxley, West, and Agee are given a rather short treatment that makes for introductory reading that could be source material for longer treatments. Perhaps, they are short because Huxley and Agee didn’t write all that many screenplays. I would assume that most of what West wrote for the “Poverty Row” studios is either lost or inaccessible when Some Time in the Sun was written in 1976.
I think Dardis’s book is an adequate foray into the lives of five famous screenwriters who sought fame and fortune in Hollywood. The book debunks myths about Fitzgerald and shows the life of West; the life of a low paid Screenwriter who was all but forgotten at the time of his early death. That being said, it can’t be denied that there is a definite thread of literary snobbery that runs through the book from each of the writers save James Agee. Faulkner looked down at Movies. So did West. And Fitzgerald. They only used Hollywood jobs to fund their living expenses because their Fiction didn’t sell. All of them, with the exception of Huxley who advocated LSD usage, were alcoholics. Dardis succeeds well here by showing how alcohol abuse negatively affected Fitzgerald, Agee, and most in detail Faulkner. One can only guess at how their creative process and production was affected by periods of extended inebriation.
Most of the modest success of these five writers pales in comparison to screenwriters documented in McGilligan’s Backstory 1. With the exception of Faulkner’s contribution to The Big Sleep, none of the films written by the five writers in Some Time in the Sun has stood up while to History. Dardis makes clear, however, in his introduction to the book that the work these writers did in Hollywood “is superb, and some of it is quite bad by any standard; but nearly all of it is interesting.” I think the same statement could be applied to Dardis’s book; it is quite good, some parts are only adequate, but on the whole it is an interesting read.
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