Artie Hayes, Famed 1950s Hollywood Screenwriter Passes At 94 (1925-2019)-A Fragment Of A Remembrance

By Sam Lowell

[Several weeks ago I mentioned in my version of a film review of an old film noir Clash directed by legendary Fritz Lang originally done in this publication by Sandy Salmon the name of the famous old-time Hollywood screenwriter Artie Hayes. I mentioned in passing as well that he had also been something of a bit player in a number of movies, especially if it called for a scriptwriter or other minor literary figure.

The specific role that I mentioned was from the Oscar-winning Sunset Boulevard. Let me just quote that segment-“If you remember that far back Artie, in one of his few basically cameo film appearances naturally as a screenwriter for a Hollywood studio laid on some serious advice to the William Holden character in Sunset Boulevard  about avoiding the high numbered residences on that street. Of course, the character didn’t listen and wound up face down in a swimming pool with two or three slugs in him courtesy of the female addressee at one of those high-numbered places.”

Somebody unknown to me saw the piece and forwarded me Artie’s obituary from the Hollywood Express. He had passed away almost unknown at 94 earlier this year out in a nursing home in Del Mar. That got me to thinking a bit about Artie and an interview I had with him from my younger days when he was probably at the beginning of the downside of his illustrious career in the early 1970s. This industry chews up writers and others very quickly, but especially writers and their ilk so over forty and you are a has-been. 

Since we are on the subject of Sunset Boulevard I should mention not only the bit role Artie played but how he “saved” the film when things were at a stand-still. As I will expand upon below Artie was the fixer man, the guy, and it was almost all guys then, who tweaked the plot-line when it was sagging. Billy Wilder, not known to like outside help, brought Artie in when he was stumped about how to do the opening scene. Originally it was to be an aerial view of Hollywood with Joe, the failed studio scriptwriter, the role that William Holden played going on and on about how he had made some serious wrong choices taking a job with faded silent screen actor Norma Desmond. Made a serious wrong choice winding up very death in her residence on high-numbered Sunset after she put a few slugs in him. Then cut to the back story-line that brought him there. Artie knowing that all those Boulevard estates had swimming pools suggested that the lines would go down more smoothly, would peak the audiences’ curiosity more having him land in the pool after being shot. Once they tried that scene and Artie sensed it wasn’t strong enough he had Billy have Joe graphically facing down in the water as the coppers get ready to drag his corpse out of the deep. Beautiful.

Artie did a few things around the middle too when the thing was dragging by having the “kept” Joe (by Norma) start an ill-starred romance with a fellow female writer more his own age which enraged Norma and set up the downfall and some suggestions on having the ending, having Norma coming down the stairs like it was an old-time vintage movie opening. But that opening scene magic which may have been the tipping point for the Oscar was the key. Sam Lowell]   

   

Artie Hayes, one of the last of the old-time screenwriters from Hollywood’s “golden age” has passed on at 94. When I say old-time I meant he was unlike the teams that work through the material today out there was what they called, a fixer, a lone wolf, a rare breed of talent who came in at high wages to work out a “hook” on some film that was going nowhere, nowhere fast and some producer who had sunk a ton of dough in the stinker needed him to get it in the can, and occasionally past the Hollywood Code censors. That Artie could do with his hands tied behind his back.

I knew him when I first headed west to San Francisco in the 1970s to work on a series of what were then called alternative newspapers, all of them now long gone except maybe the Bay City Gazette although the last time I looked a few years ago you could not distinguish it from a Hearst publication or maybe something from the Kane newspaper chain. I had been assigned by Ben Gold (still going at it at Literature Today which I write for occasionally, but which is also a publication a long way away from those halcyon days when the world was young) to do an interview with Artie. He had been in town working on fixing up I think one of those Steve McQueen car chase movies (which he did by cutting out three minutes of chase filler which had been making a test audience sick to their stomachs with the cars bouncing over the seven hills of that city) and had agreed to an interview. Not because he was some devotee of alternative newspapers, he didn’t know anything about them and what he did know he didn’t like being from the older generation and that even he admitted was clueless about the youth generation’s actions on the streets.       

The interview was fascinating for a young guy who was “faking” it mainly in the film reviewing business. Mainly reciting the plotlines and giving some banana ball twists about some scene or usually about how some actor, some female actor, was hot or not, or some male actor had no chemistry with whoever his leading lady was. Mostly filler since I was obliged in order to be paid, which even in the best of times was an iffy thing, to write about three thousand words to make my meat. In those days I was deep into drugs and booze as well (clean for twenty years now but it was close, very close) so half the time I would take the studio press releases and write a few opening remarks, slide in the studio gaff, and close with some pithy sentiment. Yeah, bullshit. But even if I had been stone-cold sober, had been a health nut let’s say I would have still not known anything about the inner workings of a film. Like what a fixer like Artie, was or the cut and paste done on most film scripts. Artie clued me in a little and gave me reference material to chew on. I probably never got all of it right but a good part.

During the interview which lasted several hours (and over drinks which were mandatory then in interviews with Hollywood-types) Artie gave me a ton of examples of what he had done, what he had fixed in his career. Of course the one thing I did know from my lonely and poor 1950s growing up was movies since I would almost every Saturday hit the local theater for the matinee double-headers presented there (and kept body and soul together for the afternoon with candy or pastry snuck in after purchase at the local variety store against the outrageous prices at the movie candy counter). That was Artie’s heyday, so I knew most of the films, or the plotlines anyway. Artie as did most writers in those days before Iowa Writers Workshops sprouted up never went to college, winged it but knew he could write. Just after World War II before the veteran deluge a young kid could catch a break in the studios. Artie did and as far as I know never had to look back.            

  

Right from the beginning Artie, remember this is Artie giving his presentation of himself, saw that to get anywhere, to make dough you had to get out of the “stables,” get out of the factory-like writing rooms filled young, ill-paid young writers with train smoke and dreams. He caught on first with the film Out of the Past from 1947. Maybe making a few dialogue changes, a little scene setting nothing big. But after a few weeks everybody knew the thing was sagging of its own weight. Not enough tension for a late 1940s film noir with femme Jane Greer and tough guy Robert Mitchum going down the silky sheets road and some foregone doom (unseen of course then). After Jane got her claws in him down in Mexico where she fled, and he followed her after being hired by a Reno gangster to bring her back they decided to slip back into the United States on the low. There was something missing though, some “drag” as Artie called it while they went through their paces on the run.

Now femme Jane was not above firing a few well-paced gunshots. she had done that, winged the Reno gangster in her getaway. Who knows with a gun simple woman how many before she had bang-banged when they got in her way, or she tired of them.  But nobody saw that side of her doing her evil work. Artie to the rescue to lift the drag but also to make everybody know Jane was poison. He had an originally minor character, a detective partner of Robert’s get hired by that gangster to find his partner and dear Jane. And the snoop does. Except things don’t go as planned for him or Robert. Not when Jane feels cornered. Jane shoots the guy and leaves a knocked-out Robert to take the heat, and plenty of time and space to get over his wounded heart. The plotline moves again with everybody in the audience knowing that these star-crossed lovers are doomed. Beautiful again.             

I have already mentioned the film Clash where the drag was that restless Mae had no female to talk to until Artie mentioned that Fritz Lang would do himself some good if Mae talked to her younger brother’s girlfriend who turned out to be a totally photogenic young Marilyn Monroe lolling around who added eye candy to a basic slow-mo plot that was heading nowhere once Mae took up with some grifter once she tired of her oafish husband married on the rebound. Not beautiful but a nice trick. Coming right up against the Hollywood Code he was the guy who had Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in that hot beach wave fade scene and you can figure the rest out to show times were changing. Originally Burt and Deborah were to stay in the car and Burt was to grab Deborah for some big but awkward embrace and that was that. There were many others and now that I think about it I will do a separate piece on Artie’s fixer man works.

[I was rummaging through my old yellowed printed page files to see if I had anything left from the old days on Artie Hayes. Those were times filled with booze and drugs, all kinds of both so my archival sense and skills were minimal-the only thing I found was part of some notes Artie made on the plot of Clash the one where he gave, unintentionally, Marilyn Monroe much more of a part on camera than she was to originally play. Yeah, Artie was the fixer man when that meant something. Sam Lowell]      

She returns to her small family home where her brother, a commercial fisherman, remember old-time Monterey was the sardine capital of the world, is enthralled by Peggy, played by Marilyn Monroe, who is a lot more forgiving about the fate of a lost sister than her brother who nevertheless lets her stay. While keeping a low profile as something of a home body her brother’s boat captain, Jerry, played by gruff and throaty Paul Douglas, a regular stiff comes a-courting. After a while, succumbing to a strong desire to have somebody take care of her, to be settled she accepts Jerry’s offer of marriage. Even in accepting Jerry’s proposal though she warned him that she was spoiled goods.           

Things go along for a while with Jerry and Mae, about a year, during which they have a child, a baby girl, but Mae begins to get the wanderlust, begins to get antsy around the very ordinary and plebian Jerry. Enter Earl, or rather re-enter Earl, Jerry’s friend, who had been interested in Mae from day one when Jerry introduced them. He, in the meantime, was now divorced and takes dead aim at Mae. And she takes the bait, falls hard for the fast-talking cynical Earl. They plan for Mae to fly the coop with the baby and a new life. [This is where Artie’s magic enters the scene-SL] Not so fast though once they confront Jerry with their affair, with his being cuckolded. This is where the dialogue gets right down to basics. Mae gives Jerry what’s what about her and Earl, about her needs. Jerry, blinders off, builds up a head of steam and in another scene almost kills Earl before he realized what he was doing. 

This is the “pivot.” Jerry takes the baby on his boat. Mae suddenly realizes that the baby means more to her than Earl who as it turned out didn’t give a rat’s ass about the child. Having been once bitten though when Mae goes to Jerry to seek reconciliation he is lukewarm but as she turns to leave he relents. Maybe they can work things out, or at least that is the look on Mae’s face when she is brought back into the fold at the end of the film.  You really have to see this film to get a sense of the raw emotions on display, and on the contrary feelings each character has about his or her place in the sun. Nicely done Fritz and crew, nicely done.