One of the smallest minorities in Hollywood nowadays is the group that believes James Joyce’s Ulysses will be made into a superior movie … behind the entire hoopla is Jerry Wald, the producer … he prepared a memorandum … that included the following: “The way I would like to see this story on the screen is to oversimplify it. It has three levels: Stephen Dedalus, the intellectual; Leopold Bloom, the passive, ill-informed victim of habitual feelings; and Mrs. Bloom, sensual, carnal, wholly natural. Thus, the three leading characters represent Pride, Love, and The Flesh. My feeling is that this project is really in its purest form: father searching for his son and son searching for his father. It is a highly controversial book and out of it could be created a motion picture as exciting as Peyton Place but on a higher level.” —The Times
… YES a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose they’re just getting out on the lot at Fox now Marilyn Monroe combing out her hair for the day let me see if I can doze off 1 2 3 4 5 where was it in Jerrys memorandum yes oversimplify O I love great books Id love to have the whole of Hollywood filming nothing but great books God in heaven theres nothing like literature pre sold to the public the treatment and the working script by Dalton Trumbo and the finished picture in color and Todd A O as for them saying theres no audience interest in pictures based on great books I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their motivational research indie exhibs whatever they call themselves why dont they go out and make a picture I ask them and do a socko 21 Gs in Philly and a wow 41 in Chi ah that they cant answer yes in its purest form father searching for his son and son searching for his father chance for myriad boffolas there old man staggers out one door of pub where the beer and the boffola foam while kid goes in other O I love a good laugh Stephen Dedalus the intellectual we might try to get Paul Newman for the part hes a strong BO draw in Exodus certainly hed do very nicely too better soft pedal the egghead bit though make him a newspaper reporter have to shoot a lot of location stuff in Dublin by the waters of the Liffey by the rivering waters of we might fake it on the back lot and bring it in under three million or else knock up the budget and spot celebs the way Columbia did with Pepe it coined a huge forty five thou in its first week on Bway gives the property a touch of class I wonder could we get Bobby Darin on a percentage deal to sing Galway Bay I better have Sammy check in the morning where the hell Galway Bay is its somewhere around Dublin surely long color process shot of the bay at dusk cut to faces of old women in black shawls and the women in the uplands making hay speak a language that the strangers do not know a scene which it will knock them out of the back of the house in Terre Haute
the alarmclock in the maids room clattering the brains out of itself better take another seconal and try to sleep again so as I can get up early Ill call a title conference at ten wait now who was it yes Kirk Douglas already made Ulysses the old story though this ones on three levels we might call it Pride Love and The Flesh that has a nice sound to it Ill have Sammy get ahold of Central Registry and see if the titles reserved Leopold Bloom the passive ill informed victim of habitual feelings problem on the religion bit though dont want Bnai Brith down on our necks well give him an Irish name in any case Leopold Malone and his loving wife Molly sensual carnal wholly natural she wheels her wheelbarrow through streets wide and narrow personally Id like to build the script around Molly and get MM for the role so why am I after worrying we cant go wrong with Maureen OHara flashback to Gibraltar where she was a girl a flower of the mountain yes so are those bimbos all flowers of the mountain lap dissolve he kisses her under the Moorish wall we might send down a second unit to get some outdoor Gibraltar stuff cut in a flamenco dream sequence shoot it there and dub it on the soundtrack later yes chance too for widescreen color background O the sea the sea there crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes well have Louella bawling like a goddam baby baaaawwaaaaaww at the world preem
ah well theres no talking around it were one of the smallest minorities in Hollywood nowadays us thinking that James Joyces Ulysses will be made into a superior movie TJ saying to me Harry youre one hundred per cent crazy him with his two dollar cigars and his Irving Thalberg award chasing those little chits of starlets and he not long married Mouth Almighty I call him and his squinty eyes of all the big stuppoe studio heads I ever met God help the world if everyone out here was like him yes always and ever making the same pictures showdownatshotguncreek whatever he calls the new one ah God send him more sense and me more money O he does look the fool sitting at the head of the conference table as big as you please he can go smother for all the fat lot I care Im unabashedly intellectual and Ill make this movie or Im walking off the lot this day week Ive still got my integrity after all how long is it Ive been out here wait yes since 1923 O I love lying in bed God here we are as bad as ever after yes thirty eight years how many studios have I worked at RKO and Fox and Metro and Paramount where I was a young man and the day I talked to deMille when he was making the original of The Ten Commandments and yes he wouldnt answer at first only looked out over the set and the thousands of extras I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of yes how someday Id have my own swimming pool and go to Vilma Bankys parties and all the long years since Joan Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters and Richard Dix and yes the year Metro missed the boat on Dinner at Eight and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and Asta rrrrrfffffrrrrrfffff and the andyhardy series and The Best Years of Our Lives and O all the Academy Award dinners yes Disney going about smug with his Oscars the Levant what year was it Gert and I took the cruise there I never miss his TV show and Rhonda Fleming with her hair all red and flaming and Sandra Dee and VistaVision and stereophonic sound cleaning up in the foreign market and Ben Hur and the night TJ asked me what my next project would be when was it yes the night they screened Psycho in Santa Monica eeeeeeeekkk its an Irish story I told him like The Quiet Man or shall we get Rock Hudson I was just thinking of it for the first time yes and I had Sammy give me a five page synopsis and the day in Romanoffs I asked Jerry Wald about it yes Ulysses by James Joyce which it is a highly controversial book and I asked him yes could out of it be created a picture as exciting as Peyton Place and yes he said yes it could yes but on a higher level Yes.
1961