SUBSCRIBER LOGIN

Search
First Things

RSS

About



» Articles



Archives



« Previous  |Home|  Next »         

Monday, September 10, 2012, 3:50 AM

Ian Hamilton, Writers in Hollywood:

One day Ben Hecht got a call from Bernie Hyman, MGM production head, asking for help on a movie about to be shot. “I won’t tell you the plot,” Hyman said. “I’ll just give you what we’re up against. The hero and heroine fall madly in love with each other—as soon as they meet. What we need is some gimmick that keeps them from going to bed right away. Not a physical gimmick like arrest or getting run over or having to go to the hospital. But a purely psychological one. Now what reasons do you know that would keep a healthy pair of lovers from hitting the hay in Reel Two?” Hecht told him that frequently a girl had values that kept her virtuous until she got married and that there were also men who preferred to wait for coitus until they had married the girl they adored. Hyman could hardly believe his ears. “Wonderful!” he cried, struck by the novelty of the idea. “We’ll try it.”

Declinists and doomsayers will be interested to know that this exchange took place in the mid-1930s.

6 Comments

    prickwithafork
    September 10th, 2012 | 7:46 am

    I call bullshit. No way anyone named "Hymen" can be talking about abstinence.

    Doc
    September 11th, 2012 | 8:45 pm

    Modesty: Still legal in all 50 states

    Martin S.
    September 11th, 2012 | 9:55 pm

    Yeah but you have to subtact a Tolkien, CS Lewis, a Kirk from the intervening period and then ask yourself if you'd be even free enough to write that. Moving from the US to Oz is going from the frying pan into the fire. (see Australian Attorney General and Massive electronic/internet spying bureaucracy being built).

    I'm sorry you either situate yourself into the prophetic tradition or your children will have zero chance.

    Martin S.
    September 11th, 2012 | 10:12 pm

    Notice I didn't even mention the gigantic GKC nor Christopher Dawson nor fair dinkum Philip Rieff!! … Lasch.

    Martin S.
    September 11th, 2012 | 10:15 pm

    About when did the great Christian Knights Fr RJ Neuhaus and Avery Dulles die?

    Solar Hero
    September 29th, 2012 | 10:59 am

    Left or Right, you gotta keep reminding people that ever it twas..


Leave a Comment

=