‘The Hollywood Writers’ Wars.’ We are dealing here with the thirties before the Second World War and, in particular the years of the great depression. It really is true that there is nothing new under the sun and reading of the depression, what was going on in America at the time and in particular what was going on in Hollywood in the early thirties, it could be equated with what is going on in Greece today. For ‘the producers’ read the Greek government and for ‘the writers’ read civil servants. Because of the depression people could no longer afford to visit the cinema so often and box office takings dropped alarmingly. So what did the powerful producers do?

It was necessary in order to protect themselves from the machinations of the producers, Warner, Schenck, Mayer, et al that the writers and actors formed their guilds –anathema, horror, to the producers: socialism and worse communism lurking just beneath the surface, employees making demands that would erode their profits even further.

The surprising force of the general strike of 1934 saw labour immediately linked with communism and the times were not favourable to the artist as a work force. The hangover of the Protestant work ethic still condemned the artist as a shiftless non-worker and the underlying belief during the depression was that artists should find themselves any kind of job rather than starve for lack of creative work. The same thing was to happen in the UK in the seventies. So what effect did this have on Hollywood?

The producers up to this point had used intimate, familial form of economic and psychological manipulation to retain absolute control but in March 1933, except for MGM which paid its employees in cash, the studios were unable to meet their payrolls. Universal suspended all contracts. Fox notified its employees that salaries would not be paid: (Greece today?) Paramount, Warner brothers, Columbia and RKO faced bleak prospects (just like the Greek government today). Naturally (as in Greece today) workers lost their jobs and for those who remained a blanket wage cut was imposed (again as in Greece today). Those receiving $50 or more weekly would get a fifty percent wage cut. Those earning less would get a 25 percent cut, the cuts to last for eight weeks. More out of fear that it was the beginning of the end the cuts were reluctantly accepted. Naturally it did not affect heads like Thalberg who was on $4000 a week. Nor I suppose does it affect the Greek politicians today who are paid fourteen times for twelve month’s work.

The wage cuts had made several things obvious to the studio employees, chiefly that producers didn’t think contracts were sacred – tell me about it who has first hand experience – and it was time to unionise. My union, The Writers; Guild and The Writers’ Guild in America were of no help in my dispute with a major Hollywood studio but more of that at a later date maybe.

But to show what chicanery the producers could get up to in order to protect themselves; in 1934 a writer by the name of Upton Sinclair announced he would be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor of California. ‘I saw hundreds of thousands of persons driven form their homes (Greece today) an economic process which has turned most of California over to money lenders and banks…(!) And for every official who was sent to jail (Greece) I knew that a thousand were hiding with their loot (Greece yet again).

So in the face of someone obviously on the side of the worker what did the studio bosses do? In order to destroy Sinclair they organised a smear campaign costing millions of dollars. They created fake newsreels in which vagrants on the way to California said they were drawn there because of Sinclair. Louis Mayor had his director of screen tests make the anti-Sinclair films. Joseph Mankiewicz was instructed to write anti-Sinclair radio spots, circulars were printed and hoardings supporting Sinclair’s rival, a man named Merriam, all paid for by the studios. But here comes the real humdinger. All studio employees, who were mostly for Sinclair, were expected to contribute one day’s salary to the Merriam campaign or their contracts would not be renewed. This was sheer blackmail and the New York Times at the instigation of the Guild reported that ‘motion picture producers attempted to collect funds for Merriam with deceit.’ The producers immediately denied it but it was yet once more thing that antagonised them towards the Guild. Needless to say Merriam won. It’s little wonder that the studios employ banks of lawyers.

Dark, dismal, dreary, drizzling, depressing and what is more very very cold. It’s been this way for weeks with a few hours of intermittent sunshine and we might just as well be living in Yorkshire as the rain never seems to stop. Has this winter been sent just to add to Greece’s agonies? Much more of it and we’ll all be going stir crazy and screaming for summer. Then no doubt we will be complaining that it’s too darn hot.

Have finished writing Thornton King number six, ‘Men And Their Toys’ all 80000 words of it so there is nothing else on the horizon. Am very pleased with the way it has turned out as I never thought I would write a sixth Thornton King. Will I still be around to see it published? Who knows? It’s a long way off that’s for sure. My Gothic horror, ‘The Museum Mysteries and other Stories’ is on the cards at the moment and T.King number five, ‘Celluloid and Tinsel’ is still to go, presumably later this year.

I still want two plays published, ‘Twilight of Aunt Edna’ and ‘Rosemary.’ The latter has already been published but I have made amendments so it will have to be done again.

Got my nose into a very interesting book at the moment. Surprising what one can find on the shelves. At the last count before we left Yorkshire there was a library of over five thousand books. Now it must be touching six thousand if not more. No wonder Douglas is always yelling, ‘No more books!’ In fact there simply isn’t room for any more. There are two sets of shelves in the guest bedroom crammed with books in double rows; there are books in the library downstairs including all those stacked on top of the piano for which there is no room on the shelves. There are books in my study, books in the office, books in my bedroom. At our doctor’s surgery last month we met a very interesting German woman who was a librarian before moving to Crete. She has a collection of books she wants to get rid of and was bemoaning the fact that she can’t even give them away so what will happen to our six thousand and more when all three of us have popped our clogs? The books in my study are all on the performing arts; plays, histories, theories, biographies, and more in my bedroom. Together with the large collection of theatrical ephemera we have, gathered over the years, I suppose those could be left to a university that might appreciate adding to their theatre collection. That is if they are prepared to collect and ship. For the rest? Again, who knows? All of which has got me off on a tangent and I haven’t continued with the interesting book I was going to write something about. Well, for now, it is called ‘The Hollywood Writers’ Wars’ by Nancy Lynn Schwartz, a heavy hardback tome (in weight that is) published in 1982. I’ll get around to it next time.

The earthquake was followed up by another twenty-four hours later so I have now slept through three earthquakes. I’ll never forget as a kid seeing the 1936 film ‘San Francisco’ and being terrified out of my mind by the panic in the streets, the falling masonry and in particular the bar scene during the earthquake.

It’s the memory of the swaying and then crashing chandelier that I can still see after all these years, such was its impact. Chandeliers must have a certain cachet in show business. Think of ‘Phantom of the Opera.’ And there are possibly more. It’s a good effect. The film received six Oscar nominations but won only one – for best sound recording.

I can still see Clark Gable in that movie though I have no recollection of Spencer Tracy and Jeannette MacDonald who also starred in it.

Finished reading the ‘Kenneth Williams Letters’ and I was really disappointed to have reached the end because I would have liked more. Judging from these letters he really was quite a remarkable man; not just a funny face and a funny voice but erudite and obviously a deep thinker. It’s a shame he had to suffer so many painful ailments and really I suppose his death at sixty-one came as no surprise. I found myself wishing I had known him. He had something of a reputation of being a viper but was obviously extremely loyal to his friends and in fact I think it was simply that he didn’t suffer fools gladly, and my god the world is full of fools.

We have met a sprightly old lady of 91 who lives in Xania. She is a real charmer and recently she discovered that her life savings of over five thousand euro had been stolen from her bank account and there is no way she can recover that money. Not a nice thing to happen to someone of ninety-one. Not a nice ting to happen to anyone for that matter. What makes the situation even sadder is the police discovered the thief to be a Bulgarian woman who our acquaintance employed to clean her flat and had done so for the last ten years so they obviously got to know each other very well. I don’t suppose they could be referred to as friends exactly but the lady after all this time was naturally completely trusted. Evidently she filched the old girl’s bank card and every two days withdrew seven hundred euro, putting the card back after each withdrawal. She has two children and must have been desperate, the state of affairs in Greece being what they are. The first time was easy, so the second time followed, and the third, and the fourth until Marie went to the bank on other business and discovered the loss. One has to feel sorry not only for her losing all that money but for the woman ruining her life.

But the economic situation in the country gets worse day by day. There are now more people queuing up at soup kitchens and more and more people being made homeless and more and more crime. It is the great depression all over again. In the meantime the government has a list of over 4000 people owing billions in unpaid taxes – a total debt to the state of almost 50billion euros going back many years including –

Yiannis Raptopoulos 14,300,000

Pavlos Psomiadis 1,150,000

Sami Fais 1,820,000

Yiorgos Batatoudis 2,500,000

And a single individual, Nikos Kasimatis owes a staggering 952million!

There is little chance of much of this loot being recovered. And just how did all this come about? I think arrant corruption over many years has a lot to answer for.

The rich get richer. The poor get poorer.

Yesterday morning at 5.20 Chris and Douglas were both woken by an earthquake, 5.2 on the Richter scale. (There’s a coincidence.) For the second time since coming to Crete I slept soundly through an earthquake. I remember the first time I knew nothing about it until I came across all our neighbours standing at the bottom of the lane in a state of great excitement and they immediately asked the question , ‘Did you hear the earthquake?’ to which the answer was ‘What earthquake?’ Strange way of putting it, did you hear rather than did you feel. Anyway this one was evidently half way between Crete and Santorini and not very far down so Heraklion and the eastern end of the island would have felt it more than us. As far as we can ascertain there has been no damage. Phew! If we were badly damaged by a quake we would be in deep shit and no mistake. Earthquake insurance is very expensive and we’ve never had it.

A further mention on the euthanasia debate: Seven years ago, former rugby player, Tony Nicklinson was the victim of a stroke and suffers from locked-in syndrome, a paralysed body able to move only his head and an active mind; he communicates by using a computer that detects his blinking. In a statement, he described his life as "dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable." and he wants to die. He cannot speak and obviously needs constant care. He recently asked Britain's High Court to declare that any doctor who gives him a lethal injection with his consent won't be charged with murder. Under U.K. law, anyone who helps Nicklinson die could be charged even if they are carrying out his wishes. A murder charge has a mandatory life sentence, regardless of motive or circumstance. Nicklinson’s argument is that British law hinders his right to a "private and family life" — guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights — on the grounds that being able to choose how to die is a matter of personal autonomy. Since my previous Blog I have discovered that apart from Holland and Switzerland, euthanasia is also legal in Belgium, Luxembourg and the state of Oregon in the United States. So what is the position in the UK at the moment? Evidently there have been forty cases of assisted suicide in the not too distant past but no one has been prosecuted so isn’t it really time the law was changed? Unfortunately for Mister Nicklinson even if it is changed the way the reformers want, suffering as he does from locked-in syndrome, sadly he would still be denied his wish.

I believe in euthanasia and I believe, even if it happens very gradually, that eventually the practice will be accepted virtually everywhere. What is the point of continuing a life that has no quality, that has no hope, which has nothing but pain? I only know that if my life gets to the stage where I would like it to end it than someone should be allowed to send me peacefully and painlessly into oblivion. So far, as far as I know, only Holland and Switzerland allow assisted deaths and I think one Australian state has tinkered with it. In Holland there has to have been a long rapport between doctor and patient before it is allowed whereas in Switzerland a number of foreigners have gone there for the sole purpose of having their lives ended. Good grief! We do it for animals, why not for humans? Ah, the objectors say, because life is sacred. Life is sacred? I consider this a fatuous argument when you consider how many people are killed in wars, under dictatorships, as the result of crime, accidents, early deaths, natural disasters, from disease in early life, deaths at birth, cot deaths, abuse. How is life sacred? If life were sacred all of us would live to a ripe old age as happy as Larry but that just isn’t the way it is. The other argument is the tired old religious one that so many still cling to, that suicide is a sin and euthanasia is a form of suicide. Neither of these arguments holds water for me. The third argument is that euthanasia will be abused, i.e. let’s get rid of granny, she’s a flaming nuisance and any way we want to inherit her estate. This argument does hold some water. There will always be those ready, willing and able to abuse any system but on the other hand there would not be a rash of illegal killings so it is not an argument worth considering.

Campaigners who want to see the law changed have set up a ‘Commission on Assisted Dying’ saying the current law is inadequate and that assisted death should be allowed within a strict set of rules so as not to be abused. The commission was chaired by Lord Falconer, a barrister and former justice secretary, and included a wide range of experts including doctors, an ex-police commissioner and a former president of the General Medical Council. The panel received evidence from more than 1,300 sources during its year-long inquiry, although some groups opposed to a change in the law refused to take part because of its remit and way it was put together. Wouldn’t it have been better if their arguments are valid to have joined in the discussion and put their point of view? Boycotting strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bath water. The group said that assisted suicide should be allowed if a person was over 18, terminally ill and judged as having less than 12 months to live, making a voluntary choice and not impaired mentally. Before it should be allowed, the person would also need to be independently assessed by two doctors, the report said and that they should also be acting under their own steam and not be mentally impaired in any way. In practice this means that dementia patients would not be eligible, including the author Sir Terry Pratchett, who helped to fund the commission, as those in the final year of the condition would not be considered mentally fit enough. Nor would a person who has a significant physical impairment, such as locked-in syndrome, as they would have longer than 12 months to live under normal circumstances.

The commissioners said the current arrangements were "inadequate, incoherent and should not continue". But one of the commissioners, the Reverend Canon Dr James Woodward, disagreed with the conclusion.

Sarah Wootton, chief executive of ‘Dignity in Dying,’ said the report was "comprehensive and robust", adding she hoped it would "form the foundation of future legislative change" but Dr John Wiles, chairman of ‘Care Not Killing’ - "The safeguards proposed... are really inadequate" and Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director of ‘Care Not Killing,’ an alliance of faith and disability groups and doctors, said: "This investigation was unnecessary, biased and lacking in transparency, and its report is seriously flawed. It is being spun as a comprehensive, objective and independent review into this complicated issue. It is anything but." Rubbish.

Another couple of movies out of the cupboard, seen before but well worth watching again. We seem to have accumulated quite a collection of DVDs since moving to Crete and of course brought out from England a few hundred video tapes embracing all manner of programmes from mainstream film, opera, ballets, to ‘Carry On’ movies to comedy shows, documentaries, odds and sods that interested us at the time. Some of these tapes have deteriorated which is a shame. I would have liked the other night to have watched again the Merchant/Ivory film ‘A Room With A View’ but this tape was one of those no longer viewable, the flickering and jumping of frames was jut too irritating. One of Douglas’s favourite films is ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’ which he must have watched at least twenty times and knows off by heart.

I love Japanese period films, especially the work of Kurasawa, ‘Seven Samurai’ ‘Rashomon’ ‘Throne of Blood’ ‘The Hidden Fortress’ ‘Ran’ and a wonderful movie called ‘The Burmese Harp’ directed by an equally brilliant Kon Ichikawa, and I particularly like what I call small movies, ‘Tea With Mussolini,’ ‘Ladies In Lavender,’ ‘Maurice,’ ‘Death In Venice,’ ‘The Madness of King George,’ ‘The History Boys,’ the films of the Spanish director Pedro Almodόvar for example and the two we watched the other night fall into that category. Firstly that beautiful Italian film that won any amount of awards and quite rightly too – ‘Cinema Paradiso’ I can’t remember how many times we’ve watched it but this time it was the director’s cut which added three quarters of an hour to the film. I still loved every minute of it. Douglas said he could do without the extra three quarters of an hour thank you. Too many lingering shots.

The other one we watched again was ‘Total Eclipse’ with David Thewlis as Verlaine and a young Leonardo DiCaprio (well he had to be young playing a sixteen year old) as Arthur Rimbaud. Marvellous casting if one looks at photographs of Rimbaud and beautifully played by diCaprio. He really is a very fine film actor. The only performance of his I have seen and haven’t taken to was his Romeo but then I didn’t rate the film highly and not everyone can play Shakespeare.

The spiel on one of the many posters for ‘Total Eclipse’ reads –

‘Touched by Genius

Cursed by madness

Blinded by love.’

DiCaprio certainly doesn’t shy away from controversy. In an earlier film ‘The Basketball Diaries’ he plays a young junkie who in order to get money for his habit allows himself to be fellated in public toilets. Now he has just played J. Edgar Hoover, reputed drag artist and homosexual.

Rimbaud had a four year old affair with his mentor, the poet Verlaine who was married and a father, and in ‘Total Eclipse’ the physical aspect is not shirked hence, I suppose, the ‘Blinded by love,’ for who knows where love will take one?

Rimbaud, who evidently changed the face of French poetry at that young age – ‘Touched by genius,’ was it seemed a total iconoclast with little respect for anybody and anything – ‘Cursed by madness.’

Verlaine, whilst they were in Belgium, bought a revolver and shot Rimbaud in the hand. He was arrested and then accused of unnatural practices, something not to be encouraged in Belgium. Having been examined by doctors none too gently the verdict was that he had committed ‘acts of sodomy both active and passive’ and sentenced to two years in prison. Now I might not be up on medical procedures, I can understand how passive intercourse can be ascertained, but how on earth can active be proved?

Anyway, having served his prison sentence Verlaine and Rimbaud met one last time, Verlaine wanting to resume their relationship but Rimbaud having none of it. He gave up writing at an early age and the rest of his life was travel and adventure until he died of cancer at the age of 37.

The film’s screenplay is by Christopher Hampton and is based on his stage play. It is a gem.

At last some glorious sunshine after weeks of rain and grey cloud filled skies but a bitterly cold wind blowing down from the north and the courtyard littered with fallen oranges. Algeria has seen quite heavy snow and when last did snow fall in North Africa? The wood stove in the breakfast room has been going all day, previously unheard of, being lit only in the evenings, and the central heating has been switching itself on all night despite the thermostat being turned down another coupe of degrees. I have never known Crete to be so cold so my prediction some weeks ago of a hard winter has come to pass. In the old days before modern heating when there was probably one fireplace in the house I believe if a Cretan felt the cold all he or she did was put on another sweater. That might warm the body a bit but would have no effect on the damp and it can get very damp, especially after days of rain. An English friend visited our lovely Doctor Elizabeth as he was suffering from bronchitis, something he had never experienced before, and she said chest complaints are common among northerners this time of year being caused by a combination of the damp and an allergy due to spores from the olive trees as the fruit is reaped; the branches being thwacked quite violently so that the olives fall on to the nets spread out below.

The chest specialist at IKA (National health) Doctor Vilgarides, who I see once a month for a check-up, is a delightful bundle of charm, always full of high spirits. ‘That’s what you came to Crete for,’ he said with a laugh, ‘the climate.’ I must admit that despite all the current woes created mainly by the short-sighted corrupt ones and the financial situation, petrol has gone up dramatically by 10 cents a litre in a matter of a couple of days and now stands at nearly two euro! Which means everything else must go up. Going into Souda yesterday to see Doctor Vulgarides there was hardly a car on the road and despite being Friday when people do their shopping for the weekend, the supermarket and Kalyves town were practically deserted as everyone pulls in their horns. This does nothing for the Greek economy. It is a never ending downward spiral unless the stupid politicians which include the French and Germans change their tactics and the banks are made to pay for their incessant greed. The Cretans on the whole though are a philosophical lot. When there was a bank strike and we had no cash in hand our vet said, ‘What do you want money for? You live in a village don’t you? You’ve got a garden haven’t you? Keep chickens, grow potatoes, grow tomatoes. You have friends you don’t need money.’ I think I have mentioned before how in circumstances like this, not being in a position to pay, the usual reaction in the village where people know you is pay when you can. And indeed the garden has over the years, while I was still capable of working in it, provided us with a variety of vegetables, and of course masses of fruit. Oranges and lemons at the moment (humongous lemons, bigger than a cricket ball and juicy) and we have just reaped our first olives from the six little trees I bought some years back. They have at last taken off. Eggs we sometimes get from a neighbour when her chickens are laying well and I can’t remember when last we bought olive oil as friends who have olive trees constantly supply us with all we need. I remember in England how sparingly we used olive oil and how here we go through litres of it every year: virgin, cold pressed and pressed and it is all delicious.

All right, so it is not the country we came to fifteen years ago but the world is not the same world, is it?