Finding aid for the Vicki Baum correspondence and film typescript 6267
Bo Doub -- with descriptive notes adapted from the seller, Mark Funke Bookseller.
USC Libraries Special Collections
2022 June
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, California 90089-0189
specol@usc.edu
Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries Special Collections
Title: Vicki Baum correspondence and film typescript
Creator:
Baum, Vicki, 1888-1960
Identifier/Call Number: 6267
Physical Description:
0.02 Linear Feet
1 pamphlet binder
Date (inclusive): 1943-1946
Abstract: The Vicki Baum correspondence and film typescript consists of four typed letters signed "Vicki" on "Vicki Baum" letterhead,
along with an unpublished draft for a film titled "Conspiracy (Working Title for Sands O' Life)." The correspondence is addressed
to Baum's publisher Malcolm Johnsohn and his wife Mathilde Whitridge Johnson. Baum wrote the first three letters in 1943 and
the fourth letter in 1946. The draft of the script for "Conspiracy (Working Title for Sands O' Life)"--authored by Baum--is
dated November 15, 1946. Baum wrote the script in short story format without dialogue (and is thus a "treatment" in script
parlance). Cary Grant and Dorothy McGuire were sought for the lead roles in this script. David 0. Selznick's Vanguard Films,
Inc. purchased the script in 1946 and assigned the production of the film to Dore Schary, but the film was never actually
made.
Language of Material:
English
.
Container: 1
The Vicki Baum correspondence and film typescript consists of four typed letters signed "Vicki" on "Vicki Baum" letterhead,
along with an unpublished draft for a film titled "Conspiracy (Working Title for Sands O' Life)." The correspondence is addressed
to Baum's publisher Malcolm Johnsohn and his wife Mathilde Whitridge Johnson. Baum wrote the first three letters in 1943 and
the fourth letter in 1946. The draft of the script for "Conspiracy (Working Title for Sands O' Life)"--authored by Baum--is
dated November 15, 1946. Baum wrote the script in short story format without dialogue (and is thus a "treatment" in script
parlance). Cary Grant and Dorothy McGuire were sought for the lead roles in this script. David 0. Selznick's Vanguard Films,
Inc. purchased the script in 1946 and assigned the production of the film to Dore Schary, but the film was never actually
made.
Vicki Baum (1888-1960) was one of the world's first best-selling woman authors, a screen writer, and a boxer. She was born
in Vienna to a Jewish family and emigrated to the United States in the early 1930s to escape the rise of the National Socialists.
Her literary works were denigrated in Germany and Austria as sensationalist and amoral and banned in the Third Reich as of
1935.
Baum wrote the famous novel
Menschen im Hotel [
People in the Hotel] published in 1929, which was made into an Academy Award-winning film,
Grand Hotel (1932), starring John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, and Greta Garbo. Other notable works include
Die Anderen Tage [
The Other Days] (1922),
Liebe und Tod auf Bali [
Love and Death in Bali] (1937), and
Es War Alles Ganz Anders [
It Was All Quite Different] (1962) -- her memoir, which was published posthumously. The internet movie database imdb.com credits Baum with 37 works.
Baum is also known as a boxer. She trained with Turkish prizefighter Sabri Mahir at his studio in Berlin. In her memoir she
wrote, "I don't know how the feminine element sneaked into those masculine realms [of boxing], but in any case, only three
or four of us were tough enough to go through with it." She credited her hard work to the skills instilled in Mahir's boxing
studio.
Advance notice required for access.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special
Collections at specol@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical
items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
[Box/folder no. or item name], Vicki Baum correspondence and film typescript, Collection no. 6267, Special Collections, USC
Libraries, University of Southern California
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from Mark Funke Bookseller, May 25, 2022.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Austrians -- United States -- 20th century -- Archival resources
Exiles -- Austria -- 20th century -- Archival resources
Jews, Austrian -- United States -- 20th century -- Archival resources
Treatments (Motion pictures, television, etc.) -- 20th century -- Archival resources
Women authors, Austrian -- United States -- 20th century -- Archival resources
Correspondence
Personal correspondence
Manuscripts
Treatments (documents)
Typescripts
Baum, Vicki, 1888-1960 -- Archives
Johnson, Malcolm (1902-1958) -- Correspondence
Johnson, Mathilde Whitridge (1910-1976) -- Correspondence
Pamphlet-Binder 1
Correspondence 1943-02-09-1943-10-13 1946-12-30
Four original typed letters signed "Vicky" to her publisher Malcolm Johnson (1902-1958) and his wife Mathilde Whitridge Johnson
(1910–1976), along with one envelope. Mr. Johnson was the president of the American Book Publishers Council, executive vice-president
of the D. Van Nostrand Publishing Company, and a managing editor of
Atlantic Monthly and Doubleday & Co. Although Mr. Johnson was Baum's publisher, the letters here are of a personal nature, addressed to "Tillie"
(for Mathilde) and Malcolm. They discuss birthday congratulations, health matters, children, and her struggles writing.
Baum writes:
I was especially proud that [Malcolm Johnson] seemed to approve of my English. It's the one thing I'm a bit proud of, or rather, it's the only way in which I can really show how hard I tried to make myself into an American. [...][I] want to write honest enough even to please Hemingway; again, after wallowing in cruelty, exploitation and injustice for 200 years[...]
Baum also writes about her health and her upcoming 1943 book
The Weeping Wood, a history of the rubber industry:
I want to report to you that the rubber book is more or less finished. I am only struggling with the rewriting of the last two chapters which seem a bit flat[...] Somehow, I feel I got a bit too Pollyanna in the end and I want to remedy that, but don't know exactly how. [...]I'm not sick and neither am I well. Doctor claims it's a very busy little epidemic... and he even wrote to Washington about it, because he has a notion that it's a little germ friend Hitler might have planted here; sounds beautifully fantastic, doesn't it?
Pamphlet-Binder 1
Conspiracy (Working Title for Sands O' Life) - film treatment 1946-11-15
An unpublished film treatment titled "Conspiracy (Working Title for Sands O' Life)" -- authored by Baum in 1946. OCLC indexed
this unpublished script with three copies worldwide—all in Germany. This script is not listed in the American Film Institute
catalogue, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, or in imdb.com.
According to the
New York Times, this script was purchased November 25, 1946, by David O. Selznick's Vanguard Films, Inc. and assigned to Dore Schary for
production. Selznick, who is best known as the producer of
Gone with the Wind, announced in the
Times that he wanted the lead male role to be played by British-American actor Cary Grant. Dorothy McGuire, who was under contract
to Vanguard, would play the lead female role. Exactly why the movie did not come to fruition is unknown.
A summary of the plot of Baum's story follows. The young wealthy Lord Earl of Haddonsfield travels to Malaysia, and it is
reported that he died. Years later, a man appears claiming to be the same Earl of Haddonsfield. Is he or is he an impostor
looking to claim the Earl's wealth? A court case follows to set the record straight. The highlight comes when the returned
Earl correctly recites the engraving of a poem on a locket he gave to his true love and the court proclaims him the true Earl.
Towards the end of the script we learn that the Earl's fiancée had slipped the poem to him because she preferred the "new"
Earl to the one who left many years back. Even the faux Earl's mother realizes that her son is an impostor because he does
not have a telltale scar. Yet, they all look the other way to keep the lineage and fortune intact. The grand conspiracy played
out exactly as the family's attorney Ogglethorpe planned.
This note was adapted from the seller of the material, Mark Funke Bookseller.