[Rarebooks] Steinbeck; Saroyan; Steinbeck

[Serendipity Books]

THE WAYWARD BUS
(1953)


1953    THE WAYWARD BUS.  Screenplay by William 
Saroyan, adaptation of John Steinbeck's best 
selling novel.   Beverly Hills: Chas. K. Feldman Group Productions [1953].

A)  Original producer's printed wrappers, brown 
and tan, three pins; traces of slips removed from 
cover and title; (iii); 172 leaves, printed on 
rectos only.  Page of penciled notes, verso of 
final leaf = nineteen entries at least, problems 
or ideas about sections with specific page 
references, in an unknown hand.   On front cover 
a red asterisk, a circled 2, and the penciled 
note "Feldman's second best."  and a great big 
penciled "A".   Production project #2696.8 [= stage 8]

B)   Original producer's wrappers, brown and tan, 
three pins; (1) l; i-ii; 150 leaves, printed on 
rectos only.  Dated in pencil on the title July 
31, 1953 with brief stenographer's note in 
shorthand.  Spine lettered by hand. Production project #2696.11 [= stage 11]

C)   Original producer's wrappers, brown and tan, 
two pins; [1-] 155 leaves, printed on rectos 
only.  Some original typescript is interspersed 
among the mimeographed pages.  Spine lettered by 
hand. In this text "Fighter Freeman" – "a 
third-rate Negro prizefighter who is tired of 
fighting, but doesn't know why" is eliminated 
from "The People"  [= the cast]  by a red pencil 
lining him out.  Production project #2696.15 [= stage 15].

      A screenplay, three versions, setting the 
action in San Ysidro, CA, Rebel Corners, and the 
bus stops on the way to San Juan de la 
Cruz.  Here are characters still imaginable: the 
bus driver, the heroine, his wife; Camille, "a 
young lady of peculiar quality who is handicapped 
by a body that attracts men and boys;" a 
traveling salesman and his wife and daughter, 
Norma Tratma, "a girl who dreams of beauty and 
glory
" but who realizes "that what she wants is 
a little bit of love instead of a lot of fame;" 
Pimples Carson, who loves pie and Norma; Mr. 
Breed; Mr. Jowett; and for a while, "Fighter 
Freeman".  Mr. Stanton, an Elk, appears in the 
section version only; Van Brunt, a banker, 
appears only in the first version, with a large 
cast of subordinates only here: "four Filipino 
farm workers and a Mexican with his wife and a 
number of people only spoken about or remembered."

      Pure Saroyan. He had just divorced Carol a 
second time, or been divorced. Carol Marcus chose 
fame, but indirectly, leaving William who wanted 
a bit of love and was tired of fame, only to 
marry Walter Mathau, not yet, but soon to be 
famous, losing William's more than a bit of 
love.  And pure Steinbeck, it was his 
novel.  What a marvelous collision of California 
talent; they were friends.  But the film one can 
watch was produced by 
<http://www.imdb.com/company/co0044078/>20th 
Century Fox in
1957, directed by Victor Vicas, 
screenplay credit to
Ivan Moffat, not 
Saroyan.  Starring Joan Collins, Dan Dailey and 
Jayne Mansfield, in her seventh film.  She played 
herself this year, as well, in THE JAMES DEAN STORY.

Saroyan cobbled together stories from here and 
these, after more rejections than Pimples Carson 
suffered, finally to publish THE DARING YOUNG MAN 
ON THE FLYING TRAPEEZE (1934).  Belated, but a 
fabulous debut.  Saroyan was 26.  With the monies 
derived, Saroyan built a home in San Francisco 
for his long suffering, widowed mother, who had 
been forced to put 4 kids in the Fred Finch 
orphanage on two occasions for a total of four 
years. Decades later his daughter looted the 
home. No one wants the manuscript of THE DARING 
YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEEZE. I have it.

His second produced play was THE TIME OF YOUR 
LIFE. This play was the first drama to win both 
the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize>Pulitzer 
Prize (he refused it) and the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_York_Drama_Critics_Circle_Award&action=edit>New 
York Drama Critics Circle Award.  THE TIME OF 
YOUR LIFE was revived on Broadway in 1940, 1969, 
and again in 1975. It was again revived, most 
recently and closest to home, in San Francisco, 
in 2005, where I saw it. It is still a fine 
play.  An influential play as well.  I have the 
last working manuscript. No one wants it.

Saroyan's first original film scenario was THE 
HUMAN COMEDY (1941). He won an Oscar. I have the 
manuscript.  No one wants it. In 1951 William 
tossed off a pop tune based upon an Armenian folk 
song, co-written with his cousin Ross 
Bagdassarian; 40 years later Rosemary Clooney 
"opened  a Carnegie Hall concert with an up-tempo 
version of her signature tune", "Come On-A My 
House."  It has sold in the many millions. 
Stanford now has the Saroyan archive. Magnificent 
archive. No one has asked to look at it.  Saroyan 
had 46 manuscript notebooks, preceding his first 
book, mostly, and two very early 100pp 
correspondences with two women, one an older 
editor, one a struggling young writer in Los 
Angeles.  His "authorized" biographer did not 
know of these materials by the time he finished 
the book. By the time he re-wrote portions, the 
biography became "unauthorized" – there is not a 
single quoted sentence in it. Saroyan wrote the 
most wonderful family letters conceivable. No one 
knows.  His bibliography is unwritten.  William 
Saroyan was a man of parts. He has been 
ill-served by those who remember him in spite.

William Saroyan's finished drafts, 1953,  for the 
screenplay adaptation of Steinbeck's WAYWARD BUS 
are unpublished, unknown.  $25,000.00




IN DUBIOUS BATTLE
(1936)


A5a      IN DUBIOUS BATTLE..  New York: Covici 
Friede (1936)   Original gray cloth, black cloth 
spine, top edges red. Original black paper 
slipcase, spine label.   No 37 of ninety-nine 
specially bound, signed by Steinbeck.  First 
edition, limited issue.  Very fine, box betrays 
very slight wear, no glassine.    Now uncommon in 
the market place, in the original box. $8500.00








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