Writing the Photoplay

by J. Berg Esenwein; Arthur Leeds

CHAPTER XIX

GETTING THE NEW TWIST

No story is an old story if you give it a new "twist"—a fresh turn, an original surprise, an unexpected course of narration. As a matter of fact, this is what fiction writers and dramatists have been doing for hundreds of years; taking an old idea, they have twisted it about, enlarged upon it, provided a new setting for the story, and created something new, yet in truth far from new, from the idea furnished by another writer. Who evolved the "original" plot in any certain case is a question that will forever remain a question, for the earliest plays and stories are no longer extant. But this we do know: there are only a very few original or primary plots, and all the plays, novels, and short-stories that have been written are variations of these. Some writers have made the twist more pronounced, and their work, judged by present-day standards, is classed as original. Others, without trying to conceal the source of their plots, nevertheless give them new treatment, and so are not charged with plagiarism. Therefore we may conclude that that writer is entitled to be called original who is capable of so twisting and remodeling the theme used by another writer that it is, in the remodeling, virtually recreated.

1. An Example from Fiction

As a concrete example, let us compare Poe's short-story, "The Cask of Amontillado," with Conan Doyle's "The New Catacomb." In both of these the theme is revenge, brought about by having the one seeking to entomb his enemy alive—the same theme, precisely, as Balzac had used earlier in "La Grande Bretêche," and Edith Wharton in later years in "The Duchess at Prayer." In "The Cask of Amontillado," Montresor desires to be revenged upon Fortunato because the latter has both injured and insulted him. Exactly how he has been insulted we are not told; nor do we know the extent of his "injuries." It is sufficient for the purpose of the story that we know that his Latin blood has been roused sufficiently to make him eager to compass the death of his enemy—who is none the less his enemy although, up till the very moment when Fortunato realizes the awful fate that is to be his, he (Montresor) pretends friendship for his victim. After Montresor's revenge has been accomplished by walling up Fortunato in a subterranean vault, the perpetrator feels no remorse. He has completed what he set out to do, and is satisfied. He has "punished with impunity" and he has made the fact that he is the redresser felt by "him who has done the wrong."

What chiefly impresses the reader is the lack of motive for Montresor's crime—for crime it surely is, whatever his real or fancied wrongs—other than the motive of a madman. At the conclusion our sympathy for the unfortunate victim of Montresor's hate is perhaps as great as is our pity for Montresor himself.

But note that Doyle's story is not only an original piece of fiction—as we have just interpreted that expression—but also one in which we recognize that the seeker after revenge is thoroughly deserving of our sympathy, even though we do not entirely approve of his bringing about the death of even so unworthy a creature as we know his enemy to be. In Doyle's story, as in Poe's, the background is Italy, but Italy of the present day, so we feel that we understand the motives of the characters better because they are of our own time. There is a definite and grievous wrong committed against the young woman with whom the central character is in love, therefore the wrong is committed indirectly against the lover himself. We are made to realize the despicable nature, the utter heartlessness, of the young woman's betrayer, and we actually hate him as soon as the facts are made clear to us. We realize how great has been the love for her cherished by the man who finally punishes the one who has wronged her, by causing him to be entombed alive in a Roman catacomb which he himself has but recently discovered.

In Poe's story, Fortunato is chained to the wall of the vault, after which he is literally walled up and buried alive. In "The New Catacomb," the redresser of the wrong takes the evil-doer down into the catacomb and leaves him while he finds his own way out by means of a trail of cord, knowing that the other, unable to follow him, is being left in what will be his tomb.

The dramatic intensity of Doyle's story is just as great as in that written by Poe; the "hero" is as much deserving of our sympathy as the "villain" merits our condemnation; and the treatment of the theme, from first to last, makes Doyle's an absolutely original story, although there is little doubt that it was suggested, or, at least influenced, either by the one written many years before by the American master of the short-story, or by Balzac's remarkable tale referred to above.