By turning thumbs down on an unpublished World War II novel that her husband wrote directly for the movies, John Steinbeck`s widow managed to succeed where Hollywood U-boat commanders failed. She torpedoed ”Lifeboat.” In its fall catalog of books, the Birch Lane Press boasted about the
”first publication of a Steinbeck novel,” telling how the manuscript for
”Lifeboat” had been mothballed in the archives of a Hollywood studio for 47 years.
But a late bulletin stamped across the publishers` description of
”Lifeboat”-a blurb that promised that ”the world will at long last read the novel just as Steinbeck originally intended”-announced that it had been
”POSTPONED.”
In that way, Birch Lane simultaneously reported the rescue and the sinking of Steinbeck`s novel, which apparently became a casualty of a communications failure between the publishing house and Steinbeck`s widow, Elaine.
Explaining her decision to block the publication of ”Lifeboat,” Elaine Steinbeck seemed perturbed that Birch Lane editors had been so tardy about seeking her seal of approval. ”They shouldn`t have gotten this far without asking, should they?” she said during a telephone interview.
”John did not like the way it turned out,” Elaine Steinbeck added, referring not to the novel by her husband, who died in 1968, but the movie Alfred Hitchcock made from it, ”and wouldn`t have wanted it published.”
Elaine Steinbeck married the author in 1950, long after he had completed his labors on ”Lifeboat,” and she has never read the manuscript. But her husband had registered his displeasure with the Hitchcock film in several of his letters, which were largely the basis for Mrs. Steinbeck`s refusal.
To dismayed executives at Birch Lane Press, who had expected ”Lifeboat” to be their fall blockbuster, her position was illogical and capricious. According to Stewart Richardson, the editor who dealt with the novelist`s widow until his recent retirement from Birch Lane, Steinbeck was unhappy with Hitchcock`s film, not with the novel. ”Steinbeck told his agent he would destroy the book if he didn`t like it,” Richardson said, ”and there was nothing to prevent him from doing that.”
Richardson pointed out that Steinbeck, in his letters, had also expressed his reluctance to publish ”The Grapes of Wrath.” ”He didn`t think it was right,” he said, ”and he went through all kinds of agonies before finally deciding to let it be published.”
Particularly frustrating to Richardson was Elaine Steinbeck`s refusal to read the ”Lifeboat” manuscript. ”I told her, `Elaine, if you`d only read it, you`d find out it`s really quite a remarkable book.` But she said, `He didn`t want it published, so there`s no sense of having me read it.`
”That`s the way it went. I did everything possible. I talked with her agent. I had friends of hers ask her to read it. But she has this idea that
`John didn`t want it done.` I don`t think he ever really said that to her. That`s what she`s saying he would have said. But she`s the custodian of her husband`s oeuvre, and that was it.”
Liberal doctoring
For those who came in late to this century, a brief flashback may be in order. In its original incarnation, ”Lifeboat” was Steinbeck`s ”treatment” for Hitchcock`s claustrophobic 1944 film, which took place entirely aboard the title vessel, after the Nazi sinking of a trans-Atlantic liner.
Steinbeck was commissioned to write the scenario by Darryl F. Zanuck, chief of 20th Century-Fox, who wanted to make a movie about the wartime exploits of the merchant marine. ”I shall write it as a novelette which I will be free to publish if I want to,” the author explained in a letter to his agent.
According to Jackson Benson, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist`s biographer, Steinbeck ”was inspired by the number of sinkings reported almost daily in the newspapers and began to think of the possibilities for drama and metaphor in the interaction between various strong, almost allegorical characters in a lifeboat”-a variation of the ”world-in-microcosm” situation that he would recycle in ”The Wayward Bus.”
Steinbeck`s singular venture into screenwriting, however, soon became a wayward ”Lifeboat.” After he finished his novelette, it was turned over to Jo Swerling, a seasoned screenwriter and script doctor, who converted it into a shooting script, taking great liberties with Steinbeck`s plot and characters.
Hitchcock reportedly performed further surgery on Swerling`s script, making it even ”slicker and less allegorical,” Benson reported. ”Hitchcock . . . had a very different idea about the movie, one that had little to do with Steinbeck`s drive to make it as realistic a re-creation of that sort of ordeal as possible.”
Because it was restricted to a single cramped set and a dozen characters
(with Tallulah Bankhead portraying an aristocratic journalist and William Bendix and John Hodiak as proletarian sailors), ”Lifeboat” stretched Hitchcock`s genius not only for fluid camera movement but also for working himself into each of his movies. The director neatly resolved that problem by having a character read a newspaper in which his photo appeared-as the before- and-after model in a weight-reduction ad.
Steinbeck may have appreciated that crafty touch, but he was far less impressed with the changes Hitchcock and Swerling had made in his allegory. As one example, he cited the dehumanization of a rescued U-boat captain, who was transformed into a diabolical Hollywood Nazi, a Superman who proves to be more resourceful than any of the American survivors-until they toss him to the sharks.
Also, Steinbeck complained in a letter to the studio that the film contained ”slurs against organized labor” and a ”stock comedy Negro” that were not in his story. ”On the contrary,” he wrote, ”there was an intelligent and thoughtful seaman who knew realistically what he was about. And instead of the usual colored travesty of the half comic and half pathetic Negro there was a Negro of dignity, purpose and personality.”
While acknowledging that ”in many ways the film is excellent,”
Steinbeck found it ”painful . . . that these strange, sly obliquities should be ascribed to me.” Calling it ”dangerous to the American war effort,” he asked that his name be removed from the credits. But to capitalize on the marquee value of the author`s name, Zanuck ignored the demand, and the picture was released as John Steinbeck`s ”Lifeboat.”
Launching `Lifeboat`
That might have been the end of ”Lifeboat” if Steinbeck`s original story hadn`t been salvaged from the 20th Century-Fox archives, a half-century later, and sold to Birch Lane Press, apparently under the assumption that the unpublished novel was studio property. In making the deal, however, somebody apparently forgot to check with Elaine Steinbeck, who turned out to be the rightful owner of her husband`s work, published and unpublished.
In recent times, Mrs. Steinbeck has been permissive enough about her husband`s writings. She readily agreed to let Frank Galati adapt ”The Grapes of Wrath” to the stage for Chicago`s Steppenwolf Theatre company, a production that won two Tonys on Broadway, enriching Steinbeck`s reputation and his estate.
But as Birch Lane prepared to launch ”Lifeboat,” the novel, in September, Mrs. Steinbeck refused to give the necessary blessing. ”The reason John left me the copyright was that he thought I could work these things out, and I honestly believe this is what he would want.”
Mrs. Steinbeck said she refused permission not because she wasn`t consulted but in deference to her husband`s misgivings about the film. As evidence, she cited the correspondence in a collection she co-edited,
”Steinbeck: A Life in Letters,” in which the author complained about Hitchcock`s tampering and accused him of being ”one of those incredible English snobs who really and truly despise working people.”
At the very least, wouldn`t Steinbeck have wanted the book published so he could have had his original intentions preserved? ”Frankly, that`s so far in the past I don`t think anybody would know or care,” she said. ”The movie is a classic. It stands very well alone. I think it would be silly or trivial to publish the book now. That`s all I can say.”
To Hillel Black, president of Birch Lane, there`s nothing trivial about the book version of ”Lifeboat.” While not in a class with such memorable Steinbeck novellas as ”Of Mice and Men” and ”Tortilla Flat,” ”Lifeboat” is still a ”terrific book,” Black said of the 160-page treatment. ”It may not be one of his masterpieces, but it`s important to publish the body of a writer`s work.”
”Steinbeck obviously knew that life was complex,” Black added, describing how Zanuck, Hitchcock & Co. had turned the author`s characters into stereotypes. For example, Hitchcock`s ”stock comedy Negro” is an able, even heroic seaman in Steinbeck`s book, trying to save the U-boat commander after he is pitched into the Atlantic by his vengeful boatmates, Black said.
Mrs. Steinbeck`s refusal to allow publication of ”Lifeboat” was a distinct setback to Birch Lane, a relatively new publishing house whose biggest coup became a fiasco. ”After it was sold to us, we discovered it was not sold to us, because the people didn`t have the right to sell it,” Black said. ”The fact that they never showed it to Mrs. Steinbeck was very rude. It was a mess, but it wasn`t our doing.”
Does that mean that ”Lifeboat” is not simply ”POSTPONED” but ”DEAD IN THE WATER,” as far as Birch Lane is concerned? ”Correct,” Black said.
Meanwhile, Steinbeck enthusiasts seeking an obscure World War II book can console themselves with ”Bombs Away,” his 1942 chronicle of a bomber crew that was commissioned by the Army Air Force. Paragon House will reissue a paperback edition in October.
