Having thus set forth what I may perhaps properly call the dramatis personae of the situation with which I have to deal herein and of which the Play and the Picture are the opposing protagonists, I will now turn back to some of the dates which it may be convenient to have recorded.
II. I have already mentioned that the Play was copyrighted on January 18, 1930.
It was first produced outside New York some time in January, 1930, and opened in New York City on February 4, 1930, and, after a comparatively successful run in which *839 Miss Katherine Cornell acted the role of the heroine therein, called Madeleine Cary, closed in New York City about May 24, 1930.
The Play was produced by Charles Frohman, Inc., whereof Mr. Gilbert Miller was managing director. On February 5, 1930, the acting version thereof was submitted, through Mr. Miller, to Mr. Rubin, the attorney of record for the defendants Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corporation and Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
This acting version of the Play was forwarded by Mr. Rubin to Mr. Thalberg, the vice president in charge of production, of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation. It was returned by him to Mr. Rubin and by Mr. Rubin to Mr. Miller on or about March 26, 1930, on the ground that Mr. Will Hays, the movie censor, would not permit the production of its acting version as a photoplay.
The Play opened in London about May 7, 1930, with Miss Fay Compton in the title role.
Between September 8 and 20, 1930, the Play was presented in Los Angeles, Cal. Then it went on the road coming East and playing in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago, and closing about Christmas, 1930.
About November, 1930, in a new endeavor to get around the censorship of Mr. Hays, the plaintiffs prepared a Treatment of the Play which they delivered to Mr. Rubin and which was marked in evidence before me. This Treatment was confessedly not the same story as the Play. It was not copyrighted, and was merely an attempt, by changing the story of the Play, to enable the defendant interests to purchase the moving picture rights thereof for production.
Mr. Rubin mailed the Treatment to Mr. Thalberg on or about December 3, 1930, and it was returned by Mr. Thalberg on December 16, 1930, to Mr. Rubin, and by him returned to the plaintiffs.
The Play, which I think has unusual dramatic merit, seems so greatly to have appealed to the defendants that, in spite of Mr. Hays' continued attitude of disapproval, on or about April 14, 1931, a contract for the purchase of the moving picture rights thereof by the defendant interests was drawn up and signed by Charles Frohman, Inc., and by Mrs. Barnes. This contract was conditioned on the withdrawal of Mr. Hays' objections, and in such event the purchase price was to be $30,000.
It might be noted, perhaps, in this connection, that Mr. Stromberg, the associate producer for the defendants, claims that he first read the Novel in January, 1931.
In June, 1931, some time after the contract above referred to was drafted, a conference was held in California with regard to the purchase of the Play thereunder by the defendant interests. At that conference there were Mr. Hays and Messrs. Mayer, Thalberg, Stromberg, and Lasky, representing the defendant interests. Mr. Hays still refused to lift his ban, and, consequently, the matter of the sale of the motion picture rights of ‘Dishonored Lady‘ to the defendant interests was finally dropped.
Up to this point it is common ground that there were complete bona fides on both sides, and there is not any criticism made of anything that happened up to this point.