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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19127, 23 September 1936, Page 14

"How a film gets written is one of the mysteries of modern life," he said to Fairbanks. "Like Topsy, it grows—and how it grows nobody quite knows/' Fairbanks, referring to the varying customs in what he described as "this mad business," said : "Almost on any film there are 'story conferences.' which seem interminable. They seem to go on and on, sometimes even after a picture is started. "ALL THE BEST BITS" "I have seen films that are sometimes written right on the set while ''shooting" is going on. I remember sitting 011 a set for three days, made-up and in costume, while we were writing the script ourselves | "In one film I should say that, from the time I was first engaged to the time it was finished, I saw at least two, and possibly three, different outlines with different endings and different 'middles.' In the end the film consisted of the best bits of all those, stories." Fairbanks added that three "shooting" scripts, were provided for a play shown to the trade on Monday night. They were by three different authors. "One author was engaged to write a complete "shooting" script, and that didn't meet with the approval of all of us," he explained. "Another author was then engaged to write in collaboration with us and that was afterwards altered, so that most of the dialogue and situations were different.

"The work of the first author was paid for, though it was not used. Altogether about five scenario writers worked on the film."

The hearing was adjourned