Editing P. G. Wodehouse (section)

===Hollywood: 1929–1931===
There had been films of Wodehouse stories since 1915, when [[A Gentleman of Leisure (1915 film)|''A Gentleman of Leisure'']] was based on his 1910 novel of the [[A Gentleman of Leisure|same name]]. Further screen adaptations of his books were made between then and 1927,{{refn|They included the feature films ''Uneasy Money'' (1918), ''A Damsel in Distress'' (1919), ''[[The Prince and Betty (film)|The Prince and Betty]]'' (1919), ''Piccadilly Jim'' (1920), ''Their Mutual Child'' (1920, from the novel published in the UK as ''[[The Coming of Bill]]''), and ''The Small Bachelor'' (1927).<ref>Taves, p. 123</ref>|group= n}} but it was not until 1929 that Wodehouse went to Hollywood where Bolton was working as a highly paid writer for [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] (MGM). Ethel was taken with both the financial and social aspects of Hollywood life, and she negotiated a contract with MGM on her husband's behalf under which he would be paid $2,000 a week.<ref>Taves, p. 127</ref> This large salary was particularly welcome because the couple had lost considerable sums in the [[Wall Street crash of 1929]].<ref>McCrum, pp. 183, 186 and 214</ref>
{{Quote box|width=40%|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right| quote= The actual work is negligible.{{space}}... So far, I have had eight collaborators. The system is that A. gets the original idea, B. comes in to work with him on it, C. makes a scenario, D. does preliminary dialogue, and then they send for me to insert Class and what-not. Then E. and F., scenario writers, alter the plot and off we go again.| salign = right|source= — Wodehouse on working in Hollywood.<ref name=wd125/>}}

The contract started in May 1930, but the studio found little for Wodehouse to do, and he had spare time to write a novel and nine short stories. He commented, "It's odd how soon one comes to look on every minute as wasted that is given to earning one's salary."<ref name=wd125>Wodehouse and Donaldson, Letter of 26 June 1930, p. 125</ref> Even when the studio found a project for him to work on, the interventions of committees and constant rewriting by numerous contract authors meant that his ideas were rarely used. In a 2005 study of Wodehouse in Hollywood, Brian Taves writes that ''[[Those Three French Girls]]'' (1930) was "as close to a success as Wodehouse was to have at MGM. His only other credits were minimal, and the other projects he worked on were not produced."<ref>Taves, p. 131</ref>

Wodehouse's contract ended after a year and was not renewed. At MGM's request, he gave an interview to ''[[The Los Angeles Times]]''. Wodehouse was described by [[Herbert Warren Wind]] as "politically naive [and] fundamentally unworldly",<ref>Wind, p. 29</ref> and he caused a sensation by saying publicly what he had already told his friends privately about Hollywood's inefficiency, arbitrary decision-making, and waste of expensive talent. The interview was reprinted in ''[[The New York Times]]'', and there was much editorial comment about the state of the film industry.<ref>Taves, p. 137</ref> Many writers have considered that the interview precipitated a radical overhaul of the studio system,<ref>Donaldson, p. 143</ref> but Taves believes it to have been "a storm in a teacup", and Donaldson comments that, in the straitened post-crash era, the reforms would have been inevitable.<ref>Taves, p. 137 and Donaldson, p. 143</ref>

Wind's view of Wodehouse's naïveté is not universally held. Biographers including Donaldson, McCrum and Phelps suggest that his unworldliness was only part of a complex character, and that in some respects he was highly astute.<ref>Donaldson, p. xiv; McCrum, p. 305; and Phelps, p. 22</ref> He was unsparing of the studio owners in his early-1930s short stories set in Hollywood, which contain what Taves considers Wodehouse's sharpest and most biting satire.<ref>Taves, p. 138</ref>