OCR Text |
Show "Westvyard the Women" Coming To The Grove The Golden Age for women is dead and gone, according- to Charles Char-les Schnee, former New York attorney at-torney and now one of Hollywood's Holly-wood's top screen waiters. "During the Gold Paish days of California no jury ever convicted a woman, regardless of hir offense," off-ense," says Schnee. "The ladies got away with every crime in the book & several new ones unknown to Blackstone. The reason was simple. Women were so few and far between that even the rip-roaring rip-roaring forth-niners would step off. the side walk, hat in hand, to gaze reverently if a woman walked walk-ed by." Schnee's interest in California's indulgent attitude toward the fair sex arose not from his legal background back-ground but from his recent M-G-M , writing assignment, "Westward the Women," which comes to the Grove Theatre screen Thursday, Friday and Saturday. "It's an unusual story," he declares, de-clares, "In a nutshell, Robert Taylor Tay-lor guides a covered wagon train of 200 women across country." In checking historical records, biographies and newspaper files, Schnee uncovered evidence not only on-ly of female immunity to the hoosegow but records of groups of women who went out West in organized or-ganized groups as "picture brides." bri-des." "Women, at least good women, were as scarce as mice at a cat show" says the writer. "The few already on the Coast were after gold, but without use of a pick and shovel. The discrepancy between be-tween male and female population was graphically recorded in the Deseret News, which checked all wagon trains passing thru Salt Lake City. During the first half of 1850, the News reported 27,171 men and 803 women, a ratio of almost fifty to one." During his research for "Westward "West-ward the Women," Schnee came across the story of a man and wife who arrived in California with two daughters. One girl was aged seventeen sev-enteen and the other fifteen. Within With-in a week the elder girl was married. mar-ried. The younger girl married a week later! In addition to facts feminine, Schnee uncovered incidents inci-dents which might have been in-corporatd in-corporatd into his screen play. He refrained from doing so on the theory that the public would never believe them. "For example," he says, "In the diary of 1 covered wagon I found the following events, all of which took place on the same day. In the morning a baby was born. In the evening there was a wedding. And late the same night, a young boy was accidently killed. If I had put those three incidents in my screen play and represented them as happenings in one day I'd be accused ac-cused of being corney." |