Spider Boy: A Scenario for a Moving Picture

by Carl van Vechten

A reclusive yet successful New York writer attempts to get away from it all only to be shanghaied by Hollywood.

297 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

Carl van Vechten (B.A., University of Chicago, 1903) was a photographer, music-dance critic, novelist, and patron of the Harlem Renaissance who served as literary executor for Gertrude Stein.

Van Vechten was among the most influential literary figures of the 1910s and 1920s. He began his career in journalism as a reporter, then in 1906 joined The New York Times as assistant music critic and later worked as its Paris correspondent. His early reviews are collected in Interpreters and Interpretations (1917 and 1920) and Excavations: A Book of Advocacies (1926). His first novel, Peter Whiffle (1922), a first-person account of the salon and bohemian culture of New York and Paris and clearly drawn from Van Vechten's own experiences, and was immensely popular. His most controversial work of fiction is Nigger Heaven (1926), notable for its depiction of black life in Harlem in the 1920s and its sympathetic treatment of the newly emerging black culture.

In the 1930s, Van Vechten turned from fiction to photography. His photographs are in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and elsewhere. An important literary patron, he established the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale.

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

After visiting Hollywood in the mid-20s, CVV wrote what may
be the first Hollywood novel. It's a creamy souffle with
slapstick scenes and producers, moguls, stars who would
all become cliches 2 decades later. Obviously CVV caught
the Santa Ana winds that remain classic. "People say it
sparkles," huffed Dorothy Parker, resisting the humor,
"I just keep quiet." George Jean Nathan retorted,
"Thoroughly amusing...its drollery has just the right
amount of cruelty."

A naive playwright w a Bwy hit finds himself in Hwd
upsetting fingerbowls and other things while pursued by
Imperia Starling (Pola Negri) and a mogul known as The
Great Greisheimer who insists, "Morals, even outside
business hours, is one of our great concerns." Very
Louis Mayer. He enjoys the company of star Auburn Six
(Aileen Pringle, a Van Vechten pal) who says, "You always
keep your promises? You'll get over that habit here."
Dear old Hollywood, he's reminded, "It's as sentimental
as old Heidelberg."

He also meets Ariane Norvell (Elinor Glyn): "I do not smoke.
I do not drink. I am like ice. To protect myself I have
created this frozen surface which no one can break through.
That is why I always wear ermine and emeralds." ~~ After dinner a hostess burps, "Who wants to see my new picture?"

But the writer like many CVV heroes wants to flee; he grasps
the idea of a skidoo to Cambodia ! Whaaat, he's told. "You
might as well move to Kansas City." Everything, even titles,
must change. His "Spider Boy" title is changed to "Love
and Danger."

This giggly novel begins on the luxe 20th Century train and moves to Culver City, where then as today the residents spend their nights looking at mooovies. No one reads. Slaves are paid to do that. "Do you think Henry James is suitable for the screen?" ~~ "Why not?" comes the reply. Do you write for the screen, asks one, who explains : "Make plenty of opportunities for close-ups." The story ? Oh, we always use the same story.

CVV made several visits to LaLa. He met everyone. His Hollywood Retort is a lovely screwballer based on what he saw. Nothing changes in LaLa. Stupidity reigns. It helped kill Nathanael West and later Scott Fitzie. But it sent CVV back to NYC with merriment. "I think I've got it" exclaims a writer. Be sure to read Anthony Slide's "It's the Pictures that Got Small," the edited letters of Chas Brackett on Billy Wilder.

The horreur of living in SOCal (I know) : Says one character, "I'll die if the sun dont stop shining. Some mornings I pull down the shades and pretend it's rainin' outside." Disclosure: I had to stand in the shower with an umbrella -- and pretend it was raining !

[Timothy Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a laugh-out-loud parody of the motion-picture business circa 1925, written by one of the great wits of the 20th Century. Recommended to humor-lovers and movie buffs!

[Jim Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was there ever an easier target for satire than Hollywood? In the 1920’s Anita Loos did it brilliantly, while Carl Van Vechten’s attempt at it, Spider Boy, is only slightly amusing and a shallower take on the same territory. All the clichés of Hollywood are ticked off as though from a packing slip—its fakeness, the egos of the actors, directors and studio heads, the waste, the backstabbing, and, most of all, its contempt for the serious writer. Van Vechten was himself married to a silent screen star and knew this world intimately, so it’s disappointing he did not come up with something either more original or funnier. It’s a screwball comedy that has a few funny scenes, but ultimately feels like it’s been overworked by a committee of Hollywood hacks.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hilarious and incisive fish out of water satire from the 1920s/30s wherein a reclusive playwright from Manhattan by way of the Great Plains achieves sudden fame on Broadway and is swooped up into the navel gazing machinations of Big Budget Hollywood. Miscommunications and hijinks ensue.

Ir has my highest recommendation.

I'm surprised this hasn't been made into a movie. I imagine a Barton Fink played strictly for laughs, without all the flophouse existential angst and murder, or a non-violent Get Shorty, where a reluctant Chili Palmer is dragged to Hollywood and succeeds in spite of himself.

[Caroline Eikenberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A funny romp, lampooning Hollywood culture during the silent movie era. A New York play write goes on a vacation to visit a friend in New Mexico. In Chicago he learns a famous actress is aboard and suddenly he is forced to meet with her. His plans are changed against his will, he ends up in California, locked in her mansion till he writes a screen play. Managing to escape out a window he signs a contract with the competing movie studio. Then he hops on a train to his friends place in New Mexico. The crazy actress that locked him up has the police arrest him. He tells them about how he was imprisoned and had to leave his things behind in order to free himself. Eventually he goes back to LA and a friend writes a terrible script. They put his name on it. The movie is made, bombs and he has made so much money he never has to work again. Also, he gets to marry the girl of his dreams.