Aug. 28, 1944

I had just put down “The History of Rome Hanks and Kindred Matters” when — flash! — came the word that MGM had bought the Lt. Joseph Stanley Pennell novel for $60,000. Here, my friends, is a powerful story of the Civil War, so powerful, in fact, it takes a good strong stomach to get past some of the passages. But not since Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe has an American written a first book with the beauty and force of Pennell, and the reading public is responding at the rate of 13,000 a week.

Two nights running, David Wark Griffith ran “Intolerance” and Birth of a Nation” for Preston Sturges, which inclines me to believe his deal with Sturges will be closed any day.

Director Mike Curtiz starts his 18th year at Warners … Certainly Dalton Trumbo won’t have to worry where his next meal comes from for the next few years … I remember so well Carole Lombard’s interest in Helen Deutsch’s story “But Is It Love,” the comedy she thought was so right for her. She took an option on it before she died and expected to interest one of the studios in making it. After Carole’s death, Helen Deutsch lost interest in the picture because she had set her heart on having Carole play in it. Now the story is being rewritten and will again be offered for sale.

VIRGO: You are in same planetary boat with Leoites today, therefore benefit by advice to them. Enjoy wholesome pleasures in free time. Avoid extremes.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer via Fultonhistory.com