"The Castaways" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, which first appeared in the Strand Magazine in June 1933, and was included in the collection Blandings Castle and Elsewhere, published in 1935.
Contents
The story is one of many narrated by pub raconteur Mr Mulliner, and concerns his nephew Bulstrode Mulliner, a writer in Hollywood. Wodehouse here compares the labor of writing of dialogue for talking movies to being stranded on a desert island.
This is the last of 5 Hollywood stories recounted by Mr Mulliner, the storyteller of the fictional Angler's Rest pub. Like the others, it follows a story-within-a-story format, in which an unidentified narrator briefly describes events in the pub—events that trigger a story of the tall-tale variety.
In this case, the barmaid mentions a book she is reading in which a couple of castaways are deposited on a deserted island, then fall in love with each other even though each is engaged to a different person back home. Mr Mulliner steps in with a story about his nephew, Bulstrode Mulliner, and an unrelated woman named Genevieve Bootle; he claims that their situation was "an almost exact parallel" to the barmaid's plot description.
The tall-tale aspect of the story begins with Mr Mulliner's claim that writing dialog in Hollywood really is exactly like being isolated on a remote island. This assertion, which will strike many readers as at the very least an exaggeration, actually does reflect some aspects Wodehouse's own real-life experiences in Hollywood in the 1930s, when he wrote dialog for movie studios and was disappointed when very little came of it (see below).
Parallels with Wodehouse's Real Life Experiences
In the plot summary in the next section, items that correspond to aspects of Wodehouse's own life are keyed using {braces}. The present section gives references to the keyed items.
Wodehouse did a few stints in Hollywood, under contract to write dialog for movies, and was frustrated when almost none of his material made it to the movie screen. For example, in his letter to fellow author William Townend (dated June 26, 1930, in Author! Author! and Performing Flea), he wrote:
When the Talkies came in and they had to have dialogue, the studios started handing out contracts right and left to everyone who had ever written a line of it {3}. Only an author of exceptional ability and determination could avoid getting signed up {2}... With the result that the migration to Hollywood has been like one of those great race movement of the Middle Ages {3}. So though there is a touch of desert island about the place and one feels millions of miles from anywhere {4}, one can always count on meeting half a dozen kindred spirits when one is asked out to dinner. {5}
{1} Wodehouse was an Englishman who moved to Los Angeles in the hopes of making a lot of money writing dialog for movies. His salary was $2,500 per week (Performing Flea), in an era when that amount of money was a large annual salary. On an annual basis, $2,500 per week amounts to over $125,000, which would indeed have been a fortune in that era.
{2} Although Wodehouse was not tricked into signing any contract, his descriptions of events in the lives of real writers frequently seemed to suggest that some deception was involved.
{3} Wodehouse mentioned that huge numbers of writers are typically hired for a single movie project.
{4} Wodehouse frequently described the climate of southern California in his letters (Performing Flea), and mentioned that "there is a touch of desert island about the place".
{5} Characters in the story meet each other (kindred spirits) while dining at the movie studio's commissary.
Plot
Mr Mulliner's story begins with the introduction of his nephew, Bulstrode Mulliner, an Englishman who moves to Los Angeles with the plan of making a fortune {1} by striking oil. His fiancée, Mabelle Ridgway, stays behind in New York. A hat mixup on a train leads him to the office of Jacob Z. Schnellenhamer, the president of the Perfecto-Zizzbaum movie studio. (Both Schnellenhamer and the studio are featured in Mr Mulliner's other Hollywood stories.)
Bulstrode tracks Schnellenhamer to his office, who immediately proposes that he sign a document that turns out to be a dialog-writing contract {2}, not a hat receipt. Schnellenhamer, who (like nearly all Wodehouse Hollywood executives) respects contracts but not oral agreements, immediately banishes Bulstrode to a room in the "Leper Colony", the name of one of the buildings in which writers write when working for Perfecto-Zizzbaum. (The other building, introduced later in the story, is named the "Ohio State Penitentiary". Of course, it is nowhere near Ohio and is not, at least formally, a penitentiary, any more than the employees in the Leper Colony actually have leprosy.) The project Bulstrode has inadvertently joined is a movie adaptation of "Scented Sinners", a failed Broadway musical that the studio bought the rights to, Schnellenhamer says. His secretary names 10 other writers who are already working on dialog for this bit of intellectual property. {3}
Mr Mulliner then lists several respects in which the climate of southern California, and the seclusion of the writers' working conditions, are precisely like the climate of a desert island. {4}
One day another writer shows up in Bulstrode's room—a woman named Genevieve Bootle, whom Wodehouse, via Mr Mulliner, specifically describes as "not a beautiful girl". Although both immediately disclose that they are engaged to others (Genevieve to Ed Murgatroyd, a Chicago bootlegger), a friendship and then a chaste romance develop.
The pressure of writing triggers a declaration of love by Bulstrode. A couple of minutes after he takes Genevieve in his arms and begins to kiss her, Mabelle and Ed burst through the door, the latter carrying a sawed-off shotgun. The two had met on a train to Los Angeles—a highly improbable coincidence that is, of course, a frequent event in tall tales. The two couples argue, break up, and Mabelle and Ed leave the building.
Unbeknownst to Bulstrode and Genevieve, Ed and Mabelle on their way off the studio grounds meet Schnellenhamer, who tricks them, too, into signing writing contracts {2} for "Scented Sinners". Assigned to the other building (the Ohio State Penitentiary), they are thereby forbidden to contact their former fiancés. Obviously, Wodehouse is setting up a situation in which Bulstrode and Mabelle will eventually get back together, and Genevieve and Ed will return to Chicago; the fact that the characters do not immediately act on this adds to the comic effect.
But in the meantime, Ed and Mabelle become engaged. And then the inevitable happens: Bulstrode meets Ed and Mabelle in the commissary {5}. Words are exchanged, histories are recounted, the engagement is revealed, and everyone confesses: they are all repelled by their current officemates and fiancés, and they all would prefer to return to their original partners. Thus, the three of them agree to confront Schnellenhamer and resign.
When they do, Schnellenhamer emphatically refuses, pulling their signed contracts out of his desk drawer. However, thinking he heard screams and other signs of disconent from the cadre of "Scented Sinners" writers, he calls a meeting of all of them in order to deliver a pep talk designed to bolster their morale. This inspirational speech is interrupted by another executive.
Upon hearing the purpose of the meeting, he informs Schnellenhamer that their company does not, in fact, own the rights to "Scented Sinners"; a different company outbid them for the rights 11 years previously. All the contracts are thus null and void.
The released writers (including the ten or so mentioned by name early in the story) celebrate their freedom. Most of them contribute their copies of their scripts to a bonfire. Bulstrode and Mabelle confess their happiness, but reveal that they have no financial resources to fall back on. Ed offers them a position in his Chicago bootlegging operation, and Bulstrode enthusiastically accepts, saying, "I'll buy a machine-gun to-morrow".
A preposterous ending such as this one is typical of Mulliner's stories, and fairly common in tall tales in general. In this case, the unnamed narrator does not return, and readers thus do not discover whether the other patrons of the Angler's Rest believe the story they have just been told.