a
play in three acts by
George S. Kaufman and
Moss Hart.
The play was published and produced in 1930 and was Kaufman and Hart's first hit as collaborators. The play is set in New York, a Pullman car, and Los Angeles in the 1920s.
The plot may have been partial inspiration for that of the movie musical, Singing in the Rain. A comic romp in which three vaudevillians decide to make their fortune in the then new era of "talkies." They arrive in Hollywood with the plan to teach elocution, but the most witless of the three manages, on the strength of his idiocy, to get himself appointed studio director. His further follies and mistakes manage to make the careers of all three, as well as that of the director's equally stupid love interest, who is likewise catapulted to stardom and success. Collaborator Kaufman played a bit rôle as the New York scriptwriter who goes mad in his forgotten and ignored (but nicely paid) Hollywood niche.
The workings of the film industry haven't changed very much in the intervening 70-plus years. See also, Bowfinger, the memoirs of William Goldman and John Gregory Dunne, and the many other films, plays and essays that deal with the workings of the mainstream studios.