The Solomon Scandals A Washington newspaper novel by David Rothman

‘Solomon Scandals’ movie? D.C.-Hollywood link—and a family one, too, with a ‘Lassie’ angle

Hol­ly­wood men­tions pop up in The Solomon Scan­dals, my Wash­ing­ton news­pa­per novel. L.A. and D.C. over­lap, all right, and even the peons can fix­ate on this. In Scan­dals, a GS-11 bureau­crat isn’t just dream­ing of mak­ing a mint as a tabloid tip­ster. He already knows who’ll play him in the movie.

Closer to real life, could Scan­dals itself be a film? Hardly a cer­tainty, but a Hol­ly­wood insider loves the dia­logue and the gen­eral out­ra­geous­ness of the book. For a role model, I’ll just have to rely on an obscure but pro­lific scriptwriter named Arnold Bel­gard (1907–1967). He was a dis­tant rel­a­tive on my mother’s side and amassed such cred­its as Tarzan and the Slave Girl, East of Kil­i­man­jaro and three “Bonanza” and nine “Lassie” episodes. Bel­gard directed “Kil­i­man­jaro” and The Mighty Jun­gle.

Scan­dals may be the only D.C. novel that ends with Thack­eray II, a talk­ing Afghan Hound, doing a Harry Tru­man send-up at the Cos­mos Club, and just now I noticed that The Fab­u­lous Joe, to which Bel­gard con­tributed dia­logue, fea­tures an artic­u­late canine. This and a “Lassie” con­nec­tion, too? Back to the Future?

Related: Watch Road Show for free, via the Inter­net Archive. Bel­gard was one of three writ­ers of this screw­ball com­edy directed by Hal Roach.

Update—a rel­e­vant link: Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: The New Hol­ly­wood, com­plete with a “power is a great aphro­disiac” quote from Sally Quinn (CBS News, dated June 10, 2009).

(Orig­i­nally pub­lished June 5, 2009. Moved up to be closer to the top of the blog.)