Examines how Nathanael West's darkly critical text in his novel "Miss Lonelyhearts" was censored, through a series of demurrals and evasions, displacements and substitutions, even repression, to make it acceptable for the screen. Suggests that the resulting script illuminates the momentous cultural struggles underway in 1930s America--in particular between middle class culture and a newly emergent mass media. (PA)