VOLUME 06 - NUMBER 04 WINTER 1970-71

• - = -... -. • FILM COMMENT IHISU: I~EEN

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STAFF o= VOLUME 6 NUMBER 4 editor u WINTER 1970-71 RICHARD CORLISS ~ CONTENTS assistant editor MELINDA WARD -.J The Hollywood Screenwriter by Richard Corliss. Page 4 book review editor 11. George Axelrod and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE DONALD STAPLES by John Hanhardt. Page 8 I- The Rise and Fall of the American West managing editor Borden Chase interviewed by Jim Kitses. Page 14 AUSTIN LAMONT Z Confessions of a Frustrated Screenwriter by Carl Foreman . Page 22 graphic designer W Jules Furthman MARTHA LEHTOLA by Richard Koszarski. Page 26 ~ Ben Hecht: A Sampler advertising manager ~ by Steven Fuller. Page 32 NAOMI WEISS Script to Screen with Max Ophuls o by Howard Koch . Page 40 assistants The Career of Ring Lardner Jr. re search MAR Y YUSHAK u by Kenneth Geist. Page 44 research ROBIN MAHLER Written on the Screen : Anita Loos ~ by Gary Carey. Page 50 design LINDA MANCINI The Career of Dudley Nichols subscriptions EDITH WEINBERGER -.J by Paul Jensen . Page 56 They Shaft Writers Don 't They? editorial board 11. James Poe interviewed by Michael Dempsey. GEORGE AMBERG , Chairman Page 64 Department of Cinema Studies, New York University I- Z The Many Vo ices of Donald Ogden Stewart New York , New York W by Gary Carey . Page 74 ~ Preston Sturges in the Thirties JOSEPH L. ANDERSON , Director ~ by Andrew Sarris. Page 80 Film Program , Ohio University Athens, Ohio o Screenwriters Symposium . Page 86 JAMES A . BEVERIDGE , Director u Fifty Filmographies. Page 101 Programme in Film , York University Index. Page 116 Toronto, Ontario ~ HOWARD SUBER , Assistant Professor -.J Motion Picture Division, University of California 11. Los Angel es, California I- The opinions expressed in FILM COMMENT are those of the individual authors and do not Z necessarily represent the opinions W of the editor, staff or publisher. ~ FILM COMMENT. volume 6 number 4. Winter 1970-71 . ~ price $1 .50. FILM COMM ENT is published quarterly by Film Comment Publishing Corporation. o Copyright@ 1970 Film Com men t Publishing Corporation . u This publication is fully protec ted by domestic and international copyright. ~ It is fo rbidden to du plicate any part of th is publica tion in any way wi thout prio r wr itten per mission from th e publishers. -.J Second class postage paid at Boston . Massachusetts . 11. Subscription rates in North America : $6 for four numbers. $12 for eight numbers ; I- elsewhere $7 for fou r numbers , $14 for eight numbers . payable in US funds only . Z New subscribers please include your occupation and zip code. W Subscription and back issue correspondence: FILM COMMENT 100 Walnut Place ~ Brookline Massachusetts 02146. ~ Editorial correspondence: FILM COMMENT 41 Union Square West o New York NY 10003 Back volumes of FILM COMM ENT have been u rep rinted by Johnson Rep rint Corporation 111 Fifth Ave nue New York NY 10003. ~ Microfilm editions are available from -.J University Microfilms Ann Arbor Michigan 48106. Please write to these companies for complete sales information . Type set by Rochester Monotype Composition Company and Machine Composition Company. Printed in USA by Willis McDonald and Com pany. National Newsstand distributio n by B. DeBoer. 188 High Street Nutley New Jersey 07110. Library of Congress card number: 76-498. cover photo, from left: Anita Loos, Ring Lardner Jr, George Axelrod , Charles McArthur, (seated) Dudley Nichols and Ben Hecht. [Ring Lardner Jr and George Axelrod photos by Wide World. All other and all uncredited photos in this issue from the Museum of Modern Art/ Film Stills Archive.]



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0) Eight years ago, when popular movie criticism con- (who has made five). The Revolution was victorious. sisted mainly of plot summaries and star-gazing, and III Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was scorn- In some respects , however, the anarchists show ing Godard and ignoring Ford and Hawks, Film tendencies of close-minded classicism . They put the Culture magazine published two articles by Andrew spotlight on the once-despised Hollywood movie Sarris that were to revolutionize film criticism in the system and sprinkled a little cultural respectability United States. In the first article, \" Notes on the on the industry's \" hack \" directors-fine. But in Auteur Theory in 1962,\" Sarris proposed an Ameri- doing so they retarded investigation of other, equally canization of the politique des auteurs, which held vital film crafts, especially that of the screenwriter, that the director is the author of a film and that visual who creates (or creatively adapts) a film's plot, style is the key to assessing a director's standing characters, dialogue and theme. as an auteur. In The American Cinema, he evaluat- ed-indeed, he rated-106 American directors (and The director is right in the middle of things. At the seven foreigners) in categories ranging from the very least, he's on the sound stage while the director \"Pantheon\" to \" Oddities and One Shots.\" of photography is lighting the set that the art director has designed and, later, while the actors are speak- It took some time for the importance of Sarris' work ing the lines that the screenwriter wrote. Quite often, to become evident to the community of film scholars. he steers all these factors-story, actors , camera-in Hadn 't Pauline Kael demolished his stratified silli- the right direction . So why not just say it's his film, ness for good in a Film Quarterly polemic read by that he is the author? Simply because the director far more people than Sarris' original articles? Hadn 't is almost always an interpretive artist , not a creative Dwight Macdonald resigned his regular column in one, and because the Hollywood film is a corporate Film Quarterly because Sarris was invited to con- art, not an individual one : This doesn't diminish the tribute, and hadn't he done so with a venom that importance of the director, or the validity of the suggested an angry redneck burning a cross on the Hollywood film as an art. Both Chartres and CHARADE lawn of his new Negro neighbor's house? Hadn 't were the work of a number of individuals who con- Richard Dyer MacCann conspicuously omitted tributed their unique talents to a corporate enter- Sarris' writing (or any auteur criticism) from his prise, but this fact doesn't necessarily make either anthology, Film : A Montage of Theories , which did work less appropriate for serious study than , say, include a piece by Kael the theory-baiter? the Mona Lisa or MOTH LIGHT. It just makes it more difficult for the critic to assign sole authorship to It's a pity that Academia didn 't notice what Sarris the work-and why should he waste time on a Name had going for him: an engaging prose style that Game like this? ranged from entertainingly analytical to deliriously lyrical ; a popular, hip publication (The Vii/age Voice) In the same way , both Stanley Donen and Stan just right for reaching the young intellectuals for Brakhage may be called film artists, but Donen is whom film was the most exciting art; a subject matter an interpretive artist while Brakhage is a creative (the Hollywood sound film) that he knew almost one ; Donen is a conductor and Brakhage a com- viscerally, and whose product was bound to interest poser. Donen is a film director who collaborates with his readers more than the \" serious\" European films his writers, actors and technicians in a completely praised by his detractors; and a burgeoning group different way than Brakhage, the filmmaker, collab- of articulate acolytes (like Roger Greenspun and orates with his film strips and viewer. The case can James Stoller) who could spread the faith without be made that Donen is a better film director than his losing face. Brakhage is a filmmaker ; they work in separate but equal film traditions, and it is possible that Donen Came the Revolution , which coincided with the succeeds in his genre, whereas Brakhage may fail growing number of film courses and monographs. in his . The theory used to be that the solitary, cre- Sarris' thoughtful and well-timed challenge to the ative artist produced Art, and the corporate, inter- near-monopoly of social-realist criticism was adopt- pretive craftsman produced Entertainment-a prej- ed by most of the younger critics, and even adapted udice that kept people from examining the Holly- by some of the less secure older ones. It was re- wood movie. The auteur theory says, in effect, freshing to examine films as the creations of artists \" What you thought was just Entertainment is really rather than of social forces, and to be able to do Art, because it is the work of an individual cre- so in a manner that was serious without being sol- ator-an auteur. Therefore the Hollywood movie is emn . Americans could finally admit that their movies worthy to be examined .\" weren't sinful just because they were entertaining , and that the films deserved to be judged by the same Many films are indeed dominated by the personality artistic standards applicable to any film. of the director, although not, perhaps, in the way the auteurists mean. The phrase \" directorial per- By 1969, when Sarris expanded The American Cine- sonality\" makes more sense if taken quite literally. ma to book length, the critical attitude that had The good director is usually a man with a strong , begun as a reaction to the party line was in serious persuasive personality. He has to be a combination danger of hardening into the Gospel According to of tough guy, to make the technicians respond to St. Andrew . The New York Times had been convert- his commands, and best friend , to coax a good ed into a veritable auteur shrine; its first- and sec- performance out of a sensitive actress. Whether he ond-string critics adhered closely to Sarris' tastes directs with a riding crop (Stroheim), an icy stare and standards, and its Almanac welcomed the word (Sternberg), or a few soft-spoken words (Cukor), auteur into the English language, along with acid, his personality is often crucial to the success of a activist and Afro. Film societies mounted ambitious film< The importance of a director's personal-or retrospectives of directors, from John Ford and Jean even visual-style is not questioned here, only the Renoir to Sam Fuller and Russ Meyer. Publishers assumption that he creates a style out of thin air commissioned extended studies of Fritz Lang (who (with his collaborating craftsmen acting merely as has made forty-three films) and Roman Polanski paint, canvas, bowl of fruit, and patron), instead of 4 WINTER 1970-71

adapting it to the equally important styles of the story of the Thirties, Alfred Hitchcock 's THE LADY VANISHES by and performers. The same literal meaning can apply and Carol Reed 's NIGHT TRAIN . With the credits and to a director's \" authority,\" which accurately de- Hitchcock's cameo cut from the films (but with the Richard scribes his function on the set. Gilliatt and Launder figures , in the puckish persons Corliss of Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford , left in), even But the director need not be the only dominant force an auteurist might have trouble determining which in a successful film . Often the actor is the auteur. director was responsible for which film . That is be- Keaton and Chaplin may be fine directors, but it cause the authorship, and thus the responsibility, is their screen personalities that we especially belonged to the two writers. cherish . Who would trade Keaton the actor for Kea- ton the director? And who would prefer analyzing BODY AND SOUL, written by Abraham Polonsky and the directorial styles of James W. Horne, Donald directed by Robert Rossen , fits securely into Po- Crisp, Edward Sedgwick on Charles F. Reisner to lonsky's very personal urban Hellmouth , with its savoring that sublime bodily mechanism that Buster Breughelesque, sUbway-at-rush-hour denSity, its controls so beautifully? The unique cinema person- stylized but fiercely realistic dialogue, and its cheeky ae of W.C. Fields, Mae West and Laurel and Hardy characters who seem to carry both a chip and also flourished with little regard to the director of an albatross on their shoulders. His authorship of record , and can be defined without much reference BODY AND SOUL can be certified , if need be, by a to him-although, quite naturally, the combination look at his next film , the malignant FORCE OF EVIL, of the comedians with different scripts and directors which he also directed, and which extends and produced varying results. The same can be said of enriches the penny-ante peSSimism of BODY AND such incandescent performers as Greta Garbo , SOUL. Waldo Salt's adaptations of RACHEL AND THE Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Just as one can STRANGER (1948) and MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) are be drawn to an exercise in visual style like Blake both graced by intelligent empathy for some very Edwards ' DARLING LILI without finding it a completely unusual characters, and by the gentle humor he successful film , so can one delight in the way Garbo evokes from the most improbable situations. Ring dignifies and illuminates a rickety melodrama like Lardner Jr.'s penchant for bantering , overlapping MATA HARI with her beauty , her passion , and her dialogue distinguishes WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942) ironic acceptance of an innate and tragic superior- and M '~ A \"' S \"' H (1970), although most of his other ity. assignments during those three decades offered him little chance to display his talent. Paul Mazursky and It's instructive-indeed, it's often fun-to see a great Larry Tucker, not director Hy Averback , are surely actor transcend a ridiculous script and unfeeling the authors of I LOVE YOU , ALICE B. TOKLAS; its suc- direction; it's interesting to watch a fine director play cessor, BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE , evinced the around with an incredible story and poor perform- same social concerns and behavioral absurdities, ers. But the real joy in movies comes from seeing while Averback has loped further into obscurity with the fortuitous communion of forces (story, script, each new film. (Significantly, now that Mazursky is direction, acting , lighting, editing, design, scoring) a director, he tends to ignore the contribution of that results in a great Hollywood film . FRANKENSTEIN , his writing partner.) SCARFACE , LOVE ME TONIGHT, CAMILLE , HOLIDAY, MR . SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, HIS GIRL FRIDAY , CITIZEN It's clear that some method of classification and KANE , PENNY SERENADE, CASABLANCA, DOUBLE INDEM- evaluation is necessary, both to identify and to as- NITY, BODY AND SOUL, RACHEL AND THE STRANGER , sess the contributions of the over-paid but under- BORN YESTERDAY , SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS , rated genus known as the screenwriter. But that is THE SEARCHERS, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a game that conceals even more perils than Sarris ' PSYCHO, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, CHARADE , and Hit Parade of Directors. Once the auteur scholar PLANET OF THE APES are just a few ex amples of accepts the myth of the omnipotent director, his collaborative movie-making at its best. Intelligent game is won : he can Pass Kael and Collect $200. appreciation of films like these , and not scholastic Indeed , even an adherent of the politique des col- disputes over the validity of individual signatures, laborateurs can be fairly sure that the director of should be our first critical concern . record is the man who hollered \" Action! \" and \" Cut! \" -thoLigh his importance in controlling what The cry \" cherchez /' auteur\" can lead unwary film went on between those two commands may be scholars astray when the auteur happens to be the disputed . But the size of a screenwriter's contribu- author-or rather, when the script is the basis for tion to any given film is often far more difficult to a film 's success. More often than not, when a fine ascertain . A writer may have received screen credit film is signed by a mediocre director, the film 's for work he didn 't do (such as Sidney Buchman on distinctive qualities can be traced to the HOLIDAY) or for a few minor suggestions (Orson screenwriter. There's no need to rescue Mitchell Welles on CITIZEN KANE) . More likely, his name Leisen , Garson Kanin , Sam Wood and William D. may not appear on the screen even if he has written Russell from the underworld of neglected directors virtually the entire script. Ben Hecht was responsible simply because they were each fortunate enough for far more of GONE WITH THE WIND 'S dialogue than to direct a comedy written by Norman Krasna (HANDS Sidney Howard , who had merely written a treatment ACROSS THE TABLE , BACHELOR MOTHER , THE DEVIL AND of the Margaret Mitchell novel for producer David MISS JONES , and DEAR RUTH , respectively). The direc- O. Selznick. But it was Howard who received sole tion of these films is usually adroit and sensitive , screen credit , as well as a posthumous Oscar-for and the presence of charming comediennes en- Hecht's work. Michael Wilson wrote the screenplay hances them even further; but the delightfully domi- for FRIENDLY PERSUASION and co-scripted THE BRIDGE nant personality behind the screen is undoubtedly ON THE RIVER KWAI. But the Hollywood Blacklist kept Krasna's. Similarly, the team of Sydney Gilliatt and his name off both films , and the writing Oscar for Frank Launder constructed the frame-and contrib- KWAI was awarded to Pierre Boulle, who had nothing uted most of the furnishings-for two witty thrillers to do with the film adapted from his novel. FILM COMMENT 5

A more subtle problem is appraising the work of a THIRTEENTH LETTER) , and his fulfillment of the three screenwriter who specializes in adaptations. Few conditions mentioned above, give credence to his screenwriters can boast a more impressive list of account of the writing of CASABLANCA. In fact, most credits than Donald Ogden Stewart. As with George of the best screenwriters were the sole authors of Cukor, the director for whom he produced his finest a substantial number of scripts. scripts, Stewart's \" filmography is his most eloquent defense.\" Both Stewart and Cukor, however, had The paucity of critical and historical literature makes the good luck to be assigned adaptations of some all screenwriters \" Subjects for Further Research .\" of the wittiest and most actable theatre pieces of The cavalier group-headings on the following lists their time-HOLIDAY , THE WOMEN (for which Stewart are meant only to emphasize the tentative nature received no screen credit) , THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, of the classifications. As more films are seen from and EDWARD , MY SON , among others-and Stewart a screenwriter's point of view, names will be shuffled adhered closely to both spirit and letter. Stewart's from one list to another. Ultimately, each of these achievement should not be degraded; many fine screenwriters, and a hundred more, should have screenwriters failed at the delicate craft he mas- an artistic identity clear enough so that such capri- tered. But, as with directors, one can distinguish cious classifications will be unnecessary. Until that several levels of screenwriting : the indifferent work enlightened time comes to pass, we must make do of a mediocre writer, whether an original script or with an Acropolis of Screenwriters something like an adaptation (which we may call procrustean); the the one which follows. (To make matters even more gem polishing of a gifted adaptor like Stewart (pro- delphic, the screenwriter's work is defined simply tean); and the creation of a superior original script, by three of his finest films .) like Herman J . Mankiewicz 's CITIZEN KANE or Po- lonsky 's BODY AND SOUL (promethean). When faced The men and women honored in this issue, by with the career of a Stewart, the critic who has adapting their conspicuous talents to the byzantine discarded the convenience of the auteur theory demands of the trade, developed the most success- must compare Stewart's adaptation with the source ful screenwriting techniques. Success usually begat work , in hopes of detecting such changes as plot power, and power beg at authority. By authority is compression or expansion, bowdlerization , addition meant the right to complete your own script without or deletion of dialogue , and differences in theme being forced to surrender it to the next fellow on and tone. At worst, this research will exhaust and the assembly line, the right to consult with any actor discourage the critic; at best, it will convince him or director who wants changes, and the right to that the creation of a Hollywood movie involves a fight for your film through the taffy pull of front-office complex weave of talents, properties, and personal- politics, pressure groups, and publicists. The power ities. of the most important screenwriters often resulted in superior films , in which the distin'ctive contribu- When a screenwriter, like Preston Sturges or George tions of writer and director can be analyzed with Axelrod , has a distinctive style, his contributions to greater assurance. Inevitably, some writers had lit- films with multiple script credits can usually be dis- erary pretensions, not only for themselves but for cerned. But the hallmark of many of the best the cinemah , and when these men achieved some screenwriters is versatility, not consistency. Subject measure of autonomy, the cheerful cynicism of their matter dictates style. Given the chameleon-like earlier, more successful scripts was replaced by quality of these writers, how are we to know which sesquipedalian platitudes on The Brotherhood of part of the CASABLANCA script is the work of the Man Through World Government. Thus, the most sophisticated but self-effacing Howard Koch , and famous screenwriters , such as Dudley Nichols, Dal- which part was written by Warners' prolific Epstein ton Trumbo and , of late, Buck Henry, are not neces- brothers? Luckily , Koch himself has told the CASA- sarily the best. Nichols' thoughtful articles on the BLANCA production story , and revealed that the Ep- need for sparse, realistic dialogue were not often steins fabricated a plot around the name of a sa- matched by his actual scripts, which tend to talk the loon-Rick 's-they had found in an unproduced characters into the ground with palaver and pontifi- play, and that, when the brothers moved on to an- cation . Dalton Trumbo 's private letters (now pub- other assignment, Koch developed the strands of lished in book form) reveal an easy-going but pun- their story into a full-blooded screenplay that reads gent wit that was concealed by his attempts to radicalize bourgeois movie melodrama. The pomp as well as it plays . We don't have many of these currently surrounding Buck Henry derives largely memoirs, though , and since most Hollywood egos from the fortuitous circumstance of his visible con- are about as large as the Graf Zeppelin , the ac- nection with Mike Nichols and The Graduate, a film counts of screenwriters may be taken with the same whose dialogue was lifted, almost word for word, pillar of salt we keep handy for directors' interviews from Charles Webb 's novel. When on his own (in and actors' autobiographies. The Troublemaker and Candy), Henry 's humor is decidedly undergraduate, even sophomoric. Nevertheless, a screenwriter's work should, and can , be judged by considering his entire career, as Unfortunately, the best screenwriters are likely to is done with a director. If a writer has been associat- be ignored by film critics and historians. It's a minor ed with a number of favorite films, if we can distin- scandal that film students are aware of Don Siegel 's guish a common style in films with different directors montages for CASABLANCA but not of Howard Koch 's and actors, and if he has received sole writing credit script; that Jules Furthman is trampled under foot on several films, an authorial personality begins to in the mad rush to canonize Hawks and Sternberg ; appear. The high polish and excitement of Koch 's that film buffs, who can trace Gregg Toland's other work , for example (he wrote Invasion from deep-focus work from WUTHERING HEIGHTS through Mars, better known as War of the Worlds, for the CITIZEN KANE , don 't know , and probably don 't care, Orson Welles Mercury Theatre, and his film scripts that Herman Mankiewicz wrote CITIZEN KANE with include THE LETTER , SERGEANT YORK, THREE STRAN- only nominal assistance from Orson Welles. \" In my GERS, LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN and THE opinion ,\" Welles said twenty years ago, \" the writer 6 WINTER 1970-71

'T should have the first and last word in filmmaking , who have learned to meet the demands of a youth the only better alternative being the writer-director, market while doing work that an adult can be proud but with the stress on the first word .\" of: Waldo Salt with MIDNIGHT COWBOY , Ring Lardner Jr. with M \" A * S * H, Abraham Polonsky with TELL THEM Perhaps the day of the hyphenate, the writer- director, has already dawned , and the screen- WILLIE BOY IS HERE, and Albert Maltz with TWO MULES writer will become just another high-priced FOR SISTER SARA . But whether these trends are artifact in that great Hollywood auction in the sky . heralding the screenwriter's second wind or por- Perhaps not. Some of the most successful and pop- tending his last gasp, the first forty years of the ular films of the Right-Now Generation have been American commerical sound film cannot be evaluat- close adaptations of novels, with tight, efficient ed without considering the crucial role he has scripts (such as THE GRADUATE , ROSEMARY ' S BABY played . The best screenwriters were talented and and MIDNIGHT COWBOY). It's also encouraging to note tenacious enough to assure that their visions and the return to prominence of veteran screenwriters countless revisions would be realized on the screen . Nowit is timeforthem to be remembered in film history. '11~OII~ PARTHENON ERECHTHEION BRAURONION PANDROSEION Sidney Buchman George Axelrod W. R. Burne\" Charles BrackeH Mr. Smith Goes The Manchurian Candidate High Sierra Midnight How to Murder Your Wife The Asphalt Jungle To Each His Own to Washington Lord Love a Duck The Great Escape The Model and the Marriage Borden Chase John Huston Broker Theodora Goes Wild Red River The African Queen Delmer Daves Here Comes Mr. Jordan Winchester 73 Jezebel An Affair to Remember Jules Furthman The Far Country The Maltese Falcon Dark Passage Rio Bravo Garson Kanin Nunnally Johnson Professor Beware The Big Sleep Born Yesterday .Jesse James Philip Dunne Shanghai Express Pat and Mike Prisoner of Shark Island How Green Was My Valley Ben Hecht Adam's Rib The Dirty Dozen The Ghost and Mrs. Muir Scarface Charles Lederer John Lee Mahin Hilda Crane Gone With the Wind His Girl Friday North to Alaska Frances Goodrich and The Scoundrel The Thing Red Dust Albert HackeH The Front Page The Horse Soldiers The Thin Man Howard Koch Anita Loos Joseph L. Mankiewicz Seven Brides Casablanca Reaching for the Moon All About Eve Letter from Hold Your Man A Letter to Three Wives for Seven Brothers Down to Earth Million Dollar Legs It's Wonderful Life an Unknown Woman Daniel Mainwearing Seton I. Miller Casey Robinson The Letter Invasion of the The Criminal Code Now Voyager Norman Krasna Ministry of Fear Dark Victory Bachelor Mother Body Snatchers The Dawn Patrol (1930) Captain Blood Hands Across the Table Out of the Past Dudley Nichols Charles Schnee The Devil and Miss Jones The Tall Target Judge Priest The Bad and The Beautiful Frances Marion Herman J. Mankiewicz Sister Kenny They Live By Night Camille (1936) Citizen Kane Swamp Water I Walk Alone Stella Maris Citizen Kane Abraham Polonsky R. C. Sherri\" The Scarlet Letter Citizen Kane Force of Evil The Invisible Man Frank S. Nugent Robert Riskin Body and Soul Odd Man Out The Searchers It Happened One Night Madigan The Old Dark House Wagonmaster Platinum Blonde Morrie Ryskind Frank Tashlin Two Rode Together The Whole Town's Talking Penny Serenade Will Success Spoil Samson Raphaelson Donald Ogden Stewart A Night at the Opera Trouble in Paradise Holiday Stage Door Rock Hunter? Suspicion Love Affair Jo Swerling The Paleface The Shop Around Edward My Son Leave Her to Heaven Bachelor Flat Michael Wilson Lifeboat Anthony Veiller the Corner Five Fingers Man's Castle The Killers Preston Sturges Lawrence of Arabia The List of The Lady Eve A Place in the Sun Sullivan's Travels Adrian Messenger Easy Living The Stranger Billy Wilder Phillip Yordan Ninotchka The Man From Laramie Sunset Boulevard The Fall of the Some Like It Hot Roman Empire Johnny Guitar [disputed by the authors of Trente Ans du Cinema Americain, who contend that Ben Maddow is the film 's sole screenwriter.) FILM COMMENT 7

t;l~tlltt;l~ ~)[I~I~lttlll ;llltl '1~lle '\\\\;IIICIIIII-i;111 t~;llltlitl;lte by John Hanhardt THE MANCHURIAN CANOl DATE. Leslie Parri sh and Lauren ce Harvey. 8 WINTER 1970-71

John Hanhardt succeeded editor Richard Corliss as ence that result in a completed film . This approach the intern for the Museum of Modern Art's Depart- should help us not only to view a film with greater perception and understanding , but also to establish ment of Film . He is studying for a Ph .D. at New York more precisely the unique and complex quality of an art form that has been oversimplified and thus University's School of Cinema Studies. misrepresented . It is a first step in achieving a more objective look at the process of film creation . The aim of a good part of film scholarship in recent years has been to locate in the director the author- One of the craftsmen whose work has distinguished ship of a fi lm 's distinctive form . This advancement, several important films of the past fifteen years is in America and Europe, of the director as auteur George Axelrod. One can indeed trace his career has saved from serious neglect the distinctive con- without much difficulty, from radio and television tribution made by many directors. The focus of this writer to novelist to playwright to screenwriter, and critical school has been directed to the Hollywood finally to writer-director. There is in Axelrod 's work motion picture, a national cinema grossly neglected a natural development, both in the style of his com- at home. The notion that such popular entertainment edy and in the themes with which he deals. Axelrod 's enjoyed by millions should have more than sociolog- apprenticeship as a comedy writer for radio and ical interest was looked upon as sheer fancy. To television helped him develop the quick repartee of the serious critic the Hollywood film , with few ex- his stage and film comedies . This experience was ceptions, never attained the honesty and wit shown also invaluable in giving Ax elrod an intuitive feeling in the classics of European filmmaking . This gener- for the pace and placement of dialogue. ally-felt attitude in America was a product of the inferiority complex felt by American intellectuals At the age of thirty, Axelrod wrote his first play The toward Europe and the feeling that popular genres Seven Year Itch, which enjoyed huge Broadway such as the Western and musical were not meant success. The action takes place in the New York to be taken seriously. apartment of an editor for a paperback publishing house. His wife and child are at their summer place But when the politique des auteurs, as formulated and he must stay in the city. He discovers that the by Andre Bazin and promulgated by Cahiers du apartment above his is occupied by a young blonde Cinema, reached our shores from Paris and was model , whom he meets, appraises, and somewhat taken up by Andrew Sarris, there began a slow and guiltily takes to bed. The themes of sex and marriage then hurried ascendency of the American film and in the play (the man 's anxiety over having an affair director in small film journals . Today, in film societies and eventual decision that he really loves his wife) and museums, programs are centered around the are to appear in Axelrod 's film scripts and plays. work of a director; publishers are turning out scores The dialogue is qu ick, clever, and very funny-but of monographs praising directors; a good portion it is the imaginative use of the stage that marks the of the audience goes to see a new film because play. The use of isolated action and dialogue in the it's the work of a favorite director, and film students hero 's daydreams will appear later on in LORD LOVE talk about the \" director's film. \" II. DUCK (\"It's the other side of the coin of The Seven Year Itch . .. even to the dream sequences and the This emphasis on the director is to a large measure flashes . But a far more mature one. It should be; a product of uncertainty as to the true nature of I should have learned something in fifteen the cinema and an attempt to bestow upon film the years .. . \" ). credentials of the established arts. The theory of one artist, one author, imposed on traditional film Axelrod 's next play, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunt- production is unfortunate. Traditional filmmaking is er?, is far more simply constructed . Its importance essentially a corporate affair, involving many people to Axelrod 's style is in the autobiographic quality with their own conceptions of what a film's final form of the content. One of the leading characters is a should take. While the auteur theory has led to a playwright who, after having achieved great critical sensitive reading of a director's career (in terms of success with his first play, goes to the playground his evolving style and the development of certain of Hollywood where he acquires wealth and cyni- themes) , it has also brought forth some byzantine cism in equal measure. The themes of sex, money, reasoning and justification of the auteur's entire success and the prostitution of one's talents hover oeuvre . While it is undeniably the case that some just below the surface of this otherwise glib and directors have for various reasons developed dis- amusing effort. tinctive styles , it is a superficial and overly optimistic method with which to come to grips with the true Already in the first two plays Axelrod has patented nature and art of the cinema. his type of comedy: quick witted but facile cynicism about success, marriage and sex. His next play Each individual involved in a film 's production has Goodbye, Charlie, again set in Hollywood , concerns ~ v~ried amount of experience in his area of special- a mediocre screenwriter who is shot by an irate Ization . The people behind and in front of the cam- husband he was cuckolding . After his death he era are not the product of one ind ividual's imagina- returns as a woman physically but as CharlIe men- tion . The director does not have the same, one-to- tally . The inevitable lesson is learned and then he / one relationship with his film that the writer has with she returns to his old buddy as a full she. The play his typewriter, or the painter with his canvas. The is forced and simple but the same preoccupations collective creative process (so we may call large- are there , with fantasy playing a large part in the scale filmmaking) is not a simple one; we must allow play's structure. for many contributing factors in trying to understand what makes a film the distinctive thing it is. The The preoccupations of Axelrod 's non-film work nat- critic's next crucial task is to discover a method that urally playa part in his original screenplays , adapta- will separate and evaluate the many strains of influ- tions , and direction . But, in attempting to discover his contribution to the films with which he was in- volved , I came to realize that the influence was not FILM COMMENT 9

THE SEVEN the screenplay , is not a Frankenheimer, Franken- YEAR ITCH. heimer-Axelrod , or Axelrod film ; rather, it involved a cooperative effort of many distinctive people con- Marilyn Monroe tributing to the distinctive feature of the film itself. and Tom Ewell. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE merits close study both in itself and in the prominence in both Axelrod and BREAKFAST AT Frankenheimer 's careers. This approach is a model TIFFANY 'S. and admittedly a tentative one; but, by breaking down into separate study units the elements that Patricia Neal , Audrey contributed to the film , it allows for cross-referential Hepburn, and George study and for adjustment and expansion as new material is added. Rather than treating the film as Peppard. one feature in the career of Axelrod or Franken- heimer, it treats the film as a complex of filmogra- a simple one of \" a George Axelrod script, directed phies . THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is, in a sense , being exploded to detail who and what preCisely by x.\" Axelrod 's experience in film has included made it what it is. The placement of the film in the careers of its director (John Frankenheimer), having his own plays adapted to the screen , adapt- screenwriter (George Axelrod), Cinematographer ing other properties, writing original screenplays (Lionel Lindon ), Ed itor (Ferris Webster) , Composer and directing . The variety of Axelrod 's experience (David Amram), Art Director (Richard Sylbert), nov- in films appeared at first glance to be a simple elist (Richard Condon), and principal actors (Frank auteu r-type case study. Such , however, is not the Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, Laurence Harvey, Janet case. Reading articles, interviews and studies of the Leigh) is to show their work before and after THE various projects in which he was involved I came to MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. During the years before this realize that there was no simple determining facto r. film was made each of these individuals was devel- THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE for which Axelrod wrote oping a style, attitude, and distinctive personality that was going to have some influence and con- tribution to make to this film . For example, the per- sona of each actor decided to a large extent how the character of the film was to be interpreted both by the audience , and by the director and screenwriter. The selection of filmographies was not random , but based on what Frankenheimer has said about the film and what Axelrod said about his experience in filmmaking . The preCise nature of the contribution made by the individuals cannot be completely ascertained here and evaluation and judgement is not sought here. What is being sought is a new way of looking at a film-an indication of another path to follow. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is based on a novel of the same name written by Richard Condon (see bibliography) written in 1959. Condon was at one time a movie press agent and is a \" film buff.\" The structure of the novel , told in the third person, is quickly paced and has much wry humor directed toward both the characters and American institu- tions . The story 's framework is the account of Ray- mond Shaw, a cold , insensitive introvert who is a soldier in the Korean conflict. The Red Chinese brainwash Raymond and his platoon into believing he is a hero (for which he subsequently wins the Congressional Medal of Honor). Raymond is now a human bomb , set to kill on order and then to forget he committed the act. Back home he is a hero, especially useful to his domineering mother, who later proves to be a Russian agent entrusted with her son . Raymond 's mother controls not only him but also her McCarthyite Senator husband. Marco, a fellow-soldier in the platoon , is imperfectly brain- washed and he subsequently perfectly pieces to- gether what Shaw is all about. Shaw in the end kills his mother and stepfather (in the novel under Marco 's orders ; in the film he acts consciously), and then himself. With just a few changes, Axelrod skillfully trans- posed the novel to the screen . He ach ieved this by preserving and enriching the off-beat nature of the novel. \" The novel was an extremely interesting job 10 WINTER 1970-71

to adapt. I found that what I liked most about it-- In order to understand the screenwrite r's effort a other than the central theme-was Condon 's de- close reading of his scripts and properties which scriptive prose ; so what we did , rather craftily , was he adapted is most important (in this case Condon 's take a lot of this descriptive prose and turn it into novels and Axelrod 's screenplays and all his other dialogue. Of course it had to be reconstructed . previously published material). In the case of Ax- There was no way to do the brainwashing scene elrod his plays are readily available; but his early for real , so we did it as Marco 's nightmare. And writing in radio and television could be very impor- then picked it up again as the brainwasher Yen Lo 's tant. The nature of his comedy, themes and attitudes joke by having the corporal who had the same all playa part in comprehending the approach Ax- elrod takes to his material and the ease with certain nightmare be a Negro.\" themes and filmic devices (the use of the supernat- ural, temptation , dreams, flashback) used early on John Frankenheimer cites Axelrod 's contribution : in his plays . The inclusion of autobiographical ma- \" I had a very clear concept of the entire movie due terial in his plays and films, attitude toward Holly- partially to G.eorge Axelrod , whom I admire a great wood and money-all must be studied in order to deal. We got along very well , and we talked out th e describe Axelrod the screenwriter. whole film .. . I think everyone would agree that George Axelrod 's screenplay . . . is probably one of The same must be done with Frankenheimer. \" If the best adaptations to the screen with which I have you look at some of the plays like The Comedian , been associated. I think peo\"ple tend to forget which I did on television , you ' ll see the same kind George's contribution to the film . They always talk of style that I used in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE . about it as a great film of mine , but George was It was the first time I'd had the courage , the assur- very responsible too , and I think that should be ance and self-confidence to go back to what I really pointed out. \" Frankenheimer on the novel : \" 1 had been good at in television . But it had taken me thought that Condon 's The Manchurian Candidate many years to do it .... \" Again : \" The scene in the was one of the best books I had ever read . I just Senate Hearing Room with the television cameras. couldn 't put it down and after I read it, I thought, If I hadn 't directed live television, I could not have ' I've just got to make a film out of it. ' It had great directed that sequence .\" His early work in television social and political significance for me at the and the experience he had on making each of his time . . . \" Gerald Pratley writes in his book The films is crucial to coming to grips with Franken- Cinema of John Frankenheimer, \" There are very few heimer's work. Moreover, the director must work camera directions in the script, and neither this idea with a producer, screenwriter, Cinematographer, [when Raymond kills himself at the end of the film , editor, art director and actor in order to realize his the gunshot turns into a thunderclap] nor the many intentions. Each factor contributes to the success other imaginative shots and sequences (like the use of failure of those aspirations and each leaves an of screens at the press conference) are in the origi- unden iable mark, whether or not the initial plan is nal script. They were all devised by the director, achieved in the completed film . although Frankenheimer acknowledges some sub- stantial assistance from Axelrod .\" Pratley in his The Cinematographer's importance toward realizing search for the auteur insists on the director's promi- what the director intends is perhaps most clearly nence, and only grudgingly acknowledges some shown in Axelrod's comments on his experience other influence. One wants to know more after read- while filming LORD LOVE A DUCK. Axelrod wanted to ing (in the Spring 1968 issue of Sight and Sound) convey the sterile effect of a modern high school and in order to achieve this he wanted the whites Axelrod 's answer to the question of whether the 360 white and the blacks black-glary white walls, black- degree pan was a scriptwriter's invention : \" Not real- boards that had r:'ever been written on-but \" every ly. What happened was , I knew what I wanted and time I turned my back, the cameraman would be Frankenheimer figured out how to do it. Then , as breaking the walls with shadows, because that's the a matter of fact, I cut the sequence. How this hap- way they 've always done them . And they loused up pened was that one of the crafty ways one worked three blackboards by writing on them and erasing with Sinatra is to put all his scenes first. You get them ... Nobody on the picture , except Tuesday him in and out of the picture as fast as you can Weld really, and Roddy McDowall , ever understood because his attention span is, one could say, some- what in hell it was we were trying to do . It was a what limited . We got him in and out in 23 days. As mystery to the crew.\" he was leaving town , he wanted to see a rough cut of all his scenes , and the one thing we hadn 't A collaborator of enormous, though largely unap- touched was this complicated dream sequence, on preciated , importance to a film is the art director. which we must have shot about 6,000 feet. So I said , John Frankenheimer talks about his good fortune 'Look , I know what it should be, let me make a rough in having Richard Sylbert design THE MANCHURIAN cut. I' ll just cut from the script. ' So the cutter and CANDIDATE . \" He 's an imaginative art director and he I went away and did it in about half-an-hour. And built most of the sets ... in the studio . Everybody we never changed it. \" Hollywood egos being as thinks it was done on location . We did the Madison large as they are, the tendency is to doubt Axelrod 's Square Garden scenes in just four days in Madison word . But even if he isn't taken literally we may begin Square Garden and the rest of them in a local Cali- to believe that the relationship between scriptwriter fornia stadium called the Olympic Auditorium and and director is not a simple one , of course it varies on the stage. But Sylbert is so clever you are never from director to director and screenwriter to really aware of it. \" A close look at Sylbert's work-his screenwriter, and it includes many other factors . filmography is extraordinary-might bring some in- Still , the complexity of the relationship indicates that teresting pOints to bear on the art director's influ- other attitudes and approaches are needed to ap- ence on visual and spatial arrangements. preciate the filmmaking process better even if it means giving up some sacred notions about priori- The composer 's work should be analyzed in terms ties. of his style and the way he incorporates it into a FILM COMMENT 11

commercial film . David Amram is a serious compos- director and gather insight into how he sees a script er who has restricted his movie work to two films and property when working with another director. with Frankenheimer and two with Elia Kazan . His I argue that THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE succeeded score for THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE underlines but because of the collaborative control of Axelrod , does not obtrusively emphasize the film 's excep- Frankenheimer, et al. and failed in BREAKFAST AT tional emotional tension . The film editor is yet an- TIFFANY 'S because those elements did not coalesce other important variable. At least, he works under successfully. It is in the formal analysis proposed the director, cutting each shot to the exact frame in this article that these questions can be answered . demanded. At most, he orchestrates the visual rhythm of the entire film . One aspect of editor Ferris In conclusion , the partial filmographies accompany- Webster 's creative contribution to THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE has already been cited by Axelrod . Both ing this article provide a bare minimum of informa- of these vital functions-composing and ed iting-are either ignored in auteur criticism , or else bestowed tion about the craftsmen who worked on THE MAN- upon the director-of-all-trades. CHURIAN CANDIDATE . Acceptance of this idea of col- Unfortunately, this is also the case with the actor, a film 's most identifiable and conspicuous collabo- laborative authorship inevitably breeds an entirely rator. The working relationship between certain stars and their directors (such as Dietrich and new critical attitude-an attitude that demands a Sternberg) has been discussed, but not the devel- opment of an actor's distinctive persona and the closer analysis of the individual film and the creative manner in which it affects the screenwriter, the director, and indeed the film . (Imagine Cary Grant craftsman who made it 1111 11 11 instead of Frederick Stafford in Hitchcock 's Topaz and you begin to understand Grant's contribution GEORGE AXELROD to the moral universes of Hitchcock, Hawks, Ste- (1922- ) vens , McCarey, Cukor , Donen , etc ., etc .) Each actor Sold as a teenager his first radio script, a series carries certain behavioral associations and identities called Midnight in Manhattan. First Broadway job as an assistant stage manager for William Brady 's into any new role. Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, production of a 1940 revival , Kind Lady. Novel , Beg- Janet Leigh , Angela Lansbury and the film 's other gar's ChOice, Blackmail. Wrote over 400 radio and performers built the edifice of their performances television scripts. Radio: including Grand Ole Opry on the foundation of their screen personalities. and Shadow. Material for Peter Lynd Hayes , Ed Frankenheimer's and Axelrod 's use and extension Wynn , Martin and Lewis , etc . ~o-wrote with Max of these personalities is one of THE MANCHURIAN Wilk a musical revue entitled All About Love and CANDIDATE 'S strongest point. another revue called Small Wonder. Plays: The George Ax elrod's contribution to THE MANCHURIAN Seven Year Itch (1952), Will Success Spoil Rock CANDIDATE as singular and strong as it is must be Hunter? (1955) (also staged the play), Goodbye, appreciated in light of the other above noted influ- Charlie (1959) (also staged the play). Directed for ences. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is the most out- Stage: Henry Kurnitz's Once More-With Feeling, standing film with which Axelrod has been associated and Neil Simon 's The Star Spangled Girl. Adapted so far in his short career. The case which I have the Alfred Hayes novel My Face for the World to made here , that THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE 'S suc- See for the stage. Co-produced Gore Vidal's play cess is based on a collaboration of talents (particu- larly Frankenheimer and Axelrod) perfectly suited Visit To a Small Planet. to the style and subject matter of the novel , can also be made for BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S , a less 1954 successful film. In this film the bittersweet atmo- PHFFFT. Columbia. Directed by Mark Robson . sphere of Truman Capote's novella was sacrificed and blunted in the urbane wit of Blake Edwards' Screenplay by George Axelrod . With Judy Hol iday, direction, and the heaviness and literalness of Ax- Jack Lemmon , Jack Carson , and Kim Novak. elrod 's style as evidenced in his plays and films he 1955 has directed himself. Again this film warrants a close THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH. 20th Century-Fo x. Directed study because three distinctive elements the direc- by Billy Wilder. Screenplay by Wilder and George tor, screenwriter and cast effectively changed Ca- Axelrod . Based on the play by Axelrod . With Marilyn pote 's story . Following the method proposed in this Monroe, Tom Ewell , Evelyn Keyes , and Sonny Tufts. article the success or failure of a film becomes less 1956 problematic and sheds light not only on the people BUS STOP. 20th Century-Fox. Directed by Joshua involved but also on the nature of the influences. Logan. Screenplay by George Axelrod. Based on the play by William Inge. With Marilyn Monroe, Don LORD LOVE A DUCK is the most interesting of the works Murray, Arthur O'Connell and Betty Field . Axelrod has scripted and directed-and it is pure 1957 Axelrod. The frantic pace, the themes, the heavy- WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? 20th Cen- handed humor and symbolism when compared with tury-Fox. Directed by Frank Tashlin . Screenplay by the Frankenheimer and Edwards films all indicate Tashlin . From the play by George Axelrod. With how important the collaborative aspect of filmmak- Jayne Mansfield , Tony Randall , Betsy Drake, and ing really is. The rawness and superabundant en- Joan Blondell. ergy of Axelrod 's direction over-exposed his themes 1958 and ideas. This is not an argument for the director, RALLY ' ROUND THE FLAG BOYS! 20th Century-Fox. but because Axelrod has directed his own scripts Directed by Leo McCarey. Screenplay by Claude and written scripts for others one can juxtapose his Binyon and McCarey. Adaptation by George Axelrod personal vision and interpretation of filmmaking as (uncredited ). From the novel by Max Shulman . With Paul Newman , Joanne Woodward , Joan Collins, and Jack Carson . 1961 BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. Paramount. Directed by Blake Edwards. Screenplay by George Axelrod. From the novel by Truman Capote. With Audrey Hepburn , George Peppard , Patricia Neal , and Buddy Ebsen. 12 WINTER 1970-71 s

1962 (1959), Some Angry Angel (1960), A Talent for Lov- THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. United Artists. ing ( 1961), An Infinity of Mirrors (1964), Any God Directed by John Frankenheimer. Produced by Will Do ( 1966), The Ecstacy Business ( 1967), Mile George Axelrod and Frankenheimer. Screenplay by High (1969). Films: THE HAPPY THIEVES (1962, screen Axelrod . From the novel by Richard Condon . With adaptation from A Talent for Loving) , THE MAN- Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh , and CHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962, wrote a treatment based Angela Lansbury. on his novel). 1964 PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES. Paramount. Directed by LIONEL LINDON (cinematographer) Richard Quine. Produced by Quine and George Main films : ISN'T IT ROMANTIC (1948) , DESTINATION Axelrod . Screenplay by Axelrod . From a story by MOON (1950), THE TURNING POINT (1952), SANGAREE Julien Duvivier and Henri Jeanson . With William Hol- (1953) , CONQUEST OF SPACE (1955) , HELL' S ISLAND den , Audrey Hepburn , and Gregoire Asian . GOOD- (1955) , AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956) , THE BYE CHARLIE. 20th Century-Fo x. Directed by Vin- BLACK SCORPION (1957), I WANT TO LIVE! (1958), THE cente Minnelli. Screenplay by Harry Kurnitz. From YOUNG SAVAGES (1961), TOO LATE BLUES (1962), THE the play by George Axelrod . With Tony Curtis, Deb- MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) , DEAD HEAT ON A bie Reynolds, and Pat Boone. MERRY-GO-ROUND (1966), GRAND PRIX (1966), THE EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN (1967). 1965 HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE. United Artists. Directed RICHARD SYLBERT (art director) by Richard Quine. Produced by Jack Lemmon , Films: PATTERNS (1956), BABY DOLL (1956) , EDGE OF George Axelrod , and Quine. Screenplay by Axelrod . THE CITY (1957) , A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957) , WIND With Jack Lemmon , Virna Lisi , Terry-Thomas, and ACROSS THE EVERGLADES (1958), THE FUGITIVE KIND Eddie Mayehoff. (1959) , MURDER INC. (1960), MAD DOG COLL (1961), 1966 SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961) , A WALK ON THE WILD LORD LOVE A DUCK. United Artists. Directed by SIDE (1962), THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), ALL George Axelrod . Produced by Axelrod . Screenplay THE WAY HOME (1963), LILITH (1964), HOW TO MURDER by Larry H. Johnson and Axelrod . From a novel by YOUR WIFE (1965), THE PAWNBROKER (1965), WHO ' S AI Hine. With Roddy McDowall , Tuesday Weld , and AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966) , GRAND PRIX (1966) , Lola Albright. THE GRADUATE (1967). 1968 THE SECRET LIFE OF AN AMERICAN WIFE. 20th Centu- FERRIS WEBSTER (editor) ry-Fo x. Directed by George Axelrod . Produced by Main films: MYSTERY STREET (1950), THE BLACKBOARD Axelrod. Screenplay by Axelrod . With Walter Matth- JUNGLE (1955), FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956), RANSOM au , Anne Jackson, and Patrick O'Neal. (1956), TEA AND SYMPATHY (1956), SOMETHING OF VALUE. (1957) , CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958) , THE Filmographies of Collaborators on MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960), THE MANCHURIAN CANDI- DATE (1962), THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963), SEVEN DAYS THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. IN MAY (1964) , SECONDS (1966) , ICE STATION ZEBRA (1968). The listing of filmographies is a first step in a close chronological and textural analysis of the principal DAVID AMRAM (music) contributing elements to filmmaking. Each film be- Films: THE YOUNG SAVAGES (1961) , SPLENDOR IN THE comes a bundle of distinctive features perceived GRASS (1961), THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), from a variety of angles . Too often a film is looked THE ARRANGEMENT (1969). at from one viewpoint-the director's. By \"opening up \" the film it becomes an intricate matrix of coor- FRANK SINATRA (actor) dinates, and thus balances one's appreciation rather Main films : ANCHORS AWEIGH (1945) , ON THE TOWN than distorting it to fit some preconceived notion (1949) , FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) , SUDDENLY of authorship. (1954) , NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) , GUYS AND DOLLS (1955) , THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (1955), THE JOHN FRANKENHEIMER (director) JOKER IS WILD (1957) , SOME CAME RUNNING (1958) , Main television plays, directed for Climax: THE DARK- THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), NONE BUT THE BRAVE (1965), TONY ROME (1967). EST HOUR , PORTRAIT IN CELLULOID , BAIL OUT AT LAURENCE HARVEY (actor) FORTY-THREE THOUSAND , THE LOUELLA PARSONS Main films: I AM A CAMERA (1955), ROOM AT THE TOP (1959), BUTTERFIELD 8 (1960) , EXPRESSO BONGO STORY, PALE HORSE PALE RIDER . (1960), THE LONG AND THE SHORT AND THE TALL (1961), A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (1962), THE MANCHURIAN Directed for Playhouse 90: ELOISE , THE COMEDIAN , CANDIDATE (1962) , DARLING (1965), LIFE AT THE TOP (1965), A DANDY IN ASPIC (1968) . THE LAST TYCOON , THE DEATH OF MANOLETE , THE DAYS JANET LEIGH (actress) OF WINE AND ROSES, FACE OF A HERO , FOR WHOM THE Main films: STRICTLY DISHONORABLE (1951), FEARLESS FAGAN (1953), ROGUE COP (1954), JET PILOT (filmed BELL TOLLS . Other television plays: THE BROWNING 1951 , released 1957), TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) , WHO WAS THAT LADY? (1960), PSYCHO (1960) , THE MANCHURIAN VERSION , THE FIFTH COLUMN , THE SNOWS OF KILIMAN- CANDIDATE (1962) , HARPER (1966), AN AMERICAN DREAM (1966). JARO , THE TURN OF THE SCREW , PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE ANGELA LANSBURY (actress) SOMETIMES , THE AMERICAN. Films: THE YOUNG Main films : GASLIGHT (1944) , THE PICTURE OF DORIAN STRANGER (1957), THE YOUNG SAVAGES (1961), BIRD- GRAY (1945) , THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL AMI (1947), MAN OF ALCATRAZ (1962) , ALL FALL DOWN (1962) , THE THE LONG HOT SUMMER (1958) , THE DARK AT THE TOP MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) , SEVEN DAYS IN MAY OF THE STAIRS (1959) , ALL FALL DOWN (1962) , THE (1964) , SECONDS (1966) , GRAND PRI X (1966) , THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962). EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN (filmed 1967, partial release 1969), THE FIXER (1968) , THE GYPSY MOTHS (1969) . RICHARD CONDON (novelist) Play: Men of Distinction (1953). Novels: The Oldest Confession (1958) , The Manchurian Candidate FILM COMMENT 13

Til. B18. AND FALL OF Til. 4lW-li-IElICAN ~w.8T Borden Chase interviewed 'by Jim Kitses Jim Kitses wrote Horizons West, a study of the KITSES : Did you meet Anthony Mann on DR . Western film as reflected in the works of Anthony Mann , Budd Boetticher and Sam Peckinpah. He is BROADWAY? Director of Critical Studies at the American Film CHASE : No , WINCHESTER was the first time I met him . I was in the East and I would sell these things. I Institute 's Center for Advanced Film Studies in Bev- didn 't want any part of California or the pictures. erly Hills. Hollywood was even phonier then than it is now. I did come out once and do a thing called BLACK Borden Chase was born Frank Fowler on January GOLD. It was never made. 11 , 1900 in New York City. Leaving school at four- teen out of economic necessity, Chase went through DESTROYER (1943) a number of jobs, served a year in the Navy, was CHASE: There's a picture called DESTROYER that I did a boxer , and eventually drove a taxi . In the twenties out at Columbia with Lou Meltzer, Bill Seiter was the Chase drifted into the bootlegging and protection director. I can 't remember the cast, but I'll tell you rackets and became a chauffeur for Frankie Yale one thing. I wrote a scene in that one in which this when that culture-conscious gang leader noticed young sailor comes to see the daughter of a chief. that Chase corrected his grammar and wielded kn ife He comes in and starts to put out all the lights, and and fork English-style. Chase decided working on they sit down on the couch and she keeps lighting the Holland Tunnel under compressed air as a them up. There's this, not exactly a love scene, it's sandhog was a safer occupation when Yale's bul- a very offhand thing , and finally , he decides he has let-riddled body was found shortly after he had tried to go home. He walks over to the door and he said to muscle AI Capone into paying up a percentage \" Good Night\" and she said \" Goodnight\" and he of Chicago profits. The death of a young tunnel says, \" There must be a better way to say \"Good- worker three years later inspired Chase to write his night. \" Now that's the way it was on the paper. Bill first story which MGM and Raoul Walsh filmed as Seiter, who in my mind was a magnificent director, UNDER PRESSURE . Feeling his own name to be color- went over that scene. With the same words, he just less he borrowed Borden from the milk company made it the most charming thing I've ever seen . Just and 'Chase from the bank and, thus armed , launched with intonation. I looked at the dailies and I said , himself on a professional writing career. Chase cur- \" Oh , Bill , that's marvelous , that's wonderful.\" He said , rently lives in the hills above Los Angeles with his \"That's what you wrote .\" I said , \" The hell it is.\" He third wife , but is seriously contemplating a move said \" Word for word .\" Well , I said , \" That isn 't the to Europe. waY '1 saw it.\" He said , \"That's the way I saw .it.\". I mean , a director can do so much or he can rUin It. BORDEN CHASE : As soon as UNDER PRESSURE was over, bang , I went back East. I started to write for THIS MAN'S NAVY (1945) the magazines, God , I don 't know how many, I used to do about a million words a year. My pulp market CHASE : I came back out in '44 for Metro , on a deal was Argosy and Detective Fiction, and I used to for AI Rubin. That didn 't work out and then I did bat those things out, serials; and my slick market THIS MAN ' S NAVY ; Sam Marx was the producer. He was American Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post put me on it and I came up with the idea. Then and Liberty. Macleans in Canada got seconds; when the next thing that I heard , Allen Rivkin came to they bounced they went on up to Macleans. me and he said that he'd been assigned to it and I would write one piece and he would write another JIM KITSES : So there 's about a ten year gap before piece and so forth. I said, \" Go ahead , write.\" Then you began working on more movies? I sat down and wrote the whole damn thing. When CHASE : Yes, in between , there were just sales . I did that , I turned it in pretty quick and he said , Hollywood bought some of the pulp fiction . \"Hell , you're not collaborating , you ' re competing .\" I said , \" You ' re goddamned right I am . I' m trying 14 WINTER 1970-71

WINCHESTER 73 . RED RIVER . Millard Mitchell , Shelley Winters and Jam es Stewart. John Wayne and Montg o mery Cl ift. to write you off this thing , aren 't you trying to write into a story . .. I think I did, into a Saturday Evening me off it? If you ' re not, you ' re stupid .\" So we didn 't Post story. Then I sold the screenplay (it had been become very good friends, but Sam decided my turned down by every studio in town) and Howard script would go . Billy Wellman directed it, and I had Hawks and Charles Feldman bought it, for John a good time on that with Billy. Wayne. They bought the treatment and had me write the screenplay. I got screwed on that. I had finished KITSES : Had you written quite a few stories for the the thing , before I finished the Post thing , and I went pulp market about the Navy? down to Palm Springs to meet Howard Hawks. He CHASE : Oh yes , I don 't know how many I wrote. had a fellow there with him and I said , \" Who 's this?\" The Saturday Evening Post took three or four, and and he said , \" He's just my secretary, Schnee. We 've then in the pulp market , I don 't know how many. been making a few notes.\" I said , \" Well , look, How- I was just batting it out, 2¢ a word . ard, you understand I don't collaborate. Now if you don't want me to do the screenplay, you tell him There is one thing that I would like to say. We have to do it. \" He said , \"No , no, it 's all yours .\" So I wrote lost the training ground for writers. I put in quite the damn thing and then we came to the last scene a few years writing short stories. Short stories are and in the Post story , John Ireland does call Dunson the basis of all screenplay writing . You have to tell as he 's walking across. (John Wayne broke up most a story in less than 5,000 words . You have to have of the furniture in my living room as I was trYing a beginning , a middle and an end . Now, you don 't to tell him how to make that walk , we had a fighter 's have any more Saturday Evening Post, you don 't cup on him and a motorcycle belt. I said , \" They 'll have any more magazines (unless you want to talk only be steers, don 't look at them , just look above about Playboy) , you don 't have too many pulps left. their heads. \" So he did , he walked through the Now they' re books . But magazines like Argosy were chairs and knocked them over.) In any event , we for me a training , before I attempted to write my came to the last scene where the girl says, \" Now first screenplay. Now a kid comes out of college you two boys stop fighting \" and I said , \" Howard , and writes a screenplay, bless his heart. But I this is a lot of garbage.\" The way I had it written , wonder what will happen when pornographic junk Wayne tried to kill the other guy and he was shot goes out of style. full of holes before he got there . He said , \" Look, Wayne isn 't going to die. \" I said , \" All right , if he RED RIVER (1948) isn 't going to die, at least don 't have some dame break it up. \" \" Well \" he said , \" I like the scene. I' ll KITSES : In the pulp market, did you also write a describe the end to you ,\" and he told me. I said , lot of Western stories? \" That's a good scene, only it doesn 't belong to you , CHASE: I didn 't write any Westerns until I came out Howard . You 've sold that to a guy by the name of here. My first Western was RED RIVER . I never write Hughes and I'm not going to steal from Hughes.\" anything I don 't know about. I had started to buy quarter horses. I'm the guy who brought the quarter KITSES: What was that you 're referring to? THE horse into California, incidentally. I went down to Texas, and I was going to borrow a plane from the OUTLAW? secretary of the quarter horse association and I think he's got three of them. So I got a Piper Cub and CHASE : I guess so. In any event , I said , \" Do it. \" picked up the first beginnings of the trace of the So he had Schnee write the last scene. So that gave Chisholm Trail. It's so interesting from the air, you him the credit. But the funny part of it is , I was can still see it. working over on the Goldwyn lot, and I look up and here is th is long , lanky guy with a pair of tenn is KITSES : Your trip had given you the idea to write shoes on , a real sloppy looking outfit. He said , \" I'm Howard Hughes.\" I said , \" Hello , sit down .\" He said , a story? \" I'm very angry. You know, when I first came up from Te xas , I was just a country boy and I had oats CHASE: It was a story , but I'm not sure which came first, whether I did a treatment and then turned it FILM COMMENT 15

growing out of my ears and I had a story, it was Oh God! There are things in life you ... ugh. called HELL'S ANGELS . The Brothers Warner stole it from me and changed it to ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS , KITSES : The way Hawks shot it, he had Wayne draw and it was Howard Hawks then and by God now on Clift and shoot him in various places? he's done it again . Only this time, I don 't have any CHASE : A scene that he had done for Hughes. He oats growing out of my head and I don't need the was shooting it in the same way . He was using the million dollars they've offered me.\" I said , \"I hear same idea and I refused to write it. I said , \" No, that's you don 't need a million. \" We talked awhile and stealing and I'm not going to steal from that guy, he kept staring at me. We talked and he kept staring he's too tough .\" And he proved how tough he was. at me-and finally I got a little testy. I said , \" Wait He actually cut the scene out that Hawks had stolen a minute, I'm not asking you for a goddamned thing , from him and says , \" Your picture's better without you asked me. Now what the hell ... \" and I suddenly it. \" realized that he was deaf and he was reading my lips. Then he started to laugh and the two of us KITSES : RED RIVER has a special place for you of sat roaring like a couple of fools. He said , \" I don 't all the movies you ' ve worked on? want that million dollars,\" and he's a cutter. He went CHASE : I was so close to it. Here I am , a Brooklyn into the cutting room and he took out the part where kid and I had to learn how to ride and how to rope Duke shoots Clift's ears and he said to Hawks, \" This and I had fallen in love with a breed of horses. I belongs to me and your picture's better off without had twenty some odd . I made it part of my life and it. \" So Schnee's scene was cut out. it hurt like hell to see a guy louse it up. He talks about being a Western director. You know what that KITSES : In your script Dunson is shot up by the fool did? He had five thousand head out in the grass, John Ireland character, Cherry? they ate it all off and they had to hand-feed them . CHASE : Yes , when they ' re approaching Abilene , They had to hand-feed five thousand head , and they that's when Cherry decides to see what he can do were white face because you can 't get that many for himself. His was a very big part. longhorn. The phony parts of the picture, number one , are the guns. Everybody was carrying a si x KITSES : It's cut down in the film as it stands. shooter around . Well there weren 't si x of them in CHASE: It was chopped completely . Duke called me all of Texas and they were owned by the Rangers . one day and he said , \" Will you come to lunch with They just hadn 't made them . The white face they me and Howard?\" I said , \" Sure.\" I went over to used , I got letters about it, and I said , \" Well , if you the Derby or whatever it was, and Howard got up can get me five thousand longhorns, I'll be happy to go to the men's room and Duke said , \"We're to use them , we ' ll shoot it again .\" dumping Cherry Valance.\" I said, \" What do you mean?\" \" Well \" he said , \" He's fooling around with KITSES : Up until that last sequence would you say Howard 's girl, \" I can 't remember her name, she's much of the film is the way you wanted it realized? married now. I said , \" What the hell has that got to CHASE: Pretty much so . do with making a picture? I don 't care if he 's fooling around with the Virgin Mary, you've got a picture KITSES : Let me ask you about one scene in particu- to make and the guy is good .\" \" Well \" he said , lar, the scene where they discover the wagon train \" Look, he 's out. That's it. \" Well , when I saw it , I and that 's where Joanne Dru comes in, and Clift realize what they did . There 's one scene where and Noah Beery Jr. ride over and break in . There 's Dunson says , \" You ' ll eat bread and you ' ll drink that scene where she and Clift are talking and she water and you 'll finish this drive .\" There there was gets an arrow in the shoulder. Was that the way silence. Now Cherry Valance was supposed to be you wrote it or was that more Hawks? up front, and say, \" I like what the man says.\" He CHASE: That's Hawks. He likes sucking out the faces them , he's a pretty big man. What Hawks did poison and all that stuff. He likes it and I don't. The was put him in the back and dubbed in a weak voice first real jolt that I got was when they ride up and that comes on and says \" I like what the man says.\" they find a steer with an arrow in it. I thought, \" What And Wayne says , \" Well , like it or not, that 's the way the hell , if there are Indians around and they shoot it is. \" Talk about a crucifi xion , that was it. a steer, they aren 't going to leave it there , that's kid stuff. \" Like every other writer, you get itchy about KITSES: How did your script end? the way your work is treated . CHASE : Well , Wayne gets real badly hurt and then finishes the trip on the wagon with the gal. And he's WINCHESTER 73 (1950) just about dead. Montgomery Clift draws, but he simply can 't bring himself to shoot, whereas Wayne CHASE: Aaron Rosenberg, the producer, had a tries like hell , is shooting, but he 's so far gone he young fellow, a hell of a nice young guy, Bob Rich- can 't hit him. He fires a half a dozen shots at him ards. He was working on it and Rosie said , \"I've and then falls face down. That's where she comes got a hell of a project here and you know who I'd on again and says, \" You fool , he's dying .\" They like to use on it? \" I said , \" no \" and he said , \" Jimmy pick him up and he says, \"I want to die in Texas.\" Stewart. \" I said , \" Is it a Western? \" He said , \" Yeah .\" That 's the way it is in the story . Well , Jimmy had just made his third flop , HARVEY, and the idea of Jimmy in a Western as a tough guy, KITSES : And he 's dying from the bullet wounds from most people would just ... Then I thought, \" Wait Cherry? a minute . He was in the Air Force, he knows how CHASE : Yeh , and they lower him in the wagon and to kill. \" I said , \" Jesus, Rosie, you've got a hell of she sits with him and in the last scene, they're going an idea.\" So he asked me to talk with Spitz, who across the Red River and they get him out of there, was the head of Universal with Goetz. Goetz was so he can die standing up and he falls on his face . there and he thought it was fine . I convinced them ; I tried to dig up a kind of honor and that's a hell I said , \" You know, when you command a wing of of a lot better than that garbage they threw in there. fighters in a war, you ' re not exactly soft. \" They came She says, \" And now you two boys stop fighting .\" to \" What will we pay him? \" Well , Rosie solved that, he's the fellow who came up with the percentage 16 WINTER 1970-71

deal. He said , \" Give him 50 % of the picture. You ' ll he want to play? \" So he came in and I said , \" Jimmy , make your money in distributio'n, give him 50 % on who do you see yourself as in this book? Did you the thing .\" Leo said , \" That's a very good deal \" and read it?\" He said , \" Well no , I read the jacket, some- that's what Jimmy did the picture for. Only, instead body told me it was good for me. \" I said , \" Well , of getting nothing , he took home a million dollars. you take it home tonight and read it. \" So he did , he came in the next day and he said \" Well , what KITSES : Was Mann involved at this stage? are we going to do with it? \" And I threw it in the CHASE : No , I had written a first draft, and Rosie wastebasket , I said , \" That 's what we ' re going to do and I worked very closely together and Rosie said , with it, I'll get you out of your expense of buying \"What do you think of Tony Mann?\" I said , \" I don 't it. I' ll use the title .\" I didn 't want to use \" snake \" know .\" \" Well \" he said , \" I'll show you a picture.\" so I called it BEND OF THE RIVER . And the guy that [It was BORDER INCIDENT.] Rosie said , \" I think the did write the book [Bill Gulick] , when it was shown guy has got an awful lot of stuff.\" So I said , \" Fine. \" in Portland , he took a full page ad and said \" The Tony came on , we had a wonderful cameraman only thing of mine in this film is the first three words [William Daniels], he just died a little while ago . We of the title , 'bend of the .' Otherwise, forget it. \" I went out to pick a location. We went to Tucson then thought he was a little foolish , why didn 't he wait we left and rode out to a ranch and I knew the ranch and see if he got a hit? Well , he did and then he people. I really found this a land of hills sticking came down to the studio and tried to sell another up in the air , and Tony , bless his heart, he said , book . [He did. His novel , Man From Texas, was filmed \" right here\" and he was shooting right into the hill. as THE ROAD TO DENVER , 1955.] After that one, we I was going to say, \" Tony, we want to get some did FAR COUNTRY . vista\" and the cameraman , Bill Daniels, walked up a little way and he said , \" Tony, have a look at this.\" KITSES: Which was an original script by you? Bit by bit , we got Tony all the way up to the top , CHASE: Yeah , BEND OF THE RIVER , my first name you might just have shot it in Griffith Park the way for that was FAR COUNTRY and they didn 't use it. he started it. But there he saw a chance to get real Magazines are the same, they love to change titles, vista and that's what made the damn picture, that so when I like a title, I keep using it and using it, damn jagged hunk of rocks sticking up there, at until finally they decide to use it. I always figure the the end , in the shoot-out. two things that don't belong to the writer are the ending and the title. That the producer or the pub- KITSES: Did you write the second draft before you licity or somebody else does. I couldn 't care less went on location with Mann? what I call them. CHASE : No, we picked the locations and then I wrote the second , final draft because I have them KITSES: Why does the ending not belong to you? crossing a river and then you can 't find a river. So CHASE : Because everybody has an idea of how it you have to find out where you ' re going to shoot should end and if you fight , all you do is break your and then you tailor it to suit it. heart. LONE STAR (1952) KITSES: One of the things that is very strong in all of these scripts is the relationship between two men . CHASE: Vincent Sherman was the only one who CHASE: That I believe is the greatest love story in destroyed a picture of mine completely. all the world . I don 't mean sexual. I have always believed that a man can actually love and respect KITSES : You didn 't want Vincent Sherman? another man more so than he can a woman . God CHASE: No, I wanted George Sherman . You see, knows, I love my wife, I'm mad about her, but Gable decided that he didn 't want to have his own unfortunately, not like Eddie Powers when I was in comp,any and he sold the picture back to Metro. the tunnel. I love that guy. We were in a jam'one Dore Schary and I have never been close friends. time, the first time I ever thought I was going to He was then the boss at Metro, so I had Vincent die with a guy rather than leave him. That's the Sherman and that was that. That was the end of theory I've worked on , there is a closer relationship the story. You see, unfortunately, politics mix into between two men than between a man and a the business of picture making. No matter how you woman . try to keep it out , it 's there . Had I been in Schary 's position I would have done the same, I'd hit him KITSES : Often the two men are very like each other. just as hard as he hit me. He was on top . He won. CHASE : Yes, Kennedy and Stewart. Stewart had been hung in a rope brawl , Kennedy the same thing , BEND OF THE RIVER (1952) only Kennedy wasn 't able to make it. Whereas , Stewart, the guy told him , \" All you 'll get is a thank KITSES: In those films , were you aware of trying you .\" And in the end , that's what he got , a thank you . Kennedy just couldn 't take it and he had to to explore a particular theme or did each one have go in for the dump. But they were both pretty strong. a different kind of story in your eyes? THE WORLD IN HIS ARMS (1952) CHASE: Each one was different. You have some- thing, you think, \" What can I do with it?\" The idea CHASE: Raoul Walsh is a fine director. He has this is, don 't let them sit back in their seats , that's all. trick of writing a prologue and an epilogue to every The most frightening experience I ever had was scene. He doesn 't change the scene and if these WINCHESTER 73 when we previewed it and the minute don 't come off , there 's something cut. But once in Jimmy Stewart's name came on the screen , every- a while they come off great and so you leave them body laughed . Jimmy goes out and buys books by in . He 's a lusty director, real lusty. the cover , he doesn 't read the inside. He came into Rosie and he said , \" Gee, I've got a great property, KITSES: Did you re-write once you knew the cast? and I bought it cheap . It's called, Bend of the CHASE : Oh , yes. You write to your star. For in- Snake. He gave him this thing and he called me stance , in WORLD IN HIS ARMS , when I went there and I came back in the next day and I said , \" Rosie , originally to do it, John Wayne was the character. Jimmy didn't read this , he couldn 't. What part does FILM COMMENT 17

But he refused to make it. The script that I had phony smile that goes from ear to ear and he likes written just wouldn 't fit anybody else except Duke to show all his crockery , and if you don 't give him Wayne. So Gregory Peck got $100,000 front money a chance , he'll make it. and one third of the picture. But Gregory Peck, although he is a fine actor, isn 't Wayne and in order THE FAR COUNTRY (1955) to make him Wayne, we took a fellow by the name of Radovich , who used to play football with Aaron KITSES : How about women in your scripts? Rosenberg over at USC , and he is built like a block CHASE : Well , there weren 't too many women in the of concrete . He'd never been in a picture before. West to begin with . There were distinctly two sepa- We made him an Eskimo who was Peck's sidekick. rate types of women . The girl that worked in the In a scene where Wayne would just kick a door bar, the hustler. She was any man 's woman . Then down , pick up a few fellows and throw them through the wife of the rancher. One or two of the working the window , now Peck comes in hard and this fellow cowboys would be married and have small homes just crashes into the door, breaks it down , and then of their own . Now these were the untouchables. (It he picks the guys up and does the physical work was the same as when I was working in the tunnels. wh ile Peck directs it. In other words , we took two The rough language stopped immediately when a people and made them John Wayne . So you write lady was around .) Usually I had more success with to the lead , there 's no if or and about that. the whores . I cleaned them up so they would be acceptable, but I usually had a girl who worked in VERA CRUZ (1954) a bar or what have you . They're easier to handle and they seem more plausible. The average wife, CHASE: I wrote the story, I did the first draft script. of a man in pioneer country, she isn't an interesting Then I got lost. A fellow by the name of Bill Allan , person, she really isn 't. who is now a producer over at Universal , came to me one day and he said , \" I just read a paragraph KITSES : I guess we 're talking about the Julie Adams in a history book, that has the makings of a great character in BEND OF THE RIVER or the Corinne Calvet story.\" It was simply an account of Maximilian and character in FAR COUNTRY. Carlotta, how they sent a carriage across from the CHASE : Well, Corinne Calvet was an unhappy thing . capitol to Vera Cruz with a false bottom in it, it had I had a beautiful idea, Marge Rambeau and I were the gold in it and this countess. I said , \" Yeah, that's very good friends. When she was a child she lived a hell of a story.\" So he said , \" Well, can you do up in Alaska and she had the sawdust concession. it for me?\" I was doing something else at the time She had told me the story of how they worked and and I said , \"Bill, I' ll buy the idea from you and give all the rest of it. I hoped to get the little girl (it wasn't you $10,000 for it.\" He said , \" This is history.\" I said , Corinne Calvet 'cause she was a toughie) Leslie \" No Bill, you dug it up, and if you'll take $10,000, Caron . I thought she would be charming . But I wrote fine.\" So he said , \" Sure,\" and I went down to Mex- her a little harder and I tried to set her up as I thought ico to write it for Harold Hecht. John Wayne came Marge would be when she was young . down there and I told him what it was about, and he said \" Well , I'm up to my neck now.\" So Gary KITSES: She is quite important because she does Cooper came down , so I went over and saw Coop, carry those lines like \" You have to help people. \" and told him all about it, and Coop said , \" Yup .\" CHASE: She carries the story line. So I did a first draft that was the Cooper I knew and the Lancaster I knew. Then , in came all the KITSES : The Ruth Roman character in FAR geniuses, and I don 't know who wrote the final COUNTRY? script. CHASE : Ruth is a nice gal , a very competent actress. She was necessary, that's all I can say . You needed KITSES: You didn 't work too closely with Aldrich a girl so you put her in there . She didn 't carry too then? important a part. For instance on the trip, when she CHASE: No, I didn't work with him at all. gets into bed with Stewart, it was perfectly clean. What was Stewart's line, something about \"With KITSES: Did you write the Lancaster character the spurs on?\" You looked for fun lines, that was the way it was in the final draft, very extrovert? idea. CHASE : You don 't have to write Burt that way, he's that way naturally. \"Crockery Joe.\" He has this KITSES : How closely did Mann follow your scripts? CHASE : Tony Mann was so faithful to the way I wrote THE FAR COUNTRY. Walter Brennan and James Stewart. 18 WINTER 1970-71

it, I just didn 't bother to go and see the dailies. I going to make this for a nickel 's worth of mix cakes remember Aaron Rosenberg used to say to me, all in the studio and backlot. \" While we were shoot- \" What the hell 's the matter, Chase, don 't you want ing , he did the same thing that Bill Seiter did; for to see the dailies? \" \" No, I know exactly how they ' re instance you may remember the scene in the bar going to be. They 're going to be exactly the way where Kirk Douglas is dancing with a banjo. That I wrote them , word for word , every shot. \" He said , was King Vidor. Again , I had written the words and \" Are you complaining? Most writers are bellyaching all that sort of thing , but I didn 't dream of having because somebody changes everything .\" I said , him dance with a banjo . That was King Vidor. He \" I'm complaining about only one thing . I got $50,000 came up again with the most wonderful bits and for writing the picture , Mann got $75,000 for direct- once again , a picture was greatly influenced by a ing it. I could have directed it that way , he is sup- director. posed to add $75,000 worth to my writing. He hasn 't added 1O¢ to my writing . That 's why I'm a little bit teed BACKLASH (1956) off. \" He said , \" You ' re nuts.\" I did feel that I can direct a picture exactly as I write it because that's KITSES : How about BACKLASH and John Sturges. the way I see it and that's the way I put it down Did you work closely? on paper. I wish he had been able to add. I like CHASE : No , I didn't. working with him , more than any director I've ever known . Tony, no writer should complain about him KITSES: Once you finished the script, the picture because he shoots what the writer puts on paper. was shot and you were not around? But I wanted more. I wanted what Bill Seiter did CHASE: I wasn 't there when the shooting was going with that scene in DESTROYER-things stick in your on. I didn 't particularly like the act. I could get along mind . How would I do it? I would do it the way I without Widmark and he got along without me. wrote it, but I want somebody to do it better. That 's the job of the director, not to change words and KITSES : In BACKLASH it 's not just two men who are all that sort of thing , but to give it that little some- very strong and friends, but father and son. thing . With Tony , it came back as I visualized it. CHASE : Wid mark made me a little bit angry in that one. I had written a line and in it I used the word KITSES : Mann was talking before he died about \" soul,\" a man had no soul. And he said , \" 1 can 't making a film called THE KING which would have read that word.\" I said, \" If you can 't read it, then been King Lear set in the West. Did he ever talk I'm sorry for you , because then you ' ll never be an to you about this kind of thing? Did he seem to be actor. Unless you know what soul means, you ' re very interested in classical writing? never going to be an actor.\" There was just one CHASE : No he didn't, I suppose he acquired it as thing and another about that darn fool picture, some he went along. Tony was just 1,000% work . He didn 't of 'em you write 'em off. fancy himself as a great director, and he was ex- tremely competent. I could ask for nothing better NIGHT PASSAGE (1957) than to have him direct every picture I wrote. KITSES : What happened over NIGHT PASSAGE? That MAN WITHOUT A STAR (1955) was when you and Mann parted company, I think. CHASE: I don 't know why he didn 't do that one, CHASE: That took me ten days to write! Kirk Douglas, it wasn 't through any fault of mine, I would love to he's a forceful actor, a forceful man. And I will say have had him do it. I' m sure Rosie WOUld . We had this, he's the only actor I've ever had who can add another little chap, he was a television director, anything to a picture. Jimmy did it as it was written nice fellow. Jimmy Stewart wanted him .. . and as he was directed . He takes direction . KITSES : James Neilson? KITSES : Did you work closely with Vidor on MAN CHASE : Jimmy Neilson , yes. He was a nice fellow. WITHOUT A STAR? But he wasn't strong enough . It was very difficult. CHASE: It was a very hasty production , I worked KITSES : Why did Stewart want to change from as closely as I COUld . I had a tremendous respect Mann? for him . The way it came about, Douglas had about CHASE: I really don't know. I think he made a big a month between pictures. He had done one at mistake. Warners and was going over to Fox to do one and he had this month in between and he wanted to KITSES : Can you say how you wrote for Stewart? know if it was possible to squeeze in a picture. Rosie CHASE: Well you avoid ... you never strip him down . came to me and he said , \" Can we do it?\" I said You don 't strip Stewart. Wayne, you used to be able \"Have you got anything for a springboard? \" He said, to knock him down pretty good. With Stewart, you \" Yes, I've got a thing called MAN WITHOUT A STAR wrote to his ability with a gun , his tenacity, his that Bud Beauchamp is writing . We can use that straightforwardness, that was all. He has something for a springboard .\" I said , \" Great.\" So Bud had only to do, he is going to do it and the only thing he written the opening scene, which happened to be has to work with is a gun and he 's extremely good a damned good one in a freight car . I said , \" Look with it. this is great. \" He said , \" Yeah , but where do we go from there? \" I said , \" Who the hell cares , we 'll make KITSES : In all of those scripts, you gave him an it up as we go along .\" When I said \" We \" I meant old man as a sidekick. it because Rosie and I worked very closely. So I CHASE : You see, a character man always tells the got this thing out and got a first draft in 10 days story, the lead never tells the story. If a writer has and got an OK from the studio and Kirk read it and any sense , he will never give a lead a story line. he said , \" Great, great, great\" and got King Vidor They used to kid me quite a bit when I did this thing to direct it. I said , \" You 're a lucky man , there 's no for Cooper, VERA CRUZ , the trick of it is, somebody better man in the world to direct it. \" So King came says , \" When we get finished here, we've got to ride in, and he read it and he liked it and he said , \" We 're over and do this, that and the other thing . Don 't you agree?\" and Cooper says, \" Yup .\" Your lead never reads the storyline, that tears him to shreds. Now John Mcintire is the greatest of the storytellers. FILM COMMENT 19 s

He was magnificent, he could tell any story I wanted. thing that went on and if they didn't hit back, they'd The lead merely had to agree or not or what have be crazy . Now they ' re in the saddle , and they make you. If you burden a lead star with story lines, you 're it very, very hard. going to get a very bad show. If you have any hope for your leading-lady you don't let her read any KITSES : Are you saying you've been inactive in the of it either. 60's primarily because of your politics? CHASE : Well , I don 't th ink that I've forgotten how On Writers and Politics to write , but nobody seems to be interested in my writing , which is quite all right. I can dish it out and KITSES: What writers do you admire? Not Hollywood I can take it too . I hope when I get to Spain , there ' ll writers. be some work for me, and I think I'll enjoy it there. CHASE : I could go on forever. Naturally the king of all of them is Stephen Vincent Benet. There 's THE WAY IT WAS (1971?) nobody in his league. I' m doing one now, it's the first time I've ever tried KITSES: How about older writers. Did you ever read this , and I' m calling it, THE WAY IT WAS. It is taken Fenimore Cooper? from an incident when I was buying horses. I went CHASE: Oh , boy, yes. I grew up on him. As a matter to a Denver stock show and there I met a wonderful of fact, when Fess Parker was signed to do DANIEL old gentleman, Dan Casement. His father was Gen- BOONE , Aaron Rosenberg was over at Fox and he eral Casement, who laid the track for the Union asked me to come in and do the pilot. I said , \" Have Pacific. I went out to meet him and I had sent him you got any ideas?\" He said , \" No , I haven 't got any a copy of Red River, the story. We went down to ideas.\" So I put together half a dozen of these old the bar and there was an old fellow there , Bill some- Fenimore Cooper stories, in fact, the Indian was thing or other. He didn 't know whether he was 99, named Mingo and that happens to be Fenimore 100, 102, something around in there . He'd been Cooper's name for one section of the Iroquois tribe. Sheriff of Tombstone . He'd been in a lot of towns I used a regular Fenimore Cooper approach (he was but he liked Tombstone the best. Old Dan said to my hero as a kid) and they bought it and it ran for him , \" Bill , when you were Sheriff, did you ever say six years. I'm very happy; I got a little income from to a fellow , \" Go for your gun?'\" And he says \" What it. the hell , do you think I want to get myself killed?\" I said to Dan , \" I'm sorry , that'll come out. \" He told KITSES : How abou' other script writers in Holly- stories in that bar that just destroyed my idea of wood? what the West had been . He told factual stories. CHASE: John Lee Mahin , he used to write or rewrite Now when I started to write some of these things, most of the things that Gable did . He is a fine crafts- it was the most chilling thing , the most ghastly. But man. I don 't know too many others. Of course, I this was the way it was . When I got done talking was the ugly duckling in the Screen Writers Guild . with the old timers, I didn 't think I could ever write another Western . It was just cold blooded murder KITSES : Why? 90% of the time. Very few gunfights. This one now, CHASE: I was an anti-Communist and didn 't hesitate it's about an \" anti hero \" but I' m calling the darn to say so. I was not very well liked , I'm not very thing THE WAY IT WAS and I'm trying to write it the well liked today . That 's quite all right. way it was. I don 't know whether I'll be able to or not, but it's worth a try. The one that I like better KITSES : Were you very active in the McCarthy than any I've written so far, is the one Tony Mann period? bought just before he died and now Ross Hunter CHASE: I was extremely active during the time of thinks maybe he 'll do it. That's called SIERRA TRAIL. the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. I It's the first wagons into California and there again was the chairman at that time of the Motion Picture you have a story about strong men . Nothing particu- Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. I larly new, I don't look for new situations. It's the simply don 't like the thought of a change of govern- way you handle them. I try to handle them a little ment. I like the government we now have. I admit differently. it is not the best of all possible governments, and I certainly am not an admirer of Mr. Nixon . But I KITSES : In general, what kind of feelings are you do know about life in Russia and I don 't want to trying to convey in your films about the Old West? exchange a life that will allow a hack driver who CHASE : I feel very much like Charles Russell , I wrote went to work when he was 14 to make enough a' picture called CHARLES RUSSELL, he was a wrangler money to buy this house. and the greatest American painter, but a natural , and his epitaph was \" The West is dead ; you may KITSES : How do you feel about the Blacklist? lose a sweetheart but you never forget her.\" That's CHASE: If it had been based on principle rather than the way he felt about the Old West. I just feel that money, I would have accepted it. I respected those things just went to hell when there was no more guys, they were damn good writers and they stood Western movement, we had nowhere to go . As long by what they believed in. The way it was handled as you had some place to go and people were willing was garbage. You see, the only devotion that the to try to get there , and would take on all the things management of the companies had, Louis B. Mayer that you had to , it was an exciting , living country . and the rest of them , was to the almighty dollar. Now it's dying . You watch it dying all around you . When it became dangerous to employ a Communist, \" Off with their heads\" and I despise them for it. IIIIIIII I did everything I could to try to prevent ... Dalton Trumbo-hell, if I could have kept that guy from BORDEN CHASE (1900- going to jail, I'd have done anything on earth . But 1935 he had the guts . He asked me once , \" Would you? \" UNDER PRESSURE Fox . Directed by Raoul Walsh . and I said , \" Frankly I don 't know if I'd do a year Screenplay by Borden Chase, Noel Pierce and Les- for what I believe.\" The boys were hurt, ten of them went to jail , and then there was th is damn blacklist 20 WINTER 1970-71

ter Cole. From unpublished novel , Sand Hog, by 1950 Borden Chase and Edward J. Doherty. With Edmund THE GREAT JEWEL ROBBER Warners . Directed by Peter Lowe and Victor McLaglen Godfrey. Original screenplay by Borden Chase. With David Brian and Marjorie Reynolds. MONTANA 1937 Warners. Directed by Ray Enright. Screenplay by MIDNIGHT TAXI 20th Century-Fox . Directed by Eugene James R. Webb, Borden Chase and Ernesy Haycox. Forde. Screenplay by Lou Breslow and John Patrick. Story by Ernesy Haycox. With Errol Flynn and Alexis From a short story by Borden Chase. With Brian Smith. WINCHESTER '73 Universal-International. Di- Donlevy and Frances Drake. rected by Anthony Mann. Screenplay by Robert L. Richards and Borden Chase. Written by Stuart N. 1938 Lake. With James Stewart and Shelley Winters. THE DEVIL'S PARTY Universal. Directed by Ray Mc- Carey. Screenplay by Roy Chanslor. From th~ novel , 1951 Trouble Wagon , by Bordon Chase. With Victor IRON MAN Universal International. Directed by Jo- McLaglen and William Gargan . seph Pevney . Screenplay by George Zuckerman and Borden Chase. From a story by W. R. Burnett. With 1941 Jeff Chandler and Evelyn Keyes. BLUE, WHITE AND PERFECT 20th Century-Fox . Directed by Herbert I. Leeds . Screenplay by Samuel G. Engel. 1952 Story by Borden Chase. With Lloyd Nolan and Mary LONE STAR MGM . Directed by Vincent Sherman . Screenplay by Borden Chase. Story by Borden Beth Hughes. Chase. With Clark Gable and Ava Gardner. BEND OF THE RIVER Universal. Directed by Anthony Mann . 1942 Screenplay by Borden Chase. Based on William THE NAVY COMES THROUGH RKO . Directed by A. Ed- Gulick's novel Bend of the Snake. With James ward Sutherland . Screenplay by Roy Chanslor and Stewart and Arthur Kennedy. THE WORLD IN HIS ARMS Aeneas MacKenzie. From short story, Pay to Learn, Universal International. Directed by Raoul Walsh . by Borden Chase. With Pat O'Brien , George Murphy, Screenplay by Borden Chase. Story by Rex Beach. Jane Wyatt, and Jackie Cooper. DR. BROADWAY Par- amount. Directed by Anthony Mann . Screenplay by With Gregory Peck and Ann Blyth. Art Arthur. From short story by Borden Chase. With Macdonald Carey and Jean Phillips. 1953 SEA DEVILS RKO . Directed by Raoul Walsh . Screen- 1943 play by Borden Chase. Story by Borden Chase . With HARRIGAN'S KID MGM . Directed by Charles F. Riesner. Yvonne De Carlo and Rock Hudson . HIS MAJESTY Screenplay by Alan Friedman and Martin Berkeley. O'KEEFE Warners . Directed by Byron Haskin. Adaptation by Henry Blankfort. From a short story Screenplay by Borden Chase and James Hill. Story by Borden Chase. With Bobby Readick and William by Lawrence Klingman and Gerald Green . With Burt Gargan . DESTROYER Columbia. Directed by William Lancaster and Joan Rice. A. Seiter. Original screenplay by Frank Wead, Lewis Meltzer and Borden Chase. With Edward G. Robin- 1954 son and Glenn Ford. VERA CRUZ United Artists . Directed by Robert Aldrich . Screenplay by Roland Kibbee and James R. Webb . 1944 Story by Borden Chase. With Gary Cooper and Burt THE FIGHTING SEABEES Republic. Directed by Edward Lancaster. Ludwig and Howard Lydecker. Screenplay by Bor- 1955 den Chase and Aenas MacKenzie. Original story by THE FAR COUNTRY Universal. Directed by Anthony Borden Chase. With John Wayne and Susan Hay- Mann. Screenplay by Borden Chase. Story by Bor- ward . den Chase. With James Stewart and Ruth Roman . 1945 MAN WITHOUT A STAR Universal. Directed by King THIS MAN'S NAVY MGM . Directed by William A. Well- Vidor. Screenplay by Borden Chase and D. D. Beau- man . Original screenplay by Borden Chase. Based champ. Story by Dee Linford. With Kirk Douglas and on idea by Comdr. Herman E. Halland USN . (Ret.). Jeanne Crain . With Wallace Beery, Tom Drake, and Jan Clayton. 1956 FLAME OF BARBARY COAST Republic . Directed by Jo- BACKLASH Universal. Directed by John Sturges . seph Kane. Original screenplay by Borden Chase. Screenplay by Borden Chase. Story by Frank With John Wayne and Ann Dvorak. Gruber. With Richard Widmark and Donna Reed . 1946 1957 I'VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU Republic. Directed by Frank NIGHT PASSAGE Universal. Directed by James Neil- Borzage. Screenplay by Borden Chase. From his son . Screenplay by Borden Chase. Story by Norman short story, Concerto. With Philip Dorn and Cath- A. Fox. With James Stewart, Audie Murphy, and Dan erine McLeod. Duryea. 1947 1958 TYCOON RKO . Directed by Richard Wallace. Screen- RIDE A CROOKED TRAIL Universal. Directed by Jesse play by Borden Chase and John Twist. From the Hibbs. Screenplay by Borden Chase. Story by novel by C. E. Scoggins. With John Wayne and George Bruce. With Audie Murphy and Gia Scala. Laraine Day. 1965 1948 GUNFIGHTERS OF CASA GRANDE MGM. Directed by Roy THE MAN FROM COLORADO Columbia. Directed by Rowland. Screenplay by Borden and Patricia Chase. Henry Levin . Screenplay by Robert D. Andrews and Story by Borden and Patricia Chase. With Alex Nicol Ben Maddow. Original story by Borden Chase. With and Jorge Mistral. Glenn Ford and William Holden . RED RIVER United 1966 Artists . Directed by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by SIERRA TRAIL Never made. Borden Chase and Charles Schnee. From Saturday 1970 Evening Post story The Blazing Guns on the Chis- THE WAY IT WAS Screenplay in progress. holm Trail by Borden Chase. With John Wayne , Montgomery Clift and Joanne Dru . FILM COMMENT 21

Confessions status has been challenged through the years by some producers and is being increasingly chal- ofa lenged by screenwriters today, it is generally ac- Frustrated cepted by film journalists and critics, many of whom Screenwriter are ignorant of the realities of filmmaking , and whose researches are based in the main on an Carl exceedingly suspect hagiography. Foreman In any event, during those first twenty-five years of Carl Foreman is president of the Writers Guild of the cinema, the so-called \" scenario writer\" was, on Great Britain . His most recent film is MACKENNA ' S the whole , a supernumary. Given an \" original \" story , GOLD for which he wrote the screenplay and pro- a novel or a playas the basis for a film , the \"sce- duced. narist\" was generally called upon to contribute little more than a highly flexible outline and a series of Within recent memory we have heard both Graham correctly-spelled ex post facto subtitles for exposi- Greene and John Osborne speak about the frustra- tion and dialogue. For what Pudovkin articulated tions that seem endemic in writing for the cinema, in 1926 was already understood by filmmakers an attitude which mayhaveseemed surprising to many around the world : the final juxtaposition of edited cineastes in view of the eminence of these writers. film determined not only the plot but what the actors Yet it would be idle to pretend that the writer of were supposed to be saying , thinking , feeling and films does not function among tensions and frustra- doing . In those halcyon days many films were often tions that seem peculiar and specific to that medium. turned back-to-front or inside-out after photography The explanation, it seems to me, lies in the history had been finished , and no one was the wiser-ex- of the cinema: just as its birth and development cept, perhaps the filmmaker, who had presumably were, to some extent, accidental , the same series and, again , pragmatically , learned something in the of accidents was responsible for the late arrival of process. But the coming of sound and the revolution the professional writer, the career screenwriter. Like it caused in the cinema made entirely new demands the last guest at a formal dinner party for which on the actors and at the same time called for an a gauche hostess has provided no place cards, he entirely new kind of writer. is still trying to find his proper seat at the table . During the formative years of the cinema the key However, an establishment had been created in the people were the technicians, the most important of silent cinema, and although that establishment was whom were cameramen and editors, and , since severely shaken by the sound revolution , it made someone was required to tell the actors what to do, the necessary adjustments and remained in power. directors. Stories and plots were generally simple, But that establishment never quite knew how to best primitive and illiterate. It was during this period that utilize the experienced dramatists it needed and now the director, by virtue of his pragmatically gained hurriedly recruited to write for actors who were no knowledge of the new medium, achieved pride of longer simply puppets. place as the \" auteur\" of the film . Although this So, imagine yourself one of the novelists, play- wrights or radio writers imported to Hollywood in the thirties, using Hollywood as a mise en scene because it set the pattern for the western world . You meet and are charmed first by a producer who is either impressively articulate and erudite or a rather appealing rough diamond , and , later, a direc- tor who fits either description and is in addition the very archetype of poet, dreamer, misunderstood genius, rebel or master of men. There are story conferences with both men which are both stimulat- ing and frightening , holding forth the dazzling promise of a tripartite work of art that will make cinematic history. Later there will be conferences with one or the other not present, at which you will gather that these collaborators are not precisely in agreement, and that each is demanding your un- qualified loyalty and artistic integrity. If you are a man , you suddenly find yourself in an unaccus- tomedly feminine position , simultaneously wooed by two lovers, and you begin to suspect (correctly) that when you have given birth to your child , one or the other of these swains is going to take it away from you and raise it his way. But that will come later, too. For now you are ready to write, and you confess that you are somewhat in awe of the new medium , and would like to learn something about it, but you are assured that this is not necessary. All you need do is write , but if you are curious about the tech- niques involved you may, if you like, look at some old scripts . The actual shooting script is something they will fashion , and if you are good you may actu- ally get to see it. 22 WINTER 1970-71



As time goes by, you may learn (by accident) that were barred from the building site. other writers have been employed on the same script but have, somehow and mysteriously, fai led . By a Most producers may reply that they simply cannot similar accident, you may learn that one of your afford to pay a writer to remain with the film , in predecessors is still working on the script , unaware addition to his fee for writing the script , but until that he has already been gelded and replaced by fairly recently few writers have been invited and you . Later, you may taste the bitter potion yourself writers are notoriously easy to negotiate with . An- when you discover that still another writer has been other \" reason \" goes back to the bad old days: engaged to rewrite what you are writing. When the screenwriters , unlike playwrights (eve n if the film is shot , you have long since left the studio , and screenwriter is also a playwright) are notoriously when at long last you actually see the movie you inconvenient and awakward to have about during have the wry satisfaction of identifying bits and rehearsal and photography; they are touchy, difficult pieces that you remember writing . In the end , you and impractical , and , even worse , it is well known go back to what you were doing before you were that most screenwriters rarely understand the char- tapped , or you hang on , either for the money (al- acters they have created and are almost always though by now your salary has been decreased) or confused about their themes. A third possible rea- because you have become fascinated by the medI- son is that directors may fear a possible competition um and are determined to learn it and to master it. in authority. So it was in the thirties, and those who stayed on This report is not, I hope , to be construed as a to become career screenwriters soon found it nec- polemic against directors, for it is not. All essary to form trade unions and , simultaneously, to screenwriters pray their scripts will find a talented master their craft. Both efforts met with the most director, and are eternally grateful when they are stubborn opposition. Nevertheless, today the unions fortunate enough to have one , and there is no doubt are firmly established , especially in the instances but that the director of a film (with help) controls of the Writers Guild of Great Britain and the Writers the shape, form , style, pace and thrust (and shooting Guild of America , which are affiliated as well , and the writer of a film no longer earns less from it than schedule) of the film during its making. No issue the wardrobe mistress or a carpenter. However, learning to write for the cinema by achieving a exists here. But so does the stage director. What knowledge of the technical processes involved , by is annoying is the auteur myth enshrined and hal- mastering the potentialities of the camera and the lowed both within the industry and among those who mysteries of the cutting room , met with even fiercer judge and write about films. The screenwriter who oppos ition from the establishment. Writers were as is also a playwright knows that when he has a play suspect as militant students .are in some quarters produced , the play will be discussed first, the direc- today ; so fierce was the resistance to attempts by tion and the actors afterward . But there is not a writers to learn how to write better for the cinema screenwriter alive who has not at one time or an- that one would have thought the real objective of other read of a brilliant directorial touch or direc- these writers was to wreck the film industries of the torial coup de theatre which he , the writer, wrote, western world . and there has never been an instance in which a director has written to the press to set the record But, in the oldest and finest of movie traditions, straight. Not one film critic out of a thousand will virtue has triumphed . Today, in the third quarter- ever request a copy of a screenplay before reviewing century of the cinema , most veteran screenwrit~rs a film , or even read one when it is published , but and practically all of the recruits from teleVISion this never prevents critics from making serious know as much about filmmaking as any producer judgments and comments about both the writing or director. Nevertheless, the struggle for integra- and direction of a film , much in the manner of those tion , for full potential contribution , and for recogni- who know nothing about painting but do know what tion still goes on , and it is here that the roots of they like. The result , for example , is that one of the tension and frustration still remain , just below the better film critics, Derek Prouse, reporting from the surface but near enough to it so that one doesn 't last Cannes Festival and writing a rave about M\"A\"S\"H\", have to walk barefoot to feel them . mentioned everything but the Ring Lardner, Jr. screenplay , and then , in demolishing TELL ME THAT Old habits and old prejudices d ie hard in the movie YOU LOVE ME , JUNIE MOON , directed by Otto Prem- business , even when it aspires to be known as the inger, put it all down to a sick script. How did c inema. Wolf Rilla has just published an uncom- he know? How did he really know? And where was monly good encyclopedia or handbook on film pro- the auteur? duction ( \" A-Z of Movie Making \"), probably the clear- est and most up-to-date exposition of the process The screenwriter knows that there is nothing more today , and yet Mr. Rilla, in describing the compo- ludicrous than a director without a screenplay he nents of a working film unit does not mention the can auteur, like a Don Juan without a penis . At the writer. Factually this is correct , for it is not customary same time , the screenwriter knows that without a to think of the writer as a member of the working director he has no audience and , even worse some- crew . Yet Mr. Rilla , who is a writer-director .himself, times , no money for the rent. So he accepts the knows that the writer's most important contributions fact that when the film is released it will be a Sam can well be made not merely before but during Z. Schwartz Production and A Film By Roderick photography, and that the failure of many films lies Robinson , or whoever. And until writers can direct in the exclus ion of writers from the actual making and directors can write, they will have to collaborate of the film. Like others before him , Mr. Rilla de- on uneven terms and the tensions and frustrations scribes the screenplay as the blueprint , the master will remain . In the May 17, 1970 issue of the Sunday plan . This kudos writers have received many times Times Magazine there was an article o n Robert Bolt. before, and have then wondered why the architects Bolt 's agent, Peggy Ramsay , is quoted as saYI~g that \" ... because David Lean wish es he could write for himself, he is daemonically particular about what 24 WINTER 1970-71 =

he films , and when .. . (Bolt) was writing DR . ZHIVAGO With John Wayne , Vera Hruba Ralston , and Walter with David in Rome , after he 'd wri tten the same Brennan . scene twelve times over, tears of rage and frustration 1948 were falling on the paper. \" SO THIS IS NEW YORK United Artists. Directed by Richard O. Fleischer. Screenplay by Carl Foreman Well , Bolt is an admirable wri ter and one of the ornaments of our Guild , and Lean is on e of the great and Herbert Baker. From The Big Town : How I and directors, and their collaboration has been marvel- the Mrs . Go to New York to See Life and Get Katie ously successful for both of them over the years. a Husband, by Ring Lardner. With Henry Morgan , It may be noted in passing that Lean insists on Rudy Vallee, and Bill Goodwin. having Bolt with him during the making of their films, 1949 and on this score , as well as others , Bolt is to be CHAMPION United Artists. Directed by Mark Robson . envied . My own experience with Lean , who I believe Screenplay by Carl Foreman . From a story by Ring is, in his own way, a gen ius, was not quite so fortu- Lardner. With Kirk Douglas, Arthur Kennedy, and nate-in the case of THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. Ruth Roman . HOME OF THE BRAVE United Artists. Writing the script, I found myself thinking along the same lines as Peggy Ramsay, and David may have Directed by Mark Robson . Screenplay by Carl Fore- thought, among other thoughts, that I was trying man. From a play by Arthur Laurents. With Douglas to d irect his film. In the end , and a hai r' s breadth Dick, Steve Brodie, and Jeff Corey. THE CLAY PIGEON from what I thought was the final draft, I asked to RKO . Directed by Richard O. Fleischer. Original go, a considerable sacrifice for me since I had screenplay by Carl Foreman . With Bill Williams , Bar- owned the film rights originally and had hoped to bara Hale, and Richard Quine. break through the blacklist with the film . 1950 THE MEN United Artists. Directed by Fred Zinnemann . David agreed to my departure, I think with relief , Original screenplay by Carl Foreman . With Marlon and at my suggestion Michael Wil so n was brought Brando, Teresa Wright, and Everett Sloane. YOUNG on for the final draft. In the end , I, at least, found MAN WITH A HORN Warners. Directed by Michael certain confusions and awkward interpolations in Curtiz. Screenplay by Carl Foreman and Edmund the released film which , despite its financial success, H. North . From a novel by Dorothy Baker. With Kirk betrayed the problems inherent in a director at- Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, and Hoagy Car- tempting to write a film through and by means of michael. CYRANO DE BERGERAC United Artists. Direct- two disparate writers. And , iron ically enough , nei- ed by Michael Gordon . Screenplay by Carl Foreman . ther Wilson nor I received screen credit for our work From the play by Edmond Rostand . With Jose Fer- because we were both then still blacklisted, and the rer, Mala Powers, William Prince, and Morris Car- screenwriting Oscar the film received graces the novsky. home of someone named Boulle. Yes , there are all 1952 kinds of frustrations in writing for films . HIGH NOON United Artists. Directed by Fred Zinne- mann. Screenplay by Carl Foreman . From a story, I think that these frustrations and tensions will con- The Tin Star, by John W . Cunningham . With Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and Thomas Mitchell. tinue until the director becomes the true auteur of 1957 THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI Columbia. Directed his film , and that will be when he is the writer as by David Lean. Screenplay by Pierre Boulle (the actual authors of the screenplay, Carl Foreman and well , or vice versa. I think that time must and will Michael Wilson, were not credited). From the novel, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, by Pierre Boulle . come . We are , after all , only midway into the third With William Holden , Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. quarter-century of the cinema. There is a revolution 1958 THE KEY Columbia. Directed by Carol Reed . Pro- taking place even now which in many ways will be duced by Carl Foreman . Screenplay by Carl Fore- man . From the novel , Stella , by Jan De Hartog . With as explosive and far-reaching as the coming of William Holden, Sophia Loren, Trevor Howard, and Oscar Homolka. sound . Moreover, there exist now professional film 1961 THE GUNS OF NAVARONE Columbia. Directed by J. Lee schools of a kind which were not even imagined Thompson . Produced by Carl Foreman . Screenplay by Carl Foreman. From the novel by Alistair Mac- a half century ago, and they have their part to play. Lean . With Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn , Stanley Baker, and Irene Papas. As long ago as 1959 I wrote : \" ... Britain needs a 1963 (national) film school. It is my hope that tax-relief THE VICTORS Columbia. Directed by Carl Foreman . Produced by Carl Foreman . Screenplay by Carl for Wardour Street will be tied to such a Foreman . With George Hamilton , George Peppard, and Eli Wallach . school . . . so that a generation from now the invalid 1969 will not only still be alive but fabulously healthy ... I MACKENNA'S GOLD Columbia. Directed by J. Lee Thompson . Produced by Carl Foreman . Screenplay think the film school . . . is an absolute necessi- by Carl Foreman. From a story by Will Henry. With Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, and julie Newmar. ty .. . And .1 hope that the filmmaker of tomorrow 1970 will be the complete creator, th e complete author THE YOUNG WINSTON To be produced next year. FORCE TEN FROM NAVARONE Screenplay in progress . of his film , the writer and directo r in one , one man or woman combining word and image in personal expression in what is still the greatest mass art form our world has ever known. \" I still think so. IIIIIII CARL FOREMAN (1914- 1940 SPOOKS RUN WILD Monogram . Screenplay by Carl Foreman and Charles R. Marion . BOWERY BLITZKRIEG Monogram . Screenplay by Carl Foreman and Charles R. Marion . RHYTHM PARADE Monogram. Screenplay by Carl Foreman and Charles R. Marion. 1945 DAKOTA Republic. Directed by Joseph Kane. Screenplay by Lawrence Hazard . Adaptation by Howard Estabrook. From a story by Carl Foreman . FILM COMMENT 25

/ / / \\ Jules Furthman, left, with Josef Von Sternberg . JULES FURTHMAn American Film Company, writing many originals for Henry King , but he had to use the alias of Stephen by Richard Koszarski Fox due to the too-Germanic tone of his own name. After doing VICTORY (1919) and TREASURE ISLAND Richard Koszarski has written for Sight and Sound, (1920) for Maurice Tourneur (still under the old alias) Film Quarterly and Film Heritage. His article on he moved to the Fox studios, where until 1923 he TROUBLE IN PARADISE appeared in the Fall 1970 FILM wrote many scripts-generally westerns-for the Fox COMMENT. contract directors, including John Ford. After 1925 he wrote mostly for Paramount, but by 1933 was \" No two great directors of the Thirties differ so independent enough to take on only one or two widely as Josef von Sternberg and Howard Hawks,\" special assignments a year, a habit of work which writes John Baxter in Hollywood in the Thirties. remained with him until 1949, when Howard Hughes Visually, thematically, temperamentally, Hawks and signed him as writer and producer of the notorious Sternberg are seeming opposites, and yet the writing JET PILOT. He seems to have done almost nothing of Jules Furthman comfortably spans the best work else until this film finally appeared in 1957, and of both of them . actually sued Hughes for non-payment of $145,833 back pay supposedly owed him in his capacity as Jules Furthman was born in Chicago in 1888 and \" producer, \" although his exact connection with the educated at Northwestern . After a period spent as film as it exists in the released version is debatable. a magazine and newspaper writer he began in 1915 His last script was for Hawks ' RIO BRAVO in 1959. to submit story ideas to the film studios, although he claims not to have entered films until 1917 If one reads Robin Wood on Hawks or Andrew Sarris (scripts of his from earlier than that are usually on Sternberg a decided masculine-feminine polarity signed Julius Grinnell Furthmann). Towards the end immediately appears, which extends not only to the of World War I he began to work steadily for the plots and players (Bogart and Wayne on the one hand vs . Marlene Dietrich on the other) but to the nature of the images themselves. Yet MOROCCO and THE BIG SLEEP, SHANGHAI EXPRESS and RIO BRAVO are all products of the same typewriter , and to deny all credit for creation to their author by so singling out their auteur is certainly narrow-minded at best and 26 WINTER 1970-71

possibly downright destructive and dishonest. Jules him , his name being missing even in the consider- Furthman 's name is seldom encountered in histories ably more sane filmography of the Sarris book. of film , although the fault here may lie somewhat Furthman that same year had just written three of with Furthman himself, who was more interested in Paramount's major showcases for their European writing films than manifestoes, a problem not shared imports: Pola Negri's HOTEL IMPERIAL and BARBED by such as Hecht and MacArthur, Mankiewicz, Law- WIRE and Emil Jannings' THE WAY OF ALL FLESH , in son , Nichols and many others. Indeed , writing by addition to FASHIONS FOR WOMEN , another not incon- Furthman not intended for the screen is quite hard siderable production , directed by Dorothy Arzner. to come by, and without anything but his scripts Sternberg's career had been noisy, but hardly suc- to popularize his name Furthman has not been cessful , from the Hollywood point of view. His great searched out by our historians of film . Further, many success with UNDERWORLD seems to have surprised of them make the mistake of confusing him with everyone, and only then was his reputation firmly his brother Charles (1884-1936) with whom he established . How then did Sternberg \" train \" Furth- worked on occasion , attributing to Jules Charles ' man , one of the hottest writers at the studio, a man work on Paul Fejos ' BROADWAY (1929) , and other with over si xty films already to his credit , and who such mistakes, but not really caring very much any- in the past dozen years had worked closely with how. But this still does not explain away the near directors ranging from Maurice Tourneur and conspiracy to bury Furthman's work, which seems Clarence Brown to John Ford and Henry King , as to have grown out of some misguided sense of well as having directed several films of his own? loyalty to Pantheon directors. The worst offender Who was training whom? I think we must admit that in this case is the \" most complete filmography \" of the \" training \" Sternberg speaks of is at best meta- Josef von Sternberg published in Herman Wein- phorical , and that the partnership which lasted berg's recent book, which totally ignores Furthman 's through nine productions might have been more contributions to UNDERWORLD , THE CASE OF LENA equal than we have been led to believe. SMITH , MOROCCO, BLONDE VENUS and THE SHANGHAI GESTURE , and denigrates his work on four other To discover if there really was a Furthman influence Sternberg-directed films. Mr. Furthman did not work at work it is most fruitful to look at the American on these films under aliases ; his name is on them Dietrich films, divided equally between fhose Furth- for all to see , a fact the most sketchy research can man worked on and those he did not. There is a discover-so he has not been overlooked there, he discernible difference between DISHONORED, THE has been omitted. Now the argument may be put SCARLET EMPRESS , THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN (to which that writers and such are often given screen credit Furthman did not contribute) and the others, and even though their actual connection with the pro- it lies in the approach to the narrative development duction was minimal or non-existent. But Weinberg itself. The structure of these three films is dreamlike, does not provide an iota of evidence to support this nearly formless . The figures drift in and out of DIS- point of view, other than the testimony of Sternberg HONORED with little regard for the classical unities, himself, a man who disclaims not only the influence but with telling effect on the film 's impressionistic of Lee Garmes and Hans Dreier on his work, but structure. Warner Oland appears; he disappears. refers to Furthman (although not by name) as \"a Was he needed in the film? Not to advance the friend whom I had trained to become a prominent narrative, but only as an incident in the development scenario writer. \" Now age can whither the definition of the characterization of X-27 . Characterization in of one 's memories, and Sternberg is certainly en- these films is advanced by nearly unconnected an- titled to all the credit he deserves, yet as historians ecdotes , and characterization is all that matters-the we must keep our wits about us in attributing cre- need for plot is jettisoned , and the effect is strikingly ative responsibility in so corporate an art form as modern when compared to the other notable Cinema. achievements of thirties cinema. The narrative of THE SCARLET EMPRESS progresses by means of full UNDERWORLD is the first film Sternberg and Furth- screen titles, which take care of \" story develop- man both worked on , although Furthman 's credit ment,\" while the dramatic incidents which are here for \" adaptation \" has made everyone ignore framed by them (the \" filmic \" part of the film) are FILM COMMENT 27 $

1. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY , Charles Laughton . 2. THE BIG SLEEP, Humphrey Bogart. 3. BLONDE VENUS , Marlene Dietrich . 4. SHANGHAI EXPRESS, Marlene Dietrich. 28 WINTER 1970-71 s

concerned solely with sketching in the characters in THE BIG SLEEP and TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT and some with a daub here and a daub there , and not at all with \" plot. \" The high point of this style is reached of Furthman 's Dietrich characters; or his Jean Har- in THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN , in which Lionel Atwill nar- rates a series of the most loosely connected vi- low characters in BOMBSHELL and CHINA SEAS ; or gnettes, stories which present a perfect impres- sionistic portrait of Concha, and yet remain strikingly Jane Russell in THE OUTLAW, or the wom en in ONLY isolated in this film whose structure has become that of an assemblage , a grouping of items , related to ANGELS HAVE WINGS . It may take a long time to prove , a greater or lesser degree, but all finally contributing to some general effect. (THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN is but those strange females populating so many films most closely related to ANATAHAN , perhaps the purest Sternberg film , in which the function of the narrator of the thirties and forties may all have a common is now physically taken over by Sternberg himself. Sarris points out that Atwill is an obvious figure for ancestry back in the unknown reaches of the career Sternberg in the earlier film , but now the director dispenses with all pretense of story-tell ing by of Jules Furthman . 11111111 images, and tells us the whole plot in words , leaving the images to their own affairs.) JULES FURTH MAN (1888-1960) Now MOROCCO and THE SHANGHAI ·EXPRESS are 1915 something else entirely (I would rather not discuss STEADY COMPANY Rex-Universal. Produced by Jo- BLONDE VENUS because S. K. Lauren 's contribution seph De Grasse. Screenplay by Ida May Park . From throws yet another variable into the pot and makes a story by Julius Grinnell Furthmann . BOUND ON THE a clear analysis quite difficult). Weinberg properly WHEEL Re x-Universal. Produced by Joseph De refers to \" the inexorable logic of MOROCCO ,\" as Grasse. Screenplay by Ida May Park. From a story opposed to \" such paroxysmic explosions of the by Julius Grinnell Furthmann . MOUNTAIN JUS- baroque as THE SCARLET EMPRESS and THE DEVIL IS TICE Re x-Universal. Produced by Joseph De Grasse. A WOMAN. \" \" Inexorable logic \" in Hollywood films is Screenplay by Ida May Park. From a story by Julius usually the result of a most carefully prearranged Grinnell Furthmann . CHASING THE LIMITED Bison- scenario-vide Hitchcock, Sturges, Lubitsch-and Universal. Produced by Henry McRae. From a story who should have written MOROCCO and THE SHANGHAI by Jules Furthman. QUITS Re x-Universal. Produced EXPRESS but Jules Furthman? There is not a frame by Joseph De Grasse. Screenplay by Ida May Park. in either film which one could cut without making From a story by Julius G. Furthmann. the whole incomprehensible (cutting the others would only make them less perfect). The tensions 1918 of MOROCCO succeed because the tightness of the THE CAMOUFLAGE KISS Fo x. Directed by Harry Mil- script creates a sense of concentration which is so larde. Screenplay by Ralph H. Spence and Stephen gloriously missing in the three films just discussed. THE SHANGHAI EXPRESS also bears these marks of Fox. From a story by Julius Grinnell Furthmann . perfect completion ; far from being a \" GRAND HOTEL MORE TROUBLE Anderson-Brunton . Directed by Er- on wheels ,\" as some have written , it is a structure nest C. Warde. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. in which each part plays an indispensable role . There From a story by Edgar Franklin . Picturized by Ouida is no meandering , only the strict delineation of a Bergere. JAPANESE NIGHTINGALE Astra. Directed by journey from points A to B, detailing the moral and George Fitzmaurice. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. emotional progress of the characters as well as the From a story by William Young . physical progress of the Express. Each of the char- [From October, 1918 until March , 1920 Furthman acters on the train is indispensable to the Dietrich- was forced to employ the alias of Stephen Fox by Clive Brook story , and each is utilized to the fullest. his employers at the American Film Company, a (Furthman must have enjoyed working on this Harry habit which carried over until his first two Para- Hervey story, because twenty years later his name mount-Artcraft pictures written for Maurice Tour- appears again in connection with the fourth film neur's production unit.] ALL THE WORLD TO NOTHING version , William Dieterle's PEKING EXPRESS (1952) . American . Directed by Henry King . Screenplay by For those interested , he was not connected with Stephen Fox. From a story by Wyndham Martyn . the other versions, which William K. Everson informs me were LAST TRAIN FROM MADRID (1937) and NIGHT MANTLE OF CHARITY American. Directed by Edward PLANE FROM CHUNGKING (1943) .) Sloman . Screenplay by Stephen Fox. HOBBS IN A HURRY American. Directed by Henry King . Screen- It is fully to Sternberg's credit that he could so play by Stephen Fox. WIVES AND OTHER WIVES Ameri- successfully make the most of these rather disparate can . Directed by Lloyd Ingraham . Screenplay by scenario forms and found a visual style which unites Stephen Fo x. From a story by Fox . WHEN A MAN RIDES them all. Yet to deny the influence here of Furthman ALONE American . Directed by Henry King. Screen- is rather shortSighted . play by Stephen Fox . From a story by Fox. 1919 I have spent so much time on the Sternberg scripts of Furthman because here both the ev idence and WHERE THE WEST BEGINS American. Directed by the contestat ion of authorship is the greatest. The Henry King . Screenplay by Stephen Fox. From a Hawks work, although seeming to fit in fully with story by Fox . BRASS BUTTONS American . Directed by that masculine universe which Robin Wood and Henry King. Screenplay by Stephen Fo x. From a others have delineated at such length , also bears story by Fox. SOME LIAR American . Directed by Henry traces of Furthman 's strange moralistic , yet fantas- King. Screenplay by Stephen Fox. From a story by tically erotic female figures : a study could be made James Oliver Curwood. A SPORTING CHANCE Ameri- of the links between the Lauren Bacall characters can . Directed by Henry King . Story by Stephen Fo x, THIS HERO STUFF American . Directed by Hen(y King . Story by Stephen Fox . SIX FEET FOUR American . Directed by Henry King . Screenplay by Stephen Fo x. From the novel by Jackson Gregory. VICTORY Para- mount-Artcraft. Directed by Maurice Tourneur. Screenplay by Stephen Fo x. From the novel by Joseph Conrad. 1920 THE VALLEY OF TOMORROW American . Directed by Emmett J. Flynn . Story by Stephen Fo x. TREASURE ISLAND Paramount-Artcraft. Directed by Maurice FILM COMMENT 29 .....

Tourneur. Screenplay by Stephen Fox. From the by Josephine Quirk and Jules Furthman. From a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. WOULD YOU story by George Scarboro . NORTH OF HUDSON BAY FORGIVE? Fox. Directed by Scott Dunlap. Screenplay Fox. Directed by John Ford . Screenplay by Jules by Jules Furthman. From a story by Furthman . LEAVE Furthman . From a story by Furthman . THE ACQUITTAL IT TO ME Fox. Directed by Emmett J. Flynn . Screen- Universal-Jewel. Directed by Clarence Brown . play by Jules Furthman . From a story by Arthur Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From a play by Rita Jackson. THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK Fox. Weiman . Directed by Scott Dunlap. Screenplay by Jules 1924 Furthman. From a story by Ridgwell Cullum. WHITE CONDEMNED Grand-Asher. Directed by Arthur Ros- CIRCLE Paramount-Artcraft. Produced by Maurice son . From a story by Jules Furthman. TRY AND GET IT Hodkinson . Directed by Cullen Tate. Screenplay Tourneur. Adapted by John Gilbert and Jules Furth- by Jules Furthman. From the story \" The Ringtailed man . From the novel \" The Pavilion on the Links\" Galliwampus\" by Eugene Lyles . by Robert Louis Stevenson . THE MAN WHO .DARED 1925 Fox. Directed by Emmett J. Flynn . Screenplay by SACKCLOTH AND SCARLET Paramount. Directed by Jules Furthman . From a story by Furthman. THE SKYWAYMAN Fox. Directed by James Patrick Hogan . Henry King . Adapted by Jules Furthman, Julie Herne Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From a story by and Tom Geraghty. From the novel by George Furthman. THE GREAT REDEEMER Metro. Directed by Gibbs. ANY WOMAN Paramount. Directed by Henry Clarence Brown. Screenplay by H. H. Van Loan . King. Screenplay by Jules Furthman and Beatrice From a story by H. H. Van Loan . Adapted by John Van. From a story by Arthur Somers Roche. BEFORE Gilbert and Jules Furthman . THE TEXAN Fox. Directed MIDNIGHT Banner Productions. Directed by John by Lynn Reynolds. Screenplay by Reynolds and Adolfi . Story by Jules Furthman . Jules Furthman. From a story by James B. Hendryx. 1926 IRON RIDER Fox. Directed by Scott Dunlap. Screen- THE WISE GUY First National. Directed by Frank Lloyd. play by Jules Furthman. From a story by Frank L. Screenplay by Ada McQuillin. From a story by Jules Packard . LAND OF JAZZ Fox. Directed by Jules Furth- Furthman . YOU'D BE SURPRISED Paramount. Directed man . Screenplay by Furthman. From a story by by Arthur Rosson. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. Furthman and Barbara La Marr Deely. From a story by Furtliman. 1921 1927 THE CHEATER REFORMED Fox . Directed by Scott Dun~ lap. Screenplay by Dunlap and Jules Furthman. HOTEL IMPERIAL Paramount. Directed by Mauritz From a story by Furthman . THE BIG PUNCH Fox. Stiller. Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From the Directed by John Ford . Adapted by Ford. From a story by Jules Furthman. THE BLUSHING BRIDE Fox. novel by Lajos Biro . CASEY AT THE BAT Paramount.\" Directed by Jules Furthman . Screenplay by Furth- Directed by Monte Brice. Screenplay by Jules man. From a story by Furthman. COLORADO PLUCK Furthman . From the poem by Ernest L. Thayer. Fox. Directed by Jules G. Furthman . Screenplay by FASHIONS FOR WOMEN Paramount. Directed by Furthman. From a novel by George Goodchild. HIGH Dorothy Arzner. Screenplay by Percy Heath. Adapt- GEAR JEFFREY American . Directed by Edward Slo- ed by Jules Furthman and Herman Mankiewicz. man. Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From a story From The Girl of the Hour by Gladys Unger. BARBED by Furthman . THE SINGING RIVER Fox. Directed by WIRE Paramount. Directed by Rowland V. Lee. Charles Giblyn. Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From The Woman a story by Robert T. Horton. THE LAST TRAIL Fox . of Knockaloe by Hall Caine . THE WAY OF ALL FLESH Directed by Emmett J. Flynn . Screenplay by Paul Paramount. Directed by Victor Fleming. Story by Schofield and Jules Furthman . THE ROOF TREE Fox. Lajos Biro and Jules Furthman . Continuity by Furth- Directed by John Dillon . Screenplay by Jules Furth- man. UNDERWORLD Paramount. Directed by Josef von man . From a story by Charles Neville Buck. Sternberg . Screenplay by Robert N. Lee. Adapted 1922 by Jules Furthman . From a story by Ben Hecht. CITY GLEAM O'DAWN Fox. .Directed by John Dillon. GONE WILD Paramount. Directed by James Cruze. Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From a story by Screenplay by Jules Furthman. From a story by Jules Arthur Goodrich. THE RAGGED HEIRESS Fox. Directed and Charles Furthman. by Harry Beaumont. Screenplay by Jules Furthman . 1928 From a story by Furthman. ARABIAN LOVE Fox. THE DRAG NET Paramount. Directed by Josef von Directed by Jerome Storm. Screenplay by Jules Sternberg. Screenplay by Jules and Charles Furth- Furthman . From a story by Furthman . YELLOW STAIN m.an . From Nightstick by Oliver H. P. Garrett. With George Bancroft. DOCKS OF. NEW YORK Paramount. Fox. Directed by John Dillon . Screenplay by Jules Directed by Josef von Sternberg . Screenplay by Furthman. STRANGE IDOLS Fox. Directed by Bernard Jules Furthman, From The Dockwal/oper by John Durning . Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From a Monk Sanders. With George Bancroft. story by Emile Forst. CALVERT'S VALLEY Fox . Directed 1929 by John Dillon . Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From ABlE'S IRISH ROSE Paramount. Directed by Victor a story by Margaret Prescott Montague. THE LOVE Fleming . Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From the GAMBLER Fox. Directed by Joseph Franz. Screenplay novel by Anne Nichols. Titles by Herman Mankiewicz by Jules Furthman. From a story by Lilian Bennet and Julian Johnson. With Nancy Carroll , Charles Thompson and George Hubbard. A CALIFORNIA RO- Rogers , and Jean Hersholt. (Released in part-talking MANCE Fox. Directed by Jerome Storm . Screenplay and silent versions. Originally produced one year by Charles E. Banks. From a story by Jules Furth- earlier. Release was delayed due to the insertion man . PAWN TICKET 210 Fox. Directed by Scott Dun- of dialogue sequences .) THE CASE OF LENA SMITH lap. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. From a story Paramount. Directed by Josef von Sternberg . by Qavid Belasco and Clay M. Greene. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. From a story by 1923 Samuel Ornitz. Titles by Julian Johnson . With Gus- LOVEBOUND Fox. Directed by Henry Otto. Screenplay tav von Seyffertitz, Emily Fitzroy, and Fred Kohler. THUNDERBOLT Paramount. Directed by Josef von 30 WINTER 1970-71

Sternberg . Screenplay by Ju!es Furthman . Titles and Hathaway. Screenplay by Talbot Jennings and Jules Furthman . From a story by Barrett Willoughby. With dialogue by Herman Mankiewicz . Released in all- George Raft, Henry Fonda and Dorothy Lamour. talking and silent versions . With George Bancroft, 1939 ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS Columb ia. Directed by Fay Wray , and Richard Arlen . Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. From a story by Howard Hawks. With Cary Grant, 1930 Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, and Rita Hay- worth . NEW YORK NIGHTS United Artists . Directed by Lewis 1940 Milestone. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. From Tin THE WAY OF ALL FLESH Paramount. Directed by Louis King . Screenplay by Lenore Coffee. From a story Pan Alley by Hugh Stanislaus Strange. With Norma by Lajos Biro and Jules Furthman. With Akim Ta- miroff, Gladys George, and William Henry. Talmadge, Gilbert Roland , and John Wray. COMMON 1941 CLAY Fo x. Directed by Victor Fleming . Screenplay THE SHANGHAI GESTURE United Artists. Directed by by Jules Furthman . From a play by Cleaves Kinkead. Josef von Sternberg . Adapted by Josef von Stern- berg from the play of John Colton , in collaboration With Constance Bennett, Lew Ay res , and Tully Mar- with Geza Herczeg , Karl Vollmoeller and Jules Furthman. With Gene Tierney, Walter Huston , and shall. RENEGADES Fo x. Directed by Victor Fleming. Victor Mature. 1943 Screenplay by Jules Furthman. From Les Renegates THE OUTLAW Howard Hughes-United Artists. Directed by Howard Hughes. Screenplay by Jules Furthman . by Andre Armandy. With Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, With Jane Russell , Jack Buetel, and Walter Huston. (Film was completed in 1941.) and Noah Beery. MOROCCO Paramount. Directed by 1944 TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT Warners. Directed by Howard Josef von Sternberg . Screenplay by Jules Furthman. Hawks. Screenplay by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner. From the novel by Ernest Hemingway. From Amy Jolly by Benno Vigny . With Gary Cooper, With Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan , and Lauren Bacall . Marlene Dietrich , and Adolphe Menjou . 1946 1931 THE BIG SLEEP Warners. Directed by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and BODY AND SOUL Fox . Directed by Alfred Santell. Jules Furthman . From a novel by Raymond Chan- dler. With Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Screenplay by Jules Furthman. From Squadrons by John Ridgely. MOSS ROSE 20th Century-Fox. Directed by Gregory Elliott White Springs and A. E. Thomas . With Charles Ratoff. Screenplay by Jules Furthman and Tom Reed . Adapted by Niven Busch from a novel by Farrell , Elissa Landi , and Humphrey Bogart. MERELY Joseph Shearing . With Peggy Cummins, Victor Ma- ture, Ethel Barrymore, and Vincent Price. NIGHTMARE MARY ANN Fox. Directed by Henry King . Screenplay ALLEY 20th Century-Fo x. Directed by Edmund Goulding. Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From a by Jules Furthman . From a play by Israel Zangwill. novel by William Lindsay Gresham . With Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell , Coleen Gray. With Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. YELLOW 1950 TICKET Fox. Directed by Raoul Walsh . Screenplay PRETTY BABY Warners. Directed by Bretaigne Win- by Jules Furthman . From a play by Michael Morton. dust. Screenplay by Everett Freeman and Harry Kurnitz. From a story by Jules Furthman. With With Elissa Landi , Lionel Barrymore, and Laurence Dennis Morgan , Betsy Drake, and Zachary Scott. 1951 Olivier. OVER THE HILL Fox . Directed by Henry King . PEKING EXPRESS Paramount. Directed by William Dieterle. Screenplay by John Merdyth Lucas. From Screenplay by Tom Barry and Jules Furthman . From a story by Harry Hervey. Adaptation by Jules Furth- man . With Joseph Cotton , Corinne Calvert, and Over the Hill to the Poorhouse by Will Carleton . With Edmund Gwenn. 1957 Mae Marsh , James Kirkwood and James Dunn . 1932 JET PILOT Howard Hughes-RKO-Universal. Directed by Josef von Sternberg . Produced by Jules Furth- SHANGHAI EXPRESS Paramount. Directed by Josef von man . Screenplay by Furthman . With John Wayne and Janet Leigh . (Production was actually begun Sternberg . Screenplay by Jules Furthman . From a six years earlier.) 1959 story by Harry Hervey. With Marlene Dietrich, Clive RIO BRAVO Warners. Directed by Howard Hawks . Brook, and Anna May Wong . BLONDE VENUS Para- Screenplay by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett. From a story by B. H. McCampbell. With John mount. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Screenplay Wayne, Dean Martin , Ricky Nelson , and Angie Dick- inson . by Jules Furthman and S. K. Lauren. From a story by Furthman and Lauren . With Marlene Dietrich Herbert Marshall, and Cary Grant. ' 1933 GIRL IN 419 Paramount. Directed by Georges Somnes and Alexander Hall. Screenplay by P. J. Wolfson , Allen Rivkin , and Manuel Seff. From a story by Jules Furthman . With James Dunn and Gloria Stewart. BOMBSHELL MGM . Directed by Victor Flem- ing . Screenplay by John Lee Mahin and Jules Furth- man . From a play by Caroline Francke and Mack Crane. With Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank Morgan , and Franchot Tone. 1935 CHINA SEAS MGM . Directed by Tay Garnett. Screen- play by Jules Furthman and James K. McGuinness. From a story by Crosby Garstin . With Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and Wallace Beery. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY MGM . Directed by Frank Lloyd . Screenplay by Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman and Carey Wil- son . From the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Normal Hall. With Charles Laughton , Clark Gable, and Franchot Tone. 1936 COME AND GET IT! Goldwyn-United Artists. Directed by Howard Hawks and William Wyler. Screenplay by Jules Furthman and Jane Murfin. From the novel by Edna Ferber. With Edward Arnold and Joel Mc- Crea . 1938 SPAWN OF THE NORTH Paramount. Directed by Henry FILM COMMENT 31 2

DESIGN FOR LIVING . Miriam Ho pkins , Fredric March and Gary Cooper. WUTHERING HEIGHTS. From left : Geraldine Fitzgerald, Laurence Olivier, Leo G. Carroll and Flora Robson . 32 WINTER 1970-71

ROMAN HOLIDAY . Audrey Hepburn and Grego ry Pec k. Selected and Introduced by Stephen Fuller \" I have had always a picture of myself as a prompting the Soviet government to invite Hecht to story teller. I have seen myself like those sunny come to Russia via chartered battleship to do a film of the May Revolution : Hecht accepted until in- and cackling fellows who once upon a time formed the Soviets would not permit the film to be shown in the United States). A record of most of stood on the street corners of Bagdad and his films exists in any number of sources , from unfolded tales to the harassed citizens who Library of Congress listings to passing references paused to listen-and fling grateful kopecks in about any book dealing with American films e.g . at their feet. \" -preface to the Collected Stories the new tidbits revealed in Selznick by Bob Thomas . Anyone who knows anything about movies knows Many of the films Ben wrote though didn 't include that Ben Hecht was one of Hollywood 's top any screen credits for a number of reasons . First, screenwriters (Pauline Kael in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Hecht was very cavalier in his attitude toward Holly- has attributed half the entertaining movies produced wood. Although he obviously did top quality work, by Hollywood to Hecht-the other half to Jules he was in Hollywood to make money and conse- Furthman) but no one is really aware of the enor- quently didn 't care about the fame or notoriety that mous uncredited influence he exerted on the entire his name on a motion picture would bring . He wasn 't industry from his debut with the GREEN GHOST in egotistically concerned about receiving credit for 1925 to his death in 1964 when he was working everything he did (he helped Sam Goldwyn 'fix ' so on the screenplay of CASINO ROYALE. He wrote more many of h is bad scripts for free that he was kiddingly than seventy original scenarios, winning the first referred to as the' Angel over Goldwyn ') and was Academy Award for an original story , UNDERWORLD , such a generous, easygoing man that on many of in 1927 and receiving a second Oscar for THE his collaborations he let the other writer take the SCOUNDREL (shared with Charles MacArthur, but screen credits , as with QUEEN CHRISTINA , TOPAZE , actually conceived by Hecht and his wife Rose Cay- lor and written as a stage play All He Ever Loved). FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE SHOP AROUND THE He also produced many adaptations and was nom- inated for another Oscar for his treatment of VIVA CORNER , THE OUTLAW , and many others. VILLA! (which incidentally was Stalin 's favorite film , Secondly, his films were banned from exhibition Steven Fuller is writing a book on Ben Hecht. throughout all of Great Britain because of the bitter FILM COMMENT 33

invective Hecht poured over the British for their portunity to become a foreign correspondent at a involvement in Palestine (Hecht devoted a goodly preposterously early age and the setting for danger- portion of his energies and money proselytizing for ous exploits behind the German lines . By the mid- the Irgun , the group that really drove the English Twenties he was in New York City , two months out of Palestine and created the conditions neces- behind in his rent , and penniless after spending his sary for the formation of the state of Israel). The last twenty dollars on a twelve volume set of Gib- boycott lasted about five years , during which time bon 's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Hecht's name was not permitted to be listed on any film because the studios didn 't want to lose the Advice to the Novice British market; and without credits the studios were able to cut Hecht's salary to a fifth of what it had Four days and eleven volumes later, the doorbell been forcing him to sell his home in Nyack , New rang . A Western Union messenger delivered this York . telegram from Herman Mankiewicz in Hollywood: \" Will you accept three hundred per week to work Most film scholars are more or less aware of the for Paramount Pictures. All expenses paid . The three major films Hecht wrote but are understandably hundred is peanuts. Millions are to be grabbed out unaware of the contributions Hecht made to dozens here and your only competition is idiots . Don 't let of other film projects. These contributions ranged this get around.\" from writing dialogue for some films ; writing key scenes for others (the trial sequence in Preminger's When Ben arrived in Hollywood , Mankiewicz told THE COURT-MARTIAL OF BILLY MITCHELL) ; writing the him \" i'n a novel a hero can lay ten girls and marry scenarios of well-known films which didn 't credit him a virgin for a finish . In a movie this is not allowed . (for example, Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT, and Howard The hero, as well as the heroine , has to be a virgin . Hawks ' and Christian Nyby's THE THING written with The villain can lay anybody he wants , have as much Charles Lederer); contributing plot ideas; and writ- fun as he wants cheating and stealing , getting rich ing many films which were never produced or have and whipping the servants. But you have to shoot never been heard of by film aficionados. This is the him in the end. When he falls with a bullet in his largest category , and as such is not very well docu- forehead , it is advisable that he clutch at the Gobelin mented but includes the following : a script in verse tapestry on the library wall and bring it down over form of CYRANO for director Harry D'Arrast and pro- his head like a symbolic shroud. Also , covered by ducer Alexander Korda; a film for Fanny Brice; a such a tapestry, the actor does not have to hold film for W .C. Fields and Marie Dressler entitled his breath while he is being photographed as a dead FARIKE , THE GUEST ARTIST , which was never made man .\" Hecht's comment on the Hollywood of those because both the principal players died; and films times : \" That's the way things were in the Twenties . with such faSCinating titles as ORPHEUS IN THE Ninety percent of our functioning citizens were UNDERWORLD , EVIL , LOVE IS A LONG GOODBYE , THE PINK leading impure lives but were firmly on the side of HUSSAR , IMPOSTER IN HEAVEN , THE LEGEND OF TIM- the ten percent who weren 't. The only thing that BUCTOO, APHRODITE , PACKY HUDSON , FARGO , and you could get away with on the screen was murder. many many more. As complete a listing as is pres- The same American who organized societies to keep ently available follows this article but even this the screen free of sex hanky-panky sat happily filmography is hopelessly incomplete, I am told by chewing his butterscotch bars and applauding a Mrs. Hecht. picture in which the cast exterminated one another with guns, knives, poisons, hand grenades and bru- With the present snowballing interest in movies and tal torture devices. \" (Playboy) all pertinent aspects , the ' politique des auteurs ' is being expanded out of necessity to include the many UNDERWORLD other artists and craftsmen responsible for the cre- ation of a motion picture , not the least of which is \" It was the first gangster movie to bedazzle the the actual author (the writer, not the director). This investigative impetus is beginning to reveal the movie fans and there were no lies in it-except for enormous influence of a man such as Ben Hecht , and must eventually force a retraction of hasty judge- a half-dozen sentimental touches introduced by its ments, however well-phrased , as Andrew Sarris 's dismissal of Hecht and Charles MacArthur as \" even director, Joe von Sternberg. I still shudder remem - more frivolous today than many of the Hollywood characters they ridiculed .\" bering one of them . My head villain , Bull Weed , after Apprenticeship robbing a bank, emerged with a suitcase full of Ben Hecht was one of the great raconteurs of the money and paused in the crowded street to notice century , a jack of all writing trades and master too . He began his writing career at seventeen in Chicago a blind beggar and give him a coin-before making for the Daily Journal. Short stories at fifty dollars each for H. L. Mencken 's American Mercury fol- his getaway.\" Sternberg had virtually nothing to do lowed. He then expanded into novels and plays-one of his novels was banned as obscene and later in with the script; it was director Art Rossen who his career he won , with Charles MacArthur, a Pul- itzer Prize for The Front Page, a play based on his worked on it with Hecht. Rossen was fired on com- newspaper ex perience in roaring-twenties Chicago . He was good friends with the other young writers pletion of the film . . of the Chicago intelligentsia,Maxwell Bodenheim , the poet and Hecht's friend-for-life, Sherwood Anderson , Sternberg had this to say in his autobiography , Fun and Carl Sandburg. World War I provided the op- in a Chinese Laundry, \" . .. he did not consider me an able director, dismissing me , when he heard that I had been assigned to his notes , with 'There are thousands like that guy playing chess on Avenue A.' . .. The discerning Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed one of their guilt stat- uettes on Mr. Ben Hecht for the best film of the year, and he must have been so overcome by this that he forgot to mention that he had requested that his name be expunged. He failed to show embar- rassment of any sort, though he had previously stated in the presence of the press that when he saw the film he felt about to vomit, his exact words 34 WINTER 1970-71

being , as quoted in print: ' I must rush home at once , THE FRONT PAGE. I think it 's mal de mer.' ... In his various references From left: Edward to me in his printed works during three decades Everett Horton, Pat following my abuse of his 'original,' his stomach O'Brien and Walter seemed to have never quieted down .\" _-__.--. Catlett. Hecht took his eighteen page treatment of UNDER- THE FRONT PAGE. WORLD to Adolph Zukor and three other Paramount Pat O'Brien and rulers and read it to them ; Hecht describes it as Adolphe Menjou being full of 'moody Sandburgian sentences' which handcuffed . so impressed the four that he was immediately given a bonus of ten thousand dollars. SCARFACE. Paul Muni and Ann Dvorak. DESIGN FOR LIVING ROPE . John Dall, In the next few years he did DESIGN FOR LIVING (for James Stewart and Lubitsch) and a few lesser known works. Hecht Edith Evanson . considered Lubitsch a 'problem-director. ' Suppos- edly Lubitsch put many a writer in the hospital so FILM COMMENT 35 Hecht avoided working for him for years. Then he decided to take the job of writing ·the scenario of Noel Coward's play because all he would have to do would be add some exterior scenes and crop the dialogue a bit. Lubitsch came to Hecht's Nyack home to discuss the screenplay. He told Hecht that he wanted to throw the entire play out, retain only the name, and have Hecht write a new scenario. \" One of my biggest Hollywood victories is that I didn't go to the hospital writing DESIGN FOR LIVING . Lubitsch went. I had figured out a way to confuse him. I always handed him four or five versions of each scene. Having to tear into these sapped his strength . He sneaked off to the Harkness Pavilion , pretending he had the flu. While he was laid up, I finished the scenario. I also struck a blow for Coward . I stuck a number of his bright lines from Hay Fever and The Vortex into the script.\" Directors \" Of the directors with whom I collaborated, most were sane and able fellows . I remember them hap- pily-the young piano-playing Leo McCarey, with a comedy fuse sputtering in his soul ; the ex-clog dancer, Ernst Lubitsch, who loved rhythm and pre- cision in his scripts; the drawling fashion plate How- ard Hawks, a-purr with melodrama; the moody and elegant Harry D'Arrast; the gentlemanly Alfred Hitchcock, who gave off plot turns like a Roman candle; the witty and Boccaccian Otto Preminger; the antic Jack Conway; the hysterical Gregory Ra- toft; the chuckling, wild-hearted Willie Wellman ; the soft-spoken , world-hopping Henry Hathaway; the aloof and poetical Victor Fleming . These and many others were men of talent with salty personalities. Working with them was like playing a game of 'Gim- mick, Gimmick, Who's Got the Gimmick?' \" GONE WITH THE WIND \"Selznick and Vic Fleming appeared at my bedside one Sunday morning at dawn . I was employed by Metro at the time, but David had arranged to borrow me for a week. \" After three weeks ' shooting of GONE WITH THE WIND , David had decided his script was no good and that he needed a new story and a new director. The shooting had been stopped and the million dollar cast was now sitting by collecting its wages in idle- ness . \"The three of us arrived at the Selznick studio a little after sunrise. We had settled on my wages on the way over. I was to receive fifteen thousand dollars for the week's work, and no matter what

happened I was not to work longer than a week. ed in that side of him , what he wanted was a writer. I knew in advance that two weeks of such toil as lay ahead might be fatal. On Hollywood \" David was outraged to learn that I had not read Many ironic things happen in Hollywood. Overnight GONE WITH THE WIND , but decided there was no time idiots become geniuses and geniuses become for me to read the long novel. The Selznick overhead idiots, waitresses turn into duchesses and what on the idle WIND stages was around fifty thousand duchesses turn into won 't bear mentioning. Over- dollars a day. David announced that he knew the night in Hollywood panhandling hams blossom into story by heart and wou Id brief me on it. For the Coquelins and Lorenzos and vice versa . The boule- next hour I listened to David recite the story. I had vards are crowded with royal coaches turning into seldom heard a more involved plot. My verdict was pumpkins before your eyes. that nobody could make a remotely sensible movie out of it. Fleming , who was reputed to be part Indian , It's an Aladdin 's Lamp of a town , and whichever sat brooding at his own council fires . I asked him way you rub it, genii jump out and make sport of if he had been able to follow the story David had the laws of gravity and sanity. told . He said no. I suggested we make up a new story, to which David replied with violence that every Everybody in Hollywood is used to irony, used to literate human in the United States except me had every mirage and monkeyshine of Fate. There is read Miss Mitchell's book and we would have to even the irony that people in Hollywood work harder stick to it. I argued that surely in two years of prep- than boilermakers and that this happy land of glam- aration someone must have wangled a workable our is a tougher locale for survival than the Yukon . plot out of Miss Mitchell 's Ou·fdalike flight into the And there is yet the more inscrutable irony that out Civil War. David suddenly remembered the first of this wedding of Jabberwock and the Muses called treatment, discarded three years earlier. It had been Hollywood a most astonishing lot of worthy enter- written by Sidney Howard , since dead . After an prise emerges, full of beauty, wit and high purpose. hour of searching , a lone copy of Howard 's work was (PM) run down in an old safe. David read it aloud. We listened to a precise and telling narrative of GONE On Screenwriting WITH THE WIND ... We worked for seven days, putting in eighteen to twenty hours a day. Selznick refused On the coast, a writer who gets $2,000 a week hardly to let us eat lunch, arguing that food would slow writes at all. Give him $3,000 and he doesn 't have us down . He provided bananas and salted peanuts . to write a line. Give a writer $200 a week and a On the fourth day a blood vessel broke in Fleming's percentage of the gross if his picture succeeds, and right eye , giving him more an Indian look than ever. he ' ll work . Hollywood is a totalitarian state run by On the fifth day Selznick toppled into a torpor while a despotic Santa Claus. (Herald Tribune obituary) chewing on a banana. The wear and tear on me The trouble with movies is that the writer who writes was less, for I had been able to lie on a couch and every movie is a cross between a doormat and a half-doze while the two darted about acting out the groundhog . This movie writer has nothing to say story. Thus on the seventh day I had completed, about any movie he is writing. In fact , he doesn't unscathed, the first nine reels of the Civil War epic.\" even write the movie. Two other fellows do that. Or 20 other fellows. (Herald Tribune obituary) Lee Garmes, who photographed eleven of his films, and co-directed ANGELS OVER BROADWAY, was I work in pictures for deliberate monetary reasons . Hecht's favorite collaborator. \" Nothing I ever en- Besides, I've never been able to compact an idea countered in the movies was as uniquely talented into three acts. I wasn 't born to be a playwright. as the eyes of Lee Garmes. ... Standing on a set, The cinema form is comfortable and rambling like Lee saw a hundred more things than I did . He saw the novel. I can write thirty chapters or as many shadows around mouths and eyes invisible to me, as I feel like writing . The films are much more renu- high lights on desk tops, ink stands and trouser legs. merative and place less responsibility on a writer He spotted wrong reflections and mysterious ob- than any other form ... I never could understand structions-shoulders that blocked faces in the why authors are always yowling against Hollywood. background, hands that masked distant and vital It's the only institution that hasn 't treated them like objects. He corrected them with a constant murmur galley slaves. (Herald Tribune obituary) of instructions. While ridd ing the set of its wrong nuances of light and shade, Lee also watched the Although I wrote most of my sixty movies alone, all grouping of figures and carried the cutting of the my movie writing was a collaboration of one sort picture in his head . He knew the moods of space , or another. The most satisfactory of these were my the value of planes, the dynamics of symmetry as actual literary collaborations with MacArthur, Le- well as any painting master. And all this wisdom went derer or Fowler. The Hollywood party grew happier into the pointing of the camera. \" at such times. Cecil B. DeMille But even without collaborators, the loneliness of Hecht was hired to work on the script of THE GREAT- literary creation was seldom part of movie work . You EST SHOW ON EARTH . He was employed for three wrote with the phone ringing like a firehouse bell, weeks during which time he did nothing but listen with the boss charging in and out of your atelier, to De Mille talk for five hours a day. \" He said nothing with the director grimacing and grunting in an ad- that made any sense. He seemed like some excited joining armchair. Conferences interrupted you, child amazingly misinformed on all subjects. \" At the agents with dream jobs flirted with you and friends end of the three weeks Hecht spoke for the first with unsolved plots came in hourly. Disasters circled time , informing De Mille that he had once worked your pencil. The star for whom you were writing fell in a circus . The next day Hecht was fired from the ill or refused to play in the movie for reasons that job because De Mille maintained he wasn 't interest- stood your hair on eng. The studio for which you were working suddenly changed hands and was being reorganized . This meant usually no more than the firing of ten or twenty stenographers, but the excitement was unnerving . Or the studio head de- 36 WINTER 1970-71

cided it would be better to change the locale of your 1928 movie from Brooklyn to Peking . You listened to THE BIG NOISE First National. Directed by Allan Dwan . these alarms, debated them like a juggler spinning Screenplay by Tom Geraghty (and, uncredited, Ben hoops on his ankles, and kept on writing . (Child Hecht). With Chester Conklin . of the Century) 1929 As a writer in Hollywood , I spent more time arguing UNHOLY NIGHT MGM . Directed by Lionel Barrymore. than writing-until the last four years when the Brit- Screenplay by Dorothy Farnum and Edward Justus ish boycott left me without much bargaining power. Mayer. From a story by Ben Hecht. With Natalie My chief memory of movieland is one of asking in Moorehead and Sidney Jarvis. the producer's office why I must change the script, 1930 eviscerate it, cripple and hamstring it? Why must ROADHOUSE NIGHTS Paramount. Directed by Hobart I strip the hero of his few semi-intelligent remarks Henley. Screenplay by Garrett Fort. From a story and why must I tack on a corny ending that makes by Ben Hecht. With Helen Morgan and Charles Rug- the stomach shudder? Half of all the movie writers gles. THE GREAT GABBO Sono Art-World Wide. Direct- argue in this fashion . The other half writhe in silence , ed by James Cruze. Screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert. and the psychoanalyst's couch or the liquor bottle From a story by Ben Hecht. With Erich von Stroheim claim them both. and Betty Compson . 1931 Before it might seem that I am writing about a tribe THE FRONT PAGE United Artists. Directed by Lewis Mile- of Shelleys in chains , I should make it clear that stone. Screenplay by Bartlett Cormack. Dialogue by the movie writers \" ruined \" by the movies are for Cormack and Charles Lederer. From the play by Ben the most part a run of greedy hacks and incompetent Hecht and Charles MacArthur. With Adolphe Men- thickheads. Out of the thousand writers huffing and jou , Pat O'Brien , Mary Brian , and Edward Everett puffing through movieland there are scarcely fifty Horton. UNHOLY GARDEN United Artists. Directed by men and women of wit or talent. The rest of the George Fitzmaurice. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and fraternity is deadwood . Yet, in a curious way, there Charles MacArthur. From a story by Hecht and Mac- is not much difference between the product of a Arthur. With Ronald Colman and Fay Wray . good writer and a bad one. They both have to toe the same mark. 1932 SCARFACE United Artists . Directed by Howard Hawks. However cynical , overpaid or inept you are , it is Screenplay by Seton I. Miller, John Lee Manin , and impossible to create entertainment without feeling W. R. Burnett. From a story by Ben Hecht. With Paul the urges that haunt creative work. The artist's ego, Muni, Osgood Perkins, Karen Morley, and George even the ego of the Hollywood hack , must always Raft. BACK STREET Universal. Directed by John M. jerk around a bit under restraint. Stahl. Screenplay by Gladys Lehman (and , uncred- ited , Ben Hecht). From the novel by Fannie Hurst. The studio bosses are not too inconvenienced by With Irene Dunne and John Boles. this bit of struggle. Experience has proved that the 1933 Hollywood artist in revolt is usually to be brought HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM United Artists . Directed by to heel by a raise in salary . My own discontent with Lewis Milestone. Adapted by S. N. Behrman . From what I was asked to do in Hollywood was so loud a story by Ben Hecht. With AI Jolson , Madge Evans , that I finally received a hundred and twenty-five Harry Langdon , and Frank Morgan . TOPAZE RKO . thousand dollars for four weeks of script writing. Directed by Harry D'Arrast. Adapted by Benn W. (Child of the Century) Levy (and, uncredited, Ben Hecht). From a story by Marcel Pagnol. With John Barrymore and Myrna The Old Masters Loy . \" There is small mania in them . The mania that kept TURN BACK THE CLOCK MGM . Directed by Edgar Selwyn . Original screenplay by Edgar Selwyn and the first and second flowering of moviemakers Ben Hecht. With Lee Tracy and Mae Clarke . DESIGN FOR LIVING Paramount. Directed by Ernst LUb itsch . working till they dropped ; that turned every dinner Screenplay by Ben Hecht. From the play by Noel Coward . With Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Fredric party, drinking bout and love hegira into a story March, and Edward Everett Horton . QUEEN CHRISTINA MGM . Directed by Rouben Mamoulian . Adapted by conference; that gave no hoot for politics, patrio- H. M. Harwood and Salka Viertel (and , uncredited , Ben Hecht). Dialogue by S. N. Behrman . From a tism, global disturbances or anything else on earth story by Salka Viertel and Margaret F. Levin . With Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. except the making of a knockout movie; the mania 1934 that believed in movies as if god had sent them ; UPPER WORLD Warners. Directed by Roy Del Ruth . Screenplay by Ben Markson . From a story by Ben that put the movies unblushingly beside Shake- Hecht. With Warren William , Mary Astor, and Ginger Rogers . THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Columbia. Directed speare, Shaw, Dostoievsky and Eurjpides ; that re- by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Charles MacArth- ur and Ben Hecht. From the play by MacArthur, garded London , New York , and Paris as bourgeoise Hecht, and Charles Milholland. With John Barrymore and Carole Lombard. SHOOT THE WORKS Paramount. suburbs of Hollywood; the mania that buttonholed Directed by Wesley Ruggles . Screenplay by Howard J. Green. From the play \" The Great Magoo\" by Ben a billion of the earth's in habitants and held them Hecht and Gene Fowler. With Jack Oakie and Ben Bernie. CRIME WITHOUT PASSION Paramount. Directed spellbound with the zaniest, goriest, and most swiv- el-headed swarm of humpty dumpty fables ever loosed on mankind-that mania is almost gone out of today's moviemakers.\" IIIIIIII BEN HECHT (1893-1964 ) 1925 THE GREEN GHOST Directed by Lionel Barrymore. 1927 UNDERWORLD Paramount. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Screenplay by Jules Furthman and Rob- ert N. Lee. From a story by Ben Hecht. With George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, and Clive Brook. FILM COMMENT 37

by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Screenplay the novel by Margaret Mitchell. With Clark Gable and story by Hecht and MacArthur. With Claude and Vivien Leigh. Rains. VIVA VILLA! MGM . Directed by Jack Conway 1940 and Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Ben Hecht. From HIS GIRL FRIDAY Columbia. Directed by Howard a story by Edgcumb Pinchon and O. B. Stade. With Hawks. Screenplay by Charles Lederer. From the Wallace Beery and Fay Wray. play Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArth- 1935 ur. With Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. ANGELS THE FLORENTINE DAGGER Warners. Directed by Robert OVER BROADWAY Columbia . Directed by Ben Hecht Florey. Screenplay by Tom Reed and Brown Holmes. and Lee Garmes . Original screenplay by Hecht. With From the novel by Ben Hecht. With Donald Woods Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Rita Hayworth . FOREIGN and Margaret Lindsay. ONCE IN A BLUE MOON Para- CORRESPONDENT United Artists. Directed by Alfred mount. Directed by Ben Hecht and Charles Mac- Hitchcock. Screenplay by Charles Bennett and Joan Arthur. Screenplay and story by Hecht and Mac- Harrison (and , uncredited , Ben Hecht). With Joel Arthur. With Jimmy Savo. THE SCOUNDREL Para- mount. Directed by Ben Hecht and Charles Mac- McCrea and Laraine Day. COMRADE x MGM . Directed Arthur. Screenplay and story by Hecht and Mac- Arthur. From the play All He Ever Loved by Hecht by King Vidor. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles and Rose Caylor. With Noel Coward and Julie Hay- Lederer. From a story by Walter Reisch . With Clark don . BARBARY COAST United Artists. Directed by Gable and Hedy Lamarr. THE SHOP AROUND THE Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Ray June. From a CORNER MGM . Directed by Ernst Lubitsch . Screen- story by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. With play by Samson Raphaelson (and , uncredited , Ben Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson , and Joel Hecht). From a story by Nikolaus Laszlo. With Mar- McCrea. SPRING TONIC Fo x. Directed by Clyde garet Sullavan and James Stewart. Bruckman . Screenplay by Patterson McNutt and R. W. Hanemann . From the play Man-Eating Tiger by 1941 Ben Hecht and Rose Caylor. With Lew Ayres and LYDIA United Artists . Directed by Julien Duvivier. Claire Trevor. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Samuel Hoffenstein. 1936 From a story by Duvivier and L. Bus-Fekete . With SOAK THE RICH Paramount. Directed and produced Merle Oberon , Edna May Oliver, and Joseph Cotten. by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Screenplay and story by Hecht and MacArthur. With Walter 1942 Connolly and John Howard. TALES OF MANHATTAN 20th Century-Fo x . Directed by 1937 Julien Duvivier. Screenplay and story by Ben Hecht, NOTHING SACRED United Artists. Directed by William Ferenc Molnar, Donald Ogden Stewart, Samuel A. Wellman. Screenplay by Ben Hecht. From the Hoffenstein , Alan Campbell , Ladislas Fodor, L. Vad- story by James A. Street. With Carole Lombard and nai , L. Georog, Lamar Trotti , and Henry Blankfort. Fredric March. THE HURRICANE United Artists. Direct- With Charles Boye r, Rita Hayworth , Ginger Rogers, ed by John Ford and Stuart Heisler. Sc reenplay by Henry Fonda, and Charles Laughton . THE BLACK Oliver H. P. Garrett and Dudley Nichols (and , uncre- SWAN 20th Century-Fox. Directed by Henry King . dited , Ben Hecht). From a story by Charles Nordhoff Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Seton I. Miller. From and James Norman Hall. With Dorothy Lamour and a story by Rafael Sabatini. With Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara. CHINA GIRL 20th Century-Fox . Mary Astor. Directed by Henry Hathaway. Produced by Ben 1938 Hecht. Screenplay by Hecht. From a story by Melville THE GOLDWYN FOLLIES United Artists. Directed by Grossman. With Gene Tierney and George Mont- George Marshall. Screenplay and story by Ben gomery . ROXIE HART 20th Century- Fox. Directed by Hecht. With Adolphe Menjou and the Ritz Brothers. William A. Wellman . Screenplay by Nunnally John- son (and, uncredited, Ben Hecht). From Chicago 1939 by Maurine Watkins. With Ginger Rogers , Adolphe LET FREEDOM RING MGM . Directed by Jack Conway. Menjou, and George Montgomery. Screenplay by Ben Hecht. From a story by Hecht. With Nelson Eddy and Virginia Bruce. IT'S A WON- 1943 DERFUL WORLD MGM. Directed by W . S. Van Dyke . THE OUTLAW United Artists. Directed by Howard Screenplay by Ben Hecht. From a story by Hecht Hughes and Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Jules and Herman J. Mankiewicz . With Claudette Colbert Furthman (and , uncredited, Ben Hecht). With Jane and James Stewart. SOME LIKE IT HOT Paramount. Russell and Jack Buetel. Directed by George Archaimbaud . Screenplay by 1945 Lewis R. Foster and Wilkie C . Mahoney. From The SPELLBOUND Un ited Artists. Directed by Alfred Hitch- Great Magoo by Ben Hecht and Gene Fowler. With cock. Screenplay by Ben Hecht. Suggested by a Bob Hope and Shirley Ross. LADY OF THE TROPICS novel by Francis Beeding . With Ingrid Bergman and MGM. Directed by Jack Conway. Screenplay and story by Ben Hecht. With Robert Taylor and Hedy Gregory Peck. Lamarr. GUNGA DIN RKO RADIO . Directed by George 1946 Stevens. Screenplay by Ben Hecht, Charles Mac- SPECTER OF THE ROSE Republic . Directed by Ben Arthur, Joel Sayre, and Fred Guiol. From the novel Hecht and Lee Garmes . Screenplay by Hecht. From by Rudyard Kipling . With Cary Grant, Victor McLag- a short story by Hecht. With Judith Anderson and len , Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Sam Jaffe. WUTHER- Michael Chekhov. NOTORIOUS RKO . Directed by ING HEIGHTS United Artists. Directed by William Alfred Hitchcock . Screenplay by Ben Hecht. With Wyler. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Mac- Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman , and Claude Rains. Arthur. From the novel by Emily Bronte. With Merle GILDA Columbia. Directed by Charles Vidor. Screen- Oberon and Laurence Olivier. GONE WITH THE WIND play by Marion Personnet (and, uncredited, Ben MGM . Directed by Victor Fleming. Screenplay by Hecht). Adapted by Jo Eisinger. From a story by Sidney Howard (and, uncredited , Ben Hecht). From E. A. Ellington. With Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford . 1947 HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS Columbia. Directed by S. Sylvan Simon . Original screenplay by Ben Hecht. With Lucille Ball, Franchot lone, and Edward 38 WINTER 1970-71

Everett Horton . KISS OF DEATH 20th Century-Fox . Screenplay by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson . Directed by Henry Hathaway. Screenplay by Ben Story by Ben Hecht fro m musical book Hazel Flagg Hecht and Charles Lederer. From a story by Eleazar by James Street and Hec ht's screenplay NOTHING Lipsky. With Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen SACRED . With Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Gray, and Richard Widmark. RIDE THE PINK HORSE Universal-International. Directed by Robert Mont- 1955 gomery. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Le- ULYSSES Paramount. Directed by Mario Camerini . derer. From a story by Dorothy B. Hughes. With Screenplay by Franco Brusati , Mario Camerini , Ennio Robert Montgomery and Thomas Gomez. DISHON- de Concini , Hugh Gray, Ben Hecht, Ivo Perilli, and ORED LADY United Artists . Directed by Robert Ste- Irwin Shaw. From The Odyssey by Homer. With Kir k venson . Screenplay by Edmund H. North (and , un- Douglas , Anthony Quinn , and Silvano Mangano. THE credited, Ben Hecht). From the play by Margaret INDIAN FIGHTER United Artists . Directed by Andre de Ayer Barnes. With Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O'Keefe, Toth . Screenplay by Frank Davis and Ben Hecht. and John Loder. THE PARADINE CASE Selznick. From a story by Ben Kadish. With Kirk Douglas and Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by Alma Elsa Martinelli. THE COURT-MARTIAL OF BILLY MITCHELL Reville and James Bridie (and, uncredited , Ben Warners. Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay Hecht). From the novel by Robert Hichens. With by Milton Sperling and Emmet Lavery. (Court room Gregory Peck, Ann Todd , Charles Laughton , and scenes by Ben Hecht, uncredited .) From a story by Milton Sperling and Emmet Lavery. With Gary Coo- Charles Coburn . per, Charles Bickford , Ralph Bellamy, and Rod 1948 Steiger. THE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS RKO . Directed by Irving 1956 Pichel. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Quentin MIRACLE IN THE RAIN Warners . Directed by Rudolph Reynolds . From a novel by Russeilianney. With Fred Mate. Screenplay and story by Ben Hecht. With Jane MacMurray, Frank Sinatra, and Lee J. Cobb. ROPE Wyman and Van Johnson. THE IRON PETTICOAT MGM . Warners . Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay Directed by Ralph Thomas. Screenplay by Ben by Arthur Laurents (and, uncredited, Ben Hecht). Hecht, uncredited. With Bob Hope and Katharine Adapted by Hume Cronyn . From the play by Patrick Hepburn . Hamilton . With James Stewart and John Dall. 1957 . 1949 LEGEND OF THE LOST United Artists . Directed by Henry WHIRLPOOL 20th Century- Fox . Directed by Otto Pre- Hathaway. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Robert minger. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Andrew Solt. Presnell , Jr. With John Wayne and Sophia Loren . From the novel by Guy Endore. With Gene Tierney, A FAREWELL TO ARMS 20th Century-Fo x. Directed by Richard Conte, Jose Ferrer, and Charles Bickford . Charles Vidor. Screenplay by Ben Hecht. From the LOVE HAPPY United Artists. Directed by David Miller. novel by Ernest Hemingway. With Rock Hudson , Screenplay by Frank Tashlin , Mac Benoff (and, un- Jennifer Jones , and Vittorio De .Sica. credited , Ben Hecht). From a story by Harpo Marx. With Harpo Marx, Chico Marx , Ilona Massey, and 1958 Vera Ellen. THE FIEND WHO WALKED THE WEST 20th Century-FO X. 1950 Directed by Gordon Douglas . Screenplay by Harry WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS 20th Century-Fo x. Brown and Philip Yordan . From a screenplay Kiss Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay by Ben of Oeath by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer. With Hecht. From Night Cry by Frank Rosenberg. With Hugh O'Brian and Robert Evans. QUEEN OF OUTER Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, and Gary Merrill. . SPACE Allied Artists . Directed by Edward Bernds. PERFECT STRANGERS Warners. Directed by Bretaigne Screenplay by Charles Beaumont. From a story by Windust. Screenplay by Edith Sommer. From Ladies Ben Hecht. With Zsa Zsa Gabor. [Hecht's only con- and Gentlemen by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArth- tribution to this film was to allow Walter Wanger to ur. With Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, and Thelma put Hecht's name on Wanger's original story idea.] Ritter. 1951 1962 THE THING RKO . Directed by Christian Nyby. Screen- BILLY ROSE 'S JUMBO MGM . Directed by Charles play by Charles Lederer (and , uncredited, Ben Walters. Screenplay by Sidney Sheldon . From the Hecht). From Who Goes There by John W . Camp- play Jumbo by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. bell , Jr. With Margaret Sheridan and Kenneth Tobey . With Doris Day, Stephen Boyd , Jimmy Durante, and 1952 Martha Raye . ACTORS AND SIN United Artists . Directed and pro- 1964 duced by Ben Hecht. Screenplay by Hecht. From CIRCUS WORLD Paramount. Directed by Henry Hath- Actor's Blood and Concerning a Woman of Sin by away. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Julian Halevy. Hecht. With Edward G. Robinson , Marsha Hunt, and With John Wayne, Claudia Cardinale and Rita Hay- worth . Dan O'Herlihy . MONKEY BUSINESS 20th Century-Fox. 1967 Directed by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Ben CASINO ROYALE Columbia. Directed by John Huston , Hecht, Charles Lederer, and I. A. L. Diamond . From Kenneth Hughes , Val Guest, Robert Parrish , and a story by Harry Segall. With Cary Grant, Ginger Joseph McGarth. Screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz, Rogers, Charles Coburn , and Marilyn Monroe. John Law, and Michael Sayers. From the novel by 1953 Ian Fleming . With Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress , ROMAN HOLIDAY Paramount. Directed by William David Niven and Orson Welles. (Ben Hecht was Wyler. Screenplay by Ian McLellan Hunter and John working on the script when he died in 1964.) Dighton (and, uncredited, Ben Hecht). From a story by Ian McLellan Hunter. With Gregory Peck, Audrey 1969 Hepburn , and Eddie Albert. GAILY GAILY United Artists . Directed by Norman Je- 1954 wison. Screenplay by Abram S. Ginnes . From the LIVING IT UP Paramount. Directed by Norman Taurog . novel by Ben Hecht. With Beau Bridges, Melina Mercouri, Brian Keith , and George Kennedy . FILM COMMENT 39

~oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo~ ~~ ~~ ~~ m~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~ ~ Max Ophuls and Howard Koch, ~ relaxing after script work. ~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~ ~ LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN . Edwin Fowler and Joan Fontaine. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 40 WINTER 1970-71

Script to ScreeD with Max Ophuls ~noo~ by Howard Koch Howard Koch came to Hollywood from radio , where then I had learned that a large reputation based he had written the script of Invasion from Mars for on a director 's previous record is sometimes ac- Orson Welles ' Mercury Theatre. His screenplays quired by the accident of indestructible material and include THE SEA HAWK, THE LETTER, SERGEANT YORK, an invulnerable cast. Moreover, many well-known directors outgrow any humility they might have had MISSION TO MOSCOW, THREE STRANGERS, THE THIR- when they were less successful , although humility seems a particularly desirable trait in a medium TEENTH LETTER , LOSS OF INNOCENCE and THE FOX. His reliant on cooperative talents. memoir of the shooting of CASABLANCA, for which he wrote the dialogue, appeared in The Persistence Max was not lacking in self-confidence but he didn't of Vision , edited by Joseph McBride . Mr. Koch 's look upon film narcissistically as a public mirror to complete filmography may be found in the Sym- display his virtuosity. He had a deep respect for what posium section. other talents contributed and , particularly, for the film 's basic content as expressed in the screen play , During Hollywood's heyday most film productions a quality understandably endearing to a writer. This were put together as haphazardly as the combina- may come as a surprise to some critics who praise tions that turn up on the roll of dice. Occasionally, Max, and justly, as a superb stylist but, from my but not often , the lucky number came up. I was one observation, his style was invariably related to con- of the few American writers with the good fortune tent, never at its expense. to have worked with the late Max Ophuls. Although few of his European films had reached America, he One of his attributes that impressed me was his had already acquired a European reputation as a sensitivity to English words, since English was not sensitive artist. Today, a decade and more after his his language and he spoke it brokenly with little death , he is one of the most revered directors by regard for grammatical construction . Nevertheless, filmmakers and critics on both continents. his ear was attuned to the most delicate nuances and he was never satisfied with a word or a line I met Max in the early forties at the home of a friend . of dialogue until it expressed the precise shade of With his wife and school-age son, he had escaped meaning needed to convey the idea or emotion . from occupied France to Switzerland one step ahead of the advancing Germans. After several At times I suspected that he clung to certain verbal months he and his family managed to obtain pas- eccentricities because they enhanced his special sage to this country, joining the swelling number brand of humor. One day we were going to the of refugee artists centered in New York and Holly- studio in his old , battered car. Max was a terrible wood. In a burst of philanthropic zeal the major driver: he couldn 't keep his mind-or his car-on movie studios opened their gates to these politically the road. Fortunately he never went fast so his displaced writers, directors and actors, putting many accidents, while numerous, were never serious. On of them on salary. But once having made the grand this occasion he was tail-gating another car which gesture, they did little to make use of their talents. slowed down without Max noticing and we collided with its rear end . Max was out of his seat in an At the time I was writing for Warner Brothers. Most instant and , after a brief survey of the other car, of the refugees I met there were either idle or as- he doffed his little Tyrolean hat to its occupants and signed to develop story properties the studio had blithely announced , \" It makes no never mind. \" The no real intention of producing . As time passed , many other driver was apparently so intrigued with Max 's of them became depressed as they realized that the quaint manners and expression that he didn 't climb production heads lacked confidence in their ability out to look at his bent bumper-and off we went to adapt to the demands of the American movie scot free of all the bothersome details of exchanging market; to put it crassly, they were not considered names, addresses and insurance agents. \"box office.\" There were exceptions, of course, but most of the refugees eventually found that they were Before long , Anne (my wife) and I became close being treated as charity subjects and , when the war friends with Max and his family: Hilde, his wife, a ended and patriotic fervor dimmed , the charity was handsome woman in her forties who had been a dispensed with increasing reluctance and finally not leading German actress; Marcel, his talented teen- at all. age son ; and his attractive young mistress, a refugee painter from Nazi Germany. Like other displaced At the time I met Max he had neither work nor charity Europeans, Max had transplanted his continental but was living precariously on the last of what funds sexual habits to America , dividing his time equitably he had been able to salvage from Europe. I remem- between the two menages. Since Americans are not ber my first impression of him as a baldish Peter adept at this sort of thing , Max undertook to instrtJct Lorre , with the same heavy-lidded , wide-set eyes me on some of the finer points. One of his rules and the same impish sense of humor. Our rapport that I recall is that cut flowers are properly sent to was immed iate. I can 't explain why in the first hour one 's mistress as they are perishable whereas a of our meeting I knew that I wanted to work with plant, being more durable and therefore more eco- him on a film . It wasn 't his reputation since I was hardly aware of his European career. Besides, by FILM COMMENT 41

nomical , is the correct choice for one 's wife. Al- creative process of constructing a dramatic story though delicacy required that his wife and mistress was in the writer 's province. But once I had the first be kept separately, we were part of the intimate draft screenplay written , he became deeply involved, circle that included both . testing every line of dialogue and every image for period validity and nuances of character. Out of his However, two years passed before there was the own memories of Vienna came ideas for new scenes opportunity I sought for a working relationship with such as the one in which the lovers appear to be Max. It came about by accident. John Houseman , traveling together in a train compartment, gazing an old friend from Martian days, came to see me out the window at the exotic , foreign scenery which on the desert outside Palm Springs where we were turns out later to be merely a rotating backdrop in then living. He brought with him a short story by one of the amusement concessions in Vienna 's Stefan Zweig entitled Letter from an Unknown Prada. Woman which he wanted me to dramatize for the screen . He had been engaged to produce the pic- In recent years I've read with some bewilderment ture by Joan Fontaine and William Dozier, then hus- statements of French film directors, such as band and wife, who had formed their own company Truffaut, identifying their methods with those of Max within the framework of Universal Studio. The tragic Ophuls whom they apparently regard as a sort of story, written in Zweig's lyrical prose, was in the mentor and precursor of the New Wave. Yet these form of a letter from a woman on her death bed directors are among the chief exponents of the to the bon vivant musician she had loved from girl- auteur theory , popularized by Cashiers du Cinema hood and with whom she finally had a brief affair- and Sight and Sound, which holds that a director only to discover in later years she was one of many \" authors \" a film on the set and later in the cutting and that he didn't even remember her name. rooms with some small assistfrom a \" dialogue writer.\" At first reading I was not impressed with the story Since this practically dispenses with the screenplay as picture material. It was entirely subjective with as a basic ingredient in the creative process , it could only fragmentary incidents. Besides, it was in the hardly be further from Max's approach to picture highly charged romantic tradition of Vienna at the making. No one could be more meticulous in the turn of the century-definitely not the kind of story preparation of a script for its trans ition to the screen . Hollywood did well . Although I had respect for Hou- I don't mean to suggest a slavish rigidity to what seman 's taste, I foresaw the danger of sentimen- was written since, naturally, Max often improvised tality, a so-called \" woman 's picture\" awash with on the set; but these improvisations were in the tears. Then I thought of Max Ophuls. Possibly he nature of refinements, not basic changes in the story could bring it off as he, like Zweig , was steeped line or characterizations. in the romantic tradition . The upshot was that I agreed to write the screen play if the studio would For the final polishing we went over to Catalina accept Max as the director. Island off the California coast. Max had a phobia about flying and this was his first flight. For the half Fortunately, Houseman had seen LlEBELEI , Max's hour in the air, he sat hunched over in one of the most admired European film , an exquisite piece of seats, refusing to talk or look out the window, re- romantic nostalgia, also set in Vienna . He agreed signed to imminent death in a fiery crash . When that Max was ideal for LETTER but he had to sell the plane landed safely, I'm sure to Max it was like the idea of a foreign director they scarcely knew a last-minute, unexpected reprieve. to Joan and Bill Dozier who , in turn , had to convince the Universal executives. Since Joan Fontaine was During our stay in Catalina, I recall that Max kept then their most important star, Dozier was able to repeating , \" this script needs more air.\" At first I obtain their somewhat reluctant consent. wasn't sure what he meant but in due course I came to realize that \" air\" referred to atmosphere, but in At this point it was my function to plot a story line the broadest sense-that each scene must have a (continuity of scenes) that would carry the emotional life of its own apart from its dramatic function in progression of Zweig 's story. Then followed the the story. And in this area Max was the acknowl- usual conferences with Max and Houseman and, edged master. No scene that he directed ever exist- after some revisions, with Joan and Bill Dozier. ed in a vacuum and , in the case of LETTER the detail Everyone had criticisms and suggestions but, hap- of Viennese life in that period saturated the screen . pily, no ego problems intruded so that each con- tribution could be accepted or rejected on its merits . One example comes to mind. In the lyrical Prada At this stage, Joan 's ideas in relation to the central sequence, the lovers are dancing in a deserted character of Lisa were especially helpful, since she ballroom , oblivious to everything but each other. would be on the screen almost constantly and Since music was an obvious necessity , I had written needed actable situations in which to convey her in shots of a conventional , male orchestra playing feelings for the musician at the three different while Lisa (Joan) and her lover (Louis Jourdan) periods in which he entered her life. It was a difficult waltzed. Max, recalling that women musicians were role starting as the ardent, hero-worshipping girl of often employed in Viennese amusement parks, cast fourteen , then the young woman in her twenties an all-female band . The scene was late at night and when they had the affair, and finally the mature, the women were desperately tired and the music love-crossed woman of middle-age. Joan Fontaine they played between swigs of beer was equally tired . was one of the few actresses capable of making The humor of these frowsy women scraping their the intensely romantic Lisa a credible character and violins and wishing to God that these moon-calf I still regard the performance she eventually gave lovers would stop dancing so they could go home, as one of the most brilliant I've ever seen on film. counterpointed the lyrical mood and added period flavor (air). Up to now Max had made a few suggestions but stayed mostly in the background as he believed the Under the supervision of Max an d an Austrian tech- 42 WINTER 1970-71

nical advisor the sets were so authentically Viennese Houseman agreed with our objections but it took that few people who saw the film could believe they all his powers of persuasion to keep Max from in- were built on a Hollywood stage. The shooting under vading the inner sanctum of Universal's top brass Max's assured direction went ahead smoothly, with and telling them exactly what he thought of them- all of us-Max , Joan , Dozier, Houseman and my- which , of course, would only have made them more self-very happy with the daily rushes. Only one obdurate. When the Doziers finally threw their incident that took place near the end of the shooting weight on our side, we were able to replace the schedule marred the working relationship between cut footage and reinstate the original version . the star and the director. However, a film is. never safe from tampering until Max was born in Alsace-Lorraine which is either it's \"in the can,\" meaning ready for distribution and , French or German depending on which side won even then , it can be so mishandled that it never the last war. His temperament reflected both national reaches its intended audience. The sales depart- backgrounds. Generally, he seemed much more ment of Universal regarded LETTER as a foreign film French than German but on occasion a Prussian which in those days meant art but no box-office. trait was exposed-mostly in regard to women . While It was tossed out on the market with almost no shooting one scene Joan objected to some direction advance advertising and no attempt to publicize its he gave her and Max made the mistake of accusing special qualities . Even with good reviews it didn 't her of \" behaving like a star.\" Joan walked off the survive long enough to find its American audience set and stayed off for two days. It took all House- and the studio wrote it off as a complete loss of man 's diplomacy to bring her back to finish the the eight hundred thousand it cost to produce. picture. By the sheerest accident it was resurrected in The shooting ended on schedule, a rough cut was Europe. Universal had sold the British rights to a made, then a final cut or one we thought was final. third-rate English distribution chain that didn't even We all felt good about the result and a vacation was have a releasing outlet in London. It happened that in order . Anne and I went East; Max and his family one of the editors of the prestigious Sight and Sound stayed in our house on the desert. was visiting a small town where LETTER was playing . Since the film had not been shown in London and Our departure was a mistake. While we were away, he had never heard of it, he thought it must be one the studio executives came into the projection room of Hollywood's \" B\" pictures. But he had great re- with their sharp knives and slashed away at the film spect for Joan Fontaine and decided to see it anyway. to \" make it move faster.\" Since they are mostly Apparently he was so impressed by the film and occupied with the business end of picture making , shocked by its treatment that he began a one-man this is their one opportunity to be \" creative\" and crusade on its behalf. Sight and Sound took up the also to exercise their authority over the film 's real cause and soon it was playing long runs in London creators. and the other European capitols. Since then it has become one of the standard revivals at Britain 's When Max and I returned to the studio, we were National Film Theatre. told that twenty minutes had been taken out of the film's running time. We ran the re-edited print in As for Max, he and his family returned to France shocked silence until it was over and then we ex- where they were able to reclaim the home the Ger- ploded . Instead of \" moving faster\" the picture now mans had appropriated . He made a number of films seemed interminable. there , the most successful being the first , LA RONDE , and perhaps the most discussed his last, LOLA Something we learn from experience is that clock MONTES . time and screen time have little to do with each other. As long as his interest is held , clock time When Anne and I arrived in Paris in the early fifties , doesn 't exist for the viewer. Two hours in a movie our former roles were reversed . This time we were house may seem short while twenty minutes may the political refugees from McCarthyism in America seem to drag on forever depending on the extent while Max was the host at the peak of his career. to which the audience is involved in what is happen- With his shepherding we saw Paris not just as ing on the screen . tourists but as part of the French scene . From movie studios to his favorite cafes and restaurants we lived LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN , by its nature, in Max's reflected glory with the musical theme of required slow pacing and minute attention to evoca- LA RONDE following us as we made the rounds. tive detail. What the studio heads had done was to strip much of the flesh from the bones of the Before we left England where we had spent the story. Since the film had very little plot in the usual previous five years, Max called me on the phone . sense, and since its highly romantic premise was He had exciting news. The Thomas Mann heirs were difficult to sustain , it would only work if the audience were so caught up in its spell that they were willing granting him the rights to make a film of The Magic to suspend their disbelief for the duration of the Mountain . Would I come back to France as soon show. as the project was set up and do the screenplay? Another film with Max and a chance to dramatize I have a theory, perhaps debatable, that any story, a great novel! He had my answer in a split second . however slight , will hold an audience so long as the motivations and actions of its characters are A few months later came word of Max's sudden credible in relation to the circumstances surround- death . We were stunned . We couldn 't believe it ing their fictional lives . In its abbreviated version because we didn 't want to believe it. Anne was even LETTER had preserved the story incidents but had angry at him. \" He had no right to die.\" lost the ambience which gave credible life to its characters . As a result , the film was shorter in actual In later years we again visited Paris but Max was minutes but, in failing to convince the viewer and hold his interest, it seemed much longer. not there and it wasn 't the same. To us Max was Paris and Paris was Max. 1111111 FILM COMMENT 43

WOMAN OF THE YEAR . Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. THE CINCINNATI KID . Around table, left to right : Steve McQueen, Ann-Margaret, Karl Malden , Joan Blondell , and Edward G. Robinson. M*A*S* H. Leftto right, Elli ott Gould , Donald Sutherland and Bobby Troup.

Kenneth Geist THE FILMS OF RING LARDNER JR. Kenneth Geist was managing editor of inter / view , Gaynor) modestly identifies herself as \" Mrs . Norman to which he still contributes regularly. He has also Maine.\" written for The Village Voice and FILM COMMENT. Schulberg 's decision to leave was founded on an Ring Lardner Jr.'s career as a screenwriter spans unsuccessful appeal he and Lardner made to Selz- over thirty years, highlighted by his early success, nick's business manager for a weekly pay raise from WOMAN OF THE YEAR , wh ich garnered the Academy $75 to $100. During their entreaty, Selznick's voice Award for best original screenplay of 1942, and his came over the intercom, asking \" What about Sidney recent hit M\"A\"S\"H, winner of the Golden Palm as best Howard for GONE WITH THE WIND?\" The manager picture of the 1970 Cannes Film Festival. replied , \" He won 't do it for two thousand a week, he wants th ree .\" \" Well , give it to him , for Christ's A member of the \"Hollywood Ten,\" called before sake, \" Selznick summarily concluded. The manager the House Un-American Activities Committee in turned back to the two tyros and explained, \" You 1947, and sentenced to a year in prison on charges gotta understand , boys. You think you 're worth this of contempt for refusing to answer the Committee's money, but we got a lot of expenses in this com- questions, Lardner was blacklisted , and his name pany .\" did not appear on a Hollywood screen credit from 1948 until THE CINCINNATI KID in 1965. Apropos GWTW, Lardner, along with Selznick's story editor, Val Lewton (subsequently the producer of Ring was an early college drop-out after two years THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE) had read the novel at Princeton (\" I didn 't see much point in finishing \" ) . in galleys and had turned thumbs down , saying that Subsequently, he had a brief journalistic fling with it was just another depiction of the myth of the Old the N.Y. Daily Mirror, where he met his frequent South in the tradition of almost every Hollywood Civil future collaborator, Ian McLellan Hunter, a fellow War picture . Had it not been for the urging of Selz- cub reporter. After nine months he set out for Holly- nick's secretary, Sylvia Schulman (who subse- wood , having landed a post in the publicity depart- quently became Lardner's first wife), and his Eastern ment of the fabled producer, David O. Selznick. story editor, Kay Brown , Selznick might well have bypassed reading a synopsis of the novel, and failed Lardner became friendly with another son of a to bid on what was to become his most successful famous father and also an aspiring screenwriter, film . Budd Schulberg , who held an equally low paying job in Selznick 's story department. Together they After Schulberg's departure, Lardner was once collaborated on two screenplays , in an attempt to again pressed into service in order to provide an gain their employer's attention. Their first, BLONDE ending for another celebrated Selznick production, BRUNETTE AND REDHEAD , was based on a title they the classic NOTHING SACRED. Ben Hecht had origi- had been given , intended to capitalize on the interest nally ended the script with the front page story of of Selznick and his partner Jock Whitney in the a sextuplet birth supplanting the Press's attention newly created Technicolor process; the second was to the ruse of Hazel Flagg 's rad ium poisoning . This a conventional college campus musical. Neither resolution dissatisfied Selznick, who wanted to \" get project came to anything , in that Selznick never rid of the character\" in some more personal or direct deigned to read their scripts, which represented way. In the midst of shooting , Hecht walked out in an entire year' s effort. The lack of recognition a huff, and Selznick embarked on a spectacular prompted Schulberg to quit in order to expand his competition , in which Sidney Howard , George S. short story, WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN? into the full- Kaufman, and Moss Hart took part. Lardner was length novel that would forge his reputation. paired with the veteran MGM screen writer George Oppenheimer, and after a few evenings together, Their one successful endeavor on Selznick's behalf they came up with the eventual solution of having was their revision of Dorothy Parker's and Alan Carole Lombard (Hazel) and Fredric March, during Campbell's screen play, A STAR IS BORN (1937). They their honeymoon trip around the world , accosted supplied the final scene in which Vicki Lester (Janet by a woman aboard their cruise ship who inquires, FILM COMMENT 45

\" Has anyone ever mentioned your resemblance to domestic conclusion . But the WOMAN OF THE YEAR Hazel Flagg?\", to which Lombard replies , \" That screenplay brought them the Academy Award , phoney! \" and indignantly walks away. vaulted their salary from $250 to $1000 a week , and launched Hepburn and Tracy as a romantic comedy Still seeking his first official screen credit, Lardner team . shifted to the B picture unit at Warner Brothers, early in 1938, in the hope \"that what I did there would Their next project for MGM was an adaptation of get on screen and provide some practical experi- a novel titled Marriage is a Private Affair for producer ence.\" To his dismay, he discovered that the \" sys- Pandro Berman . Lardner's recollection of the origi- tem \" of Brian Foy, head of the B unit which cranked nal material is dim , \"except for the author's principal o!,Jt thirty films a year, was to rotate a huge pile of point that middle age started at 25 and lasted till scripts stacked alongside his desk. When a picture 60.\" Berman liked the script, but regretfully informed was completed , its script would return to the bottom them of the executive decision that the picture be- of the pile, and when a writer came into Foy 's office come a vehicle for Lana Turner, which meant they to be assigned a project, he was simply handed the \" would have to cheapen the script \" in order to build script at the top of the pile, and asked to switch Turner's role from a secondary to a starring one. the background. Lardner was drafted to do two of Offered the opportunity of doing this themselves or these, which he furnished \" without enthusiasm, \" leaving it to others, they opted for the latter choice, and believes \" nothing came of either of them. \" and Lardner declares the film , released in 1944, bears no resemblance to their script. Ultimate promotion to the A unit) via the recommen- dation of Jerry Wald , one of its top writers, to pro- The final Lardner-Kanin collaboration for MGM was ducer Sam Bischoff, proved to be similarly frustrat- a wartime propaganda drama, THE CROSS OF LOR- ing . The project to be adapted was a prize fight story RAINE , starring Gene Kelly as an unlikely French of Dalton Trumbo 's, The Kid from Kokomo. Lardner internee of a POW camp. Lardner was unhappy that delivered his script only to discover that it had been the State Department chose it as one of the first commissioned to \"give a good head start\" to a more American films sent to France after the Liberation, prestigious pair of writers. Bischoff's brush-off \" kind feeling it could only seem synthetic to a people that of disillusioned me with the whole process,\" and had just undergone the Occupation . He has forgot- in autumn 1938, he left Warners to collaborate with ten both the director of record (Tay Garnett) and Ian Hunter on a project at Republic for produc- a writer (Robert E. Andrews) brought in to do er-director Bernard Vorhaus. additional scenes. Their efforts came to naught when Vorhaus quit in Lardner's concerted efforts to contribute his ser- protest at Republic's refusal \" to do the script the vices to the war effort were twice frustrated . He was way Hunter and I had written it,\" but the trio did refused a security clearance to work for the OSS, succeed in turning out two small features for an and was declared \"prematurely anti-fascist\" by the independent company, based on the character of FBI after being asked to work with William Wyler Jean Hersholt's \" Dr. Christian \" radio series, titled on a film about the Russian Front. The charge was MEET DR. CHRISTIAN and THE COURAGEOUS DR . both ironic, in view of the ideology the US was opposing, and perfectly logical , in that Lardner's CHRISTIAN . Leftist bias was early forged by the death of his brother Jim at the hands of the Fascists in the The Dr. Christian features, however, failed to launch Spanish Civil War. the new writing team , so Lardner and Hunter were obliged to split up. Little came of Lardner's next Ineligible for the draft, as the father of two, until collaboration with an Austrian writer, Fritz Potter, the end of the war , at which point he flunked his on a story Lardner had sold a studio, but his sub- physical, Lardner did help turn out training films for sequent connection with Michael Kanin, effected by the Signal Corps. After a time, he found this activity Kanin 's brother Garson, already a successful direc- \" pretty silly\" and returned to Hollywood in 1943 to tor, proved to be a bonanza. work with Otto Preminger on a film that dealt with the rise of Naziism, based on the diary of William Together they turned out a ninety-page story version Dodd, the American Ambassador to Germany of the of WOMAN OF THE YEAR and sent it to Katharine period, and his daughter Martha Dodd 's parallel Hepburn , who was staying with her parents in Con- work , Through Embassy Eyes. necticut. Hepburn liked the story, and told them she was taking the liberty of playing agent by sending Martha Dodd and Fay Kanin, Michael's wife , had it directly to Louis B. Mayer, suggesting it as her turned out a treatment for Preminger, but he was next project for MGM and removing their names unwilling for them to do the screenplay, for which from it, in hope of commanding a better price for he engaged Lardner. The script was constructed them than they would receive as comparative un- as a semi-documentary , incorporating actual knowns. The ploy worked beautifully. Mayer passed newsreel footage of such pre-war events in Berlin on the treatment to Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the film 's as the Reichstag fire. eventual producer, and Mankiewicz assumed it was the work of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Preminger was directing LAURA at the time, and when \"doing it anonymously because they had a commit- Lardner came by the set one day, to confer about ment somewhere else.\" Mayer, in turn , agreed to the Dodd script, Preminger persuaded him to work Hepburn 's $211 ,000 price tag for the package , item- on Clifton Webb 's part (which became the most ized as follows : $100 ,000 for her star 's salary ; memorable in the film) to make the role more wry, $10 ,000 for her agentry ; $1 ,000 expense money for funny , and consistant. Lardner never received her move from Connecticut to California ; and an screen credit for his contribution , but when Truman astounding $100,000 for the unknown writers. Capote adapted the work for television , Lardner's name appeared as one of the film 's authors , proba- Their original ending , which reconciled columnist bly as it was listed on the script that 20th provided Katharine Hepburn with sportswriter Spencer Tracy Capote. at a bo xing match , was removed in favor of a more 46 WINTER 1970-71

After the stint on LAURA , Lardner completed the or eight writers after him , and when Zanuck pro- Dodd script, but a go-ahead rested on the approval duced a film version of the best-seller, Gentleman 's of 20th 's studio head , Darryl Zanuck , who returned Agreement, the first American film to treat anti- from his war-time role as Colonel to learn of the Semitism, Goldwyn groused that \" he stole my idea. \" disastrous receipts of his personal epic , WILSON , and declared , in consequence, that the studio would UP FRONT, Ring 's happy c ollabo ration with h is make no more historical pictures. Along with the brother John , the distinguished New Yo rker write r memo notifying them that production would not go and News week columnist followed next, written fo r forward , Zanuck appended the reactions to the International Pictures, a new company formed by script of every producer and director on the 20th Hollywood eminences William Goetz and Nunnally lot, wh ich were unanimously favorable . This was Johnson , which later merged with Universal. The some small consolation to Lardner for his efforts, occurance of V-J Day , in August 1945, coinc ided and the work remains one of his two favorite unpro- with the completion of their script, and gave the duced screenplays. The other was UP FRONT, based producers \" cold feet \" towards the market for a war on Bill Mauldin 's wartime cartoons, co-authored with comedy, though Lardner thinks the time was \" just his journalist brother, John Lardner. right for a black comedy \" after all the conventional service japes and sentimental treacle with which Except for TOMORROW THE WORLD (1944), a rather audiences had been surfeited . Though John faithful adaptation of the successful Broadway play, Lardner had no backg round in screenwriting , he about the nurturing of an incipient Nazi youth (Skip had served as a war correspondent for the North Homeier), Lardner's next three projects for inde- American Newspaper Alliance , and his actual expe- pendent producers were all to prove abortive. rience of the Anzio beachhead , where they had centered the action of the film , gave it a veracity For the Cagney Brothers, James and Bill , he turned apposite to the Mauldin cartoons, that another ver- out a script called TRUMPET IN THE DUST, treating sion, made three years later, sadly lacked . Custer's last stand . The Cagneys were \" upset\" with his work , Bill confiding to an intimate that Lardner Lardner finally got a script filmed when CLOAK AND had treated the Indians \" as if they were a race of DAGGER , a spy thriller about the OSS , was made in oppressed Jews.\" It seems that Lardner was prema- 1946 by Fritz Lang. Lardner collaborated with Albert turely pro-Indian as well as anti-Fascist. Maltz, a fellow victim of the subsequent blackl ist, but four other writers shared credit. Gary Cooper who Next, he was engaged by Samuel Goldwyn to write starred as a nuclear physicist , told the writers he the first Hollywood movie to deal with the previously thought it an \" interesting idea \" for him to play a taboo subject of anti-semitism , based on Gwendolyn scientist, and that he \" might just be able to get away Graham 's novel , The Earth and High Heaven . with it, provided you keep my lines pretty short, and Lardner recalls it as \" a rather mild novel about a don 't try to give me too much intellectual stuff.\" Jewish man married to a girl from a Catholic family in , of all places , Montreal. \" The obvious source of Lardner recalls the running battle that developed , Goldwyn's \" extreme nervousness\" about the sub- during the preproduction period, between the au- ject was that the story paralleled Goldwyn 's own tocratic Lang and the film 's producer, Milton Sper- marriage to a gentile, and that the project was in ling . At a script conference two days before shooting fact, the pet idea of his wife Frances. was to start, Sperling said to Lang, \" Fritz, you and I have had a lot of words, but let's let bygones be After a number of preliminary conferences outlining bygones, and I will see you on the set on Monday.\" the approach he favored , Goldwyn left Lardner on \" That,\" Lang countered , \" will not be necessary.\" his own to turn out a treatment. When he read this preliminary version , Goldwyn called Lardner to his In Lardner's opinion \"the picture didn 't turn out too office and berated him for having \" betrayed and well ,\" though he does not recall the twelve minutes defrauded me.\" To Lardner's polite objection that Lang alleges Sperling cut from the film for its allu- he could understand that Goldwyn \" might not like sion to atomic holocaust. the treatment\" but that he had done nothing so intentionally perfidious, Goldwyn insisted that he Subsequently, Lardner returned to 20th to work had disregarded the approach agreed upon in their again with Otto Preminger on adapting a novel , The conferences, though Lardner recalled their conver- Dark Wood by Christine Weston , about a war widow sation , for him , point by point. \" Betrayal\" was who falls in love with a man that resembles her dead thereby refuted , but Goldwyn cl imaxed the denunci- husband. A quarter of the way through this script, ation by explicating the second part of the charge Zanuck asked Preminger to relieve John Stahl on with , \" just one of the reasons I hired you for the the company 's big-budget version of FOREVER AM - job was that you ' re a gentile, and you have defraud- BER , Kathleen Winsor's best seller about a low-born ed me by writing like a Jew! \" When Lardner told temptress in the court of Charles II on which 20th his friend, Garson Kanin , of this accusation , Kanin had already spent $1 million with Peggy Cummins wittily queried. \" How did you do it, write from the in the title role . Preminger agreed to take on the left to the right hand side of the page?\" project if Lardner was allowed to collaborate with the script's author, Phillip Dunne, on are-write. Lardner now places this episode in the context of ethnic self-consciousness of a largely Jewish in- Lardner hoped \" to make a funny film \" by empha- dustry, recalling that in WOMAN OF THE YEAR , Louis sizing period detail and the sardonic gifts of George B. Mayer had personally censored Hepburn's Sanders as King Charles , but the studio wanted a speaking Yiddish in a party scene , in which she big scale historical romance. The film turned into addressed groups in six foreign tongues , saying she \" a conflict between a resistable force [Cornel Wilde] could speak any other language but that one. and a moveable object [Linda Darnell, who replaced Cumm ins] ,\" as Dunne quipped , and comic empha- As for THE EARTH AND HIGH HEAVEN , which was never sis gave way to \" what was considered sex in made , Lardner recalls that Goldwyn engaged seven 1947-Darnell's decolletage. \" FILM COMMENT 47

Following the revision of AMBER , Lardner completed English newspapers disassociating himself from the his screenplay of THE DARK WOOD , but Zanuck had project. Cassavetes and Poitier were of the same never liked the novel , and the project was shelved . mind when they saw the screenplay-the director, His last script, for 20th, before his HUAC appearance Pat Jackson , had completely re-written it, removing served to banish him from the lot, was an adaptation its saving touches of humor. of a charming English novel by Margery Sharp, Brittania Mews given the more provocatively vulgar When Ingo Preminger, Otto's younger brother, be- movie title , FORBIDDEN STREET (1949). The original came his agent in the early '60 's, he got Lardner story dealt with the contrast between a woman 's a couple of \" sub-rosa\" jobs such as the revision two husbands-the first, a drawing teacher, frowned of A BREATH OF SCANDAL (1960), which Lardner de- on by her family, and the second , readily accepted, scribes as \"terrible.\" The comedy , which starred whom they mistake for the first, though the men Sophia Loren (\"it could be her most obscure pic- are in every way dissimilar. ture\") and Maurice Chevalier, was an adaptation from Molnar's play, Olympia. Lardner was secreted Lardner thinks the picture \"was absolutely ruined\" at a Hollywood motel , under the name of Rick when Zanuck and Jean Negulesco selected Dana Spencer, so that the producer, Carlo Ponti , could Andrews to play both husbands, with only a minimal phone him through the Paramount switchboard . change of make-up to signify the difference in char- acter. The casting problem was that the first hus- In 1962, Ingo suggested to brother Otto that Ring band died halfway through the film , and this was was an ideal choice to do the screenplay of Patrick their resolution of the difficulty in getting a star to Dennis' Genius, which Otto had acquired , and that play only half of a picture. he had both the clout and the courage to re-enstate Lardner'S name as he had Dalton Trumbo on his During the two and a half years of legal appeals film of EXODUS. This was accomplished with the between the contempt citation by the HUAC and elder Preminger's usual fanfare-but GENIUS was his confinement in Danbury (Connecticut) prison in never made because the leading role required an 1950\", for 9% months of his year's sentence, \"there English actor of the stature of Oliver, Harrison , was still a certain amount of work to be had as or Guinness none of whom were available. concealment was not as strictly imposed as it later became.\" For example, though his name could not It remained for THE CINCINNATI KID in 1965, to official- appear on screen, or on contractual documents, ly restore Lardner's name to the screen . He wrote Franchot Tone quite openly took Lardner to his bank the screen adaptation of Richard Jessup's novel for to pay him $5000 in cash for his treatment of one its original director, Sam Peckinpah, but the tem- of John Steinbeck's short stories from The Long pestuous Peckinpah was fired by producer Martin Valley, which Tone hoped to make for his new co- Ransohoff, after a week 's shooting, on the grounds production company with Burgess Meredith. (The of having filmed an unauthorized nude scene with film was never made.) Sharon Tate. Packinpah 's replacement, Norman Jewison, brought along Terry Southern to do some Most of his odd jobs were done for \"greatly reduced revisions on the script, for which Southern ultimately money, \" and his employment prospects were wors- received second screen credit. ened by the blacklisting of his agent at William Morris, John Weber, and by Lardner's being Prior to its publication in 1968, Lardner was sent dropped , soon after, by the Morris Agency . His only the galleys of a comic novel about the Korean War, official credit was an adaptation of a German titled MASH; it gave a first hand account of life in screenplay , titled FOUR DAYS LEAVE (1950) , made in the abattoir of a field hospital , written by an Army Switzerland by Lazar Wechsler, but the screenplay surgeon whose pseudonym was Richard Hooker. is credited to three German writers, while mention Ring had merely been solicited for a favorable blurb, of Lardner is confined to a \" dialogue\" citation . but he saw the possibilities for a film and took the Lardner non-committally describes it as \" a picture galleys to Ingo Preminger, whom he knew was eager about some American GI's on a Swiss vacation ,\" to make his debut as a movie producer. Ingo, in starring AMBER 'S \" resistable force ,\" Cornel Wilde . turn, took the book to Richard Zanuck, assuring him that if they \"moved quickly\" he could make a After prison , Lardner moved to New York; wrote a pre-publication deal, and , numerous drafts later, novel , The Ecstasy of Owen Muir, published in Eng- director Robert Altman fashioned the script into land, and made a living writing for such television 20th 's biggest box-office bonanza of 1970-hand- series as ROBIN HOOD and SIR LANCELOT. These were some re-payment for the studio that had consigned shot in England , starred Richard Greene, and were Lardner to oblivion twenty-two years before. credited to Lardner's adopted pseudonym , Oliver Skene. Lardner'S major pieces of invention were the cre- ation of Lt. Dish, played by Jo Ann Pflug; the expan- His long-time friend and sometime collaborator, Ian sion of the tent-rigging expose of the Hot Lips-Major McLellan Hunter, became a full-time partner, co- Burns coupling (in the novel, only a flashlight was authoring the television pilots, the book of Bert shined on the tent, but Lardner'S incorporation of Lahr's last musical , Foxy, a farcial Volpone set in the P.A. system inspired Altman to use announce- the Klondike, and the English feature, VIRGIN ISLAND ments on the sqawk box throughout the film); and starring John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier. Hot Lips' humbling shower revelation. VIRGIN ISLAND was written under the joint pen name While admiring many of Altman's additions, Lardner of Phillip Rush , which so incensed an eminent En- feels \"it could have been a better picture\" if some glishhistorian by that name that he wrote to all the things had not been changed . He is critical of th.e film 's opening, feeling that \" the Keystone Kops spill * Lardner's prison experiences and the Blacklist's ramifica- and slapstick \" indicate a \" too self-conscious effort tions are detailed in his article, My Life on the Blacklist, to establish the film as a comedy. \" He thinks the Saturday Evening Post; Oct. 14, 1961 . barrage of improvised abuse hedped on Maj . Burns, 48 WINTER 1970-71