The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild (51 page)

9
. Philip Dunne, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 20 March 1978), 1.

10
. James Kotsilibas-Davis,
The Barrymores: The Royal Family in Hollywood
(New York: Crown, 1981), 146.

11
. Ibid.

12
. Otto Friedrich,
City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 72.

13
. Friedrich describes the laughter as “dutiful” (ibid., 72), whereas in Higham’s description everyone in the room laughed (
Merchant of Dreams
, 200).

14
. Marc Norman,
What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting
(New York: Three Rivers Press/Random House, 2008), 156.

15
. Ibid., 156.

16
. Schwartz,
Hollywood Writers’ Wars
, 10.

17
. Lester Cole, “The Way We Were: The Beginning,”
WGAw Newsletter
(February 1986): 24.

18
. Mark A. Vieira,
Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 306.

19
. Dunne, Oral History Project, 1.

20
. Brian Marlow, “Apostles to the Gentiles,”
Screen Guilds’ Magazine
1, no. 1 (July 1934): 17.

21
. This clause appears in multiple places, including Section 11 of the
Academy Code
and Section 10 of the
Screen Playwrights Code
. It is mentioned, as well, in the
National Labor Relations Board assessment, “In the matter of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Motion Picture Producers Assn., et al., and Screen Writers Guild Inc.” (4 June 1938), 22–25,
Decisions and Orders of the National Labor Relations Board
7 (1 May 1938–30 June 1938): 690.

22
. “Committee Urges a Writers’ Union,”
New York Times
, 16 July 1916, I7.

23
. “Title Insurance Grant Deed,” 2 June 1921, Mary H. O’Connor Files, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles; Percy Heath, “The Screen Writers’ Guild”
Photodramatist
3, no. 2 (July 1921): 17.

24
. Alfred Hustwick, “The Guild Forum,”
Photodramatist
3, no. 3 (August 1921): 5.

25
. Another such precursor organization is the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), which formed in 1919 and is still around today.

26
. Christopher D. Wheaton, “The Screen Writers’ Guild (1920–1942): The Writers’ Quest for a Freely Negotiated Basic Agreement” (PhD diss., University of Southern California, 1973), 21–22.

27
. Ibid., 50; Florence Peterson,
American Labor Unions: What They Are and How They Work
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 18.

28
. Lardner, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 1978), 5.

29
. Wheaton, “Screen Writers’ Guild (1920–1942),” 22–23.

30
. Frederica Sagor Maas,
The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: A Writer in Early Hollywood
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 63.

31
. Ibid., 67.

32
. Richard Fine,
Hollywood and the Profession of Authorship, 1928–1940
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1985), 56.

33
. Frances Marion,
Off with Their Heads! A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood
(New York: Macmillan, 1972), 64.

34
. Bernard Schubert, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 1978), 1–2.

35
. Dudley Nichols, “Conversation Piece,”
Screen Guilds’ Magazine
2, no. 1 (March 1935): 5.

36
. Fine,
Profession of Authorship
, 64.

37
. Ben Hecht,
A Child of the Century
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 466.

38
.
The Writer Speaks: Julius Epstein
, DVD, 1994, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.

39
. See Lea Jacobs and Richard Maltby, “Rethinking the Production Code,”
Quarterly Review of Film and Video
15, no. 4 (1995): 1–3.

40
. Ibid.

41
. Hecht,
A Child of the Century
, 479.

42
. Fine,
Profession of Authorship
, 85.

43
. In reality, fewer than a handful of these scripts were ever used.
Authors’ League Bulletin
11, no. 7 (October 1923): 8.

44
. Fine,
Profession of Authorship
, 12.

45
. John Schultheiss, “The Eastern Writer in Hollywood,”
Cinema Journal
11, no. 1 (Autumn 1971): 13.

46
. Fitzgerald, quoted in Gene D. Phillips,
Fiction, Film, and F. Scott Fitzgerald
(Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986), 27.

47
. Wilder quoted in Joseph Leo Blotner,
Faulkner: A Biography
(New York: Random House, 1974), 773.

48
. Maurice Zolotow,
Billy Wilder in Hollywood
(New York: Putnam, 1977), 72.

49
.
The Writer Speaks: Julius Epstein
.

50
. Edmund North, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 14 March 1978), 1–2.

51
. Devery Freeman, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 4 April 1978), 4–5.

52
. Bob Thomas,
Thalberg: Life and Legend
(New York: Doubleday & Co., 1969), 186.

53
. William Ludwig, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 16 May 1978), 4.

54
.
The Writer Speaks: Julius Epstein
.

55
. Donald Ogden Stewart, “Writing for the Movies,”
Focus on Film
, no. 5 (Winter 1970): 52.

56
. Fine,
Profession of Authorship
, 141.

57
. Schwartz,
Hollywood Writers’ Wars
, 8.

58
. David King Dunaway,
Huxley in Hollywood
(New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 98.

59
. Fine,
Profession of Authorship
, 13.

60
. North, Oral History Project, 1–2.

61
. Wheaton, “Screen Writers’ Guild (1920–1942),” 61.

62
. Ibid., 80.

63
. Lizzie Francke,
Script Girls: Women Screenwriters in Hollywood
(London: BFI, 1994), 41.

64
. Marion,
Off with Their Heads!
, 240.

65
. John Howard Lawson, letter to Louise Silcox, 19 April 1933, Writers Guild History Files, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.

66
. Schwartz,
Hollywood Writers’ Wars
, 49–50.

67
. George Wasson, letter to J. J. Gain at Fox Film Corporation Studio, 12 May 1933, Writers Guild History Files, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.

68
. Wasson to Gain regarding Sonya Levien’s contract, 16 May 1933, Writers Guild History Files, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.

69
.
The Writer Speaks: Fay Kanin
, DVD, 18 May 1998, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.

70
. Thomas,
Thalberg
, 267.

71
. Ian Hamilton,
Writers in Hollywood, 1915–1951
(New York: Carroll & Graf, 1990), 87.

72
. Quoted in Greg Mitchell, “How Hollywood Fixed an Election,”
American Film
(November 1988): 30.

73
. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.,
The Coming of the New Deal
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959), 98–99.

74
. Tom Kemper,
Hidden Talent: The Emergence of Hollywood Agents
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 22.

75
. Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund,
The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community 1930–1960
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979), 29.

76
.
Variety
, 17 October 1933, 7.

77
.
Variety
, 2 January 1934, 2.

78
. Ceplair and Englund,
Inquisition in Hollywood
, 31.

79
. Ibid., 32.

80
. Marion,
Off with Their Heads!
, 240.

81
. See
A.L.A. Schecter Poultry Corp. v. United States
, 295 U.S. 495 (1935).

82
. Harry Tugend, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, c. spring 1978), 5.

83
. It was, in fact, the first year that the statuettes were referred to as “Oscars,” although the awards had been distributed since 1927.

84
. Michael Charles Nielsen and Gene Mailes,
Hollywood’s Other Blacklist: Union Struggles in the Studio System
(London: BFI, 1995), 25.

85
.
Variety
, 29 April 1936, 27.

86
. Thomas,
Thalberg
, 267–268.

87
. Dalton Trumbo,
Time of the Toad: A Study of Inquisition in America
(1948; rpt., New York: Harper, 1972), 36.

88
. Schwartz,
Hollywood Writers’ Wars
, 67.

89
. Ibid., 68.

90
. Dunne, Oral History Project, 2–3; James O. Kemm,
Rupert Hughes: A Hollywood Legend
(Beverly Hills, CA: Pomegranate Press, 1997), 248. John Bright referred to Howard Emmet Rogers as “the Grey Eminence, because he was the only totally pale Southern Californian I had ever seen.” John Bright, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 26 July 1978), 7.

91
. Editorial,
Los Angeles Examiner
, 27 April 1936.

92
. “Screen Head Sounds Plea,”
Los Angeles Times
, 30 April 1936, A1.

93
.
Screen Guilds’ Magazine
, May 1936, 28.

94
. Dudley Nichols, “Cooking a Goose,”
Screen Guilds’ Magazine
, May 1936, 6.

95
. Freeman, Oral History Project, 1.

96
. Samson Raphaelson, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 1978), 1.

97
. Ibid., 1–2.

98
. Schwartz,
Hollywood Writers’ Wars
, 66.

99
. Ibid., 71. Dore Schary described Ryskind as a man who “in his younger days had been a flaming . . . liberal”; interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 1978), 1.

100
. Mary McCall, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 7 March 1979), 1.

101
. Ceplair and Englund,
Inquisition in Hollywood
, 39.

102
. Dunne, Oral History Project, 3.

103
. Schary, Oral History Project, 2.

104
. Erwin Gelsey, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 1978), 1.

105
. Wheaton, “Screen Writers’ Guild (1920–1942),” 135.

106
.
Variety
, 16 September 1936, 2.

107
. Hecht,
A Child of the Century
, 471.

108
.
Variety
, 15 June 1938, 7.

109
. Schwartz,
Hollywood Writers’ Wars
, 73–74.

110
. David L. Goodrich,
The Real Nick and Nora: Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, Writers of Stage and Screen Classics
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001), 101; John Bright,
Worms in the Winecup: A Memoir
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), 15.

111
. Roland Flamini,
Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
(New York: Crown, 1994), 206.

112
. Ibid., 207.

113
. Schwartz,
Hollywood Writers’ Wars
, 113.

114
. Michael J. Utvich, “WGA Fiftieth Anniversary Program,” 7 September 1981, Special Collections, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.

115
. Wheaton, “Screen Writers’ Guild (1920–1942),” 136.

116
. Ibid., 135.

117
.
The Writer Speaks: Julius Epstein
.

118
. National Labor Relations Board, R-402 to R-420 (4 June 1938), 6.

119
. Leo C. Rosten,
Hollywood: The Movie Colony, the Movie Makers
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1941), 318.

120
.
Variety
, 8 June 1938, 21.

121
. Goodrich,
The Real Nick and Nora
, 103; Schwartz,
Hollywood Writers’ Wars
, 124.

122
.
Variety
, 15 June 1938, 7.

123
. “All Writers Join Move On Closed Shop,”
Motion Picture Daily
, 18 April 1936. The Screen Actors Guild had a 90 percent closed shop. Directors and assistant directors were given an 80 percent closed shop. Only the American Society of Cinematographers and the Screen Publicists Guild were given virtually 100 percent closed shops—and that was only after they had threatened to strike.
Variety
, 30 August 1939, 4.

124
.
Variety
, 14 February 1940, 5.

125
. Sheridan Gibney, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 6 March 1978), 1–2.

126
.
Variety
, 8 May 1940, 7.

127
. Wheaton, “Screen Writers’ Guild (1920–1942),” 162.

128
. Gibney, Oral History Project, 13.

129
. Ibid., 2.