DudleySmith
Diamond Member
- Dec 21, 2020
- 22,017
- 15,692
One of my favorite movies is His Girl Friday; it is one where the writing is excellent and so is the directing. I don't think any screenplay Ben Hecht had a hand in was ever bad that I know of. It was a stage play he wrote for Broadway, and as far as I can tell there wasn't a lot of money spent on sets, t mainly takes place in one room. I like the Mathau/Lemmon remake, The Front Page, as well, but the 1940's version with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell and one the best supporting casts ever in any movie is head and shoulders better. Don't know who's idea it was to change 'Hildy' into a woman, but it was a great idea in picking Russell.
Ben Hecht's life is a movie in itself.
Caricature of Ben Hecht, 1923
Film historian Richard Corliss writes, "Ben Hecht was the Hollywood screenwriter ... [and] it can be said without too much exaggeration that Hecht personifies Hollywood itself." Movie columnist Pauline Kael says, "between them, Hecht and Jules Furthman wrote most of the best American talkies".[23]: 5 His movie career can be defined by about twenty credited screenplays he wrote for Hawks, Hitchcock, Hathaway, Lubitsch, Wellman, Sternberg, and himself. He wrote many of those with his two regular collaborators, Charles MacArthur and Charles Lederer.
While living in New York in 1926, he received a telegram from screenwriter friend Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently moved to Los Angeles. "Will you accept three hundred per week to work for Paramount Pictures. All expenses paid. The three hundred is peanuts. Millions are to be grabbed out here, and your only competition is idiots", it read. "Don't let this get around." As a writer in need of money, he traveled to Hollywood as Mankiewicz suggested.[9]
lol
Ben Hecht's life is a movie in itself.
Ben Hecht - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Screenwriter
Caricature of Ben Hecht, 1923
Film historian Richard Corliss writes, "Ben Hecht was the Hollywood screenwriter ... [and] it can be said without too much exaggeration that Hecht personifies Hollywood itself." Movie columnist Pauline Kael says, "between them, Hecht and Jules Furthman wrote most of the best American talkies".[23]: 5 His movie career can be defined by about twenty credited screenplays he wrote for Hawks, Hitchcock, Hathaway, Lubitsch, Wellman, Sternberg, and himself. He wrote many of those with his two regular collaborators, Charles MacArthur and Charles Lederer.
While living in New York in 1926, he received a telegram from screenwriter friend Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently moved to Los Angeles. "Will you accept three hundred per week to work for Paramount Pictures. All expenses paid. The three hundred is peanuts. Millions are to be grabbed out here, and your only competition is idiots", it read. "Don't let this get around." As a writer in need of money, he traveled to Hollywood as Mankiewicz suggested.[9]
lol
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