Screenwriter

Screenwriter is a series of enlighteningand entertaining interviews with a dozenof the top screenwriters from Holly-wood's golden age. While their names, insome cases, have remained uncelebrated,their work includes scores of the mostfamous films of all time-Duck Soup, ThePublic Enemy, The Thirty- Nine Steps, TopHat, The Wizard of Oz, How Green WasMy Valley, The Prisoner of Zenda, TheWolf Man, and The Man Who Knew TooMuch, to name just a few.The individual writers are a varied, colorful, and highly entertaining group.They include Charles Bennett, author ofAlfred Hitchcock's first talkie, Blackmail,and six other Hitchcock films JohnBright, out of gangland Chicago to writeJames Cagney's first hit, The PublicEnemy, and Mae West's first, She DoneHim Wrong; Allan Scott, screenwriter ofthe entire Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogersseries; Curt Siodmak, refugee trom NazıGermany, specialist in horror and sci-fi,and author of scripts for The Wolf Man,I Walked with a Zombie, and Donovan'sBrain; Catherine Turney, Warner's topwoman writer, author of vehicles forBette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Errollynn, among them Mildred Pierce.Almost none of these twelve men andwomen have been interviewed at lengthin any publication.The unforgettable stories they tell rangetrom the hilarious to the bitter, fromtales of roistering with the MarxBrothers, drunken shootouts with JohnHuston and practical joking with Hitch-cock, to murderous run-ins with AlCapone and blacklisting by the right-Wing witch hunters of the McCarthy era.Above all, their remembrances give thereader a unique and thorough look at thelife of the screenwriter in the big studioera. Together, they tell how the screenclassics of their day were conceived andtook their final shape.llustrated with over 100 photographs.ABOUT THE AUTHORA graduate of New York University's Institute of Film and Television, Lee Serverhas written numerous articles, interviews,and reviews tor such publications as FilmComment, Take One, and Films inReview. His credits as a tilmmaker in-clude a variety of short films and twofull-length documentaries, You MustRemember This and the forthcoming Early Hitchcock. He has lived in Europe,Southeast Asia, and Southern California,and currently resides in New York City.Jacket design by Robert Reed.Text design by Frank Mabood.The Main Street PressWilliam Case HousePittstown, New Jersey 08867ISBN 1-55562-018-3