General History of Screenwriters of the Studio Era

[songbird2]

Does anyone know of a book about the history of screenwriters of the studio era for the general reader? Aside from individual biographies and autobiographies of such writers as Frances Marion, Herman and Joseph Mankiewicz, Philip Dunne and S. J. Perelman, I've never come across a comprehensive book specifically focused on the contributions and problems of working in the studios during the twenties through the fifties. I'd appreciate any informed suggestions. Thanks in advance for any help.

[DavidEnglish]

You might try Talking Pictures, written by Richard Corliss. It covers thirty-eight American screenwriters, including Ben Hecht, Preston Sturges, Samson Raphaelson, Robert Riskin, Dudley Nichols, and Nunnally Johnson. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879511591/.

 

DavidE

http://www.classicfilmpreview.com

[bollywood101]

Tom Stempel, Framework: A History of Screenwriting in the American Film (1988). Unless there's something more recent that I've overlooked, this is exactly what you ask for.

 

No doubt you've also seen Pat McGilligan's two Backstory volumes of interviews with numerous writers of the era, and Lee Server's Screenwriter: Words Become Pictures, another collection of interviews. Most of those in the McGilligan books are reprints from Film Comment &c. They're not necessarily verbatim reprints, as there is sometimes modification of the text.

 

There was a Film Comment pb The Hollywood Screenwriter about 3 decades ago, a mix of interviews and articles, with filmographies, based on a special issue of FC. Corliss' Talking Pictures is on the order of Sarris' American Cinema, an attempt to rank writers into a Pantheon, though the coverage of their work is devoted mostly to thematic elements and the selection is, well, selective. It's something like "Son of The Hollywood Screenwriter," since Corliss was the editor of FC and was deliberately extending the theme of the anthology.

 

There's also Fred Lawrence Guiles' Hanging On in Paradise, published in the 70s, a more anecdotal account of the writers of the studio era than Stempel's, and an OK read.