Charles B Griffith interviews

I recently came across a copy of the last interview done with the great Charles B Griffith here. It's very moving to listen to because he died not long after. Many of the stories will be familiar. He started off writing via his grandmother, who wrote soaps for the radio – he moved out to LA after army service (I had no idea he was in the army) to write a TV version of the soap. He met Roger Corman through Jonathan Haze and wrote two scripts for him: Three Bright Banners, about a Confederate incursion into Mexico, and Hang Town, a Western mystery. Both were too expensive for Corman but the director hired Griffith to write other films. He wrote a couple of early scripts, with Mark Hanna, an actor whom he met through mutual friends (Griffith never seems to talk too much about Hanna).

Griffith says his greatest lesson was how to write fast. He also says his biggest mistake was taking time off was going to Europe and getting stranded there for a large slab of his career. There's another excellent interview with Griffith at Senses of Cinema but here you get to hear what he sounds like.