Book review - "Ernest Lehman: The Sweet Smell of Success" by John Krampner

 Excellent book. Looks at the short stories, novels, different drafts of scripts. Compares how he improved apparently easy jobs eg West Side Story, Sound of Music. Retrieves Lehman's contribution to Virginia Woolf from the cult of Mike Nichols and to West Side Story from the cult of Arthur Laurents and Steven Sondheim.

Affectionate towards Lehman to a degree but also exasperated. Hypochondriac, night owl, distant father, workaholic, loving husband but not around, tolerant of wife's long affair, devoted carer towards end, became a dad in his eighties, super talented, decent supervisory producer but bad hands on one, terrible director. Skill as novelist left him in 70s apparently, though could still write good essays. Probably retired at right time, I can imagine him getting kicked off Mission Impossible. Fitted in well at classy studios like MGM and Paramount and Fox. Mate of David Brown's. Should have written another original. Should have teamed more with Robert Wise, they collaborated so well together.

Really good work.

Unsung Aussie Filmmakers - Ivan Goff - a Top Ten

The release of the new Charlie's Angels prompted Stephen Vagg to point out that the original TV series was co created by an Australian, Ivan Goff (1910-99). Goff was one of the most successful Australian screenwriters in history. He was nominated for an Oscar, head of the Writers Guild, had a career that spanned five decades. Yet he is very little known in this country. So Stephen did a top ten of Ivan Goff writings.

1) No Longer Innocent (1933)

Goff was born in Perth in 1910. He started working as a journalist while a teenager, and left his home town for London when he was twenty. Goff took the scenic route, going via New Zealand, Fiji, the US, Canada and Mexico over a 12 month period. He turned this adventure into a book No Longer Innocent which was published in 1933 to some acclaim. He wrote it with his travelling companion, Edward Irwin, and Goff would be at his best writing in collaboration.

2) My Love Came Back (1940)

Goff worked in London as a journalist, then was assigned to Hollywood where he tried to break in as a screenwriter. After a number of less prestigious jobs, including a Gene Autry Western, he earned his first decent credit on My Love Came Back (1940), with Olivia de Havilland.  This really launched him as a screenwriter, but just as it seemed Goff's career was up and running the US entered World War Two and Goff joined the army.

3) Portrait in Black (1946)

Goff spent the war making propaganda shorts for the Army Signal Corps in New York. While there he became friends with a fellow screenwriter, Ben Roberts. The two of them decided to team up and write a murder mystery play, Portrait in Black, which they succeeded in getting produced on Broadway and London, as well as selling the film rights for a tidy sum. This established them as a team and Goff would not have any credits without Roberts for the remaining thirty plus years of his career.The play wasn't filmed until 1960 with Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn and Sandra Dee. It's a very entertaining mystery, a sort of riff on Double Indemnity  - you can see it's appeal to producers.

4) White Heat (1949)

The next big break of Goff's career came when Warner Bros put he and Roberts under a five year contract and assigned them to work on a story written by Virginia Kellogg, White Heat (1949).   This was a gangster tale which was to mark James Cagney's return to both that genre and Warner Bros. Roberts and Goff made considerable changes to the story, notably turning the lead character of Cody Jarrett into a mother obsessed psychopath... The resulting film, directed by Raoul Walsh, was a massive success, showcasing one of the all time legendary screen gangsters and one of the most iconic cinematic deaths of all time: Cagney/Jarrett blowing himself up on top of an oil tank yelling "made it, Ma, on top of the world". Kellogg earned an Oscar nomination but Goff and Roberts didn't under the rules of the time. However Cagney would go on to employ the team was writers on Come Fill the Cup (1951), The Man of a Thousand Faces (1957, see below) and Shake Hands with the Devil (1959).

5) Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)

White Heat meant Goff and Roberts were in much demand as writers of action films during the 1950s. Some of these are underwhelming - eg White Witch Doctor (1953), King of the Khyber Rifles (1954), and Grace Kelly's one bad movie, Green Fire (1954) -  but a very good one was Captain Horatio Hornblower, based on the novels by C.S. Forster. This was meant to be a project for Errol Flynn at one stage. Gregory Peck stepped in and the result is a rousing, entertaining movie.

6) The Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)

Goff and Roberts stepped out of their comfort zone with this entertaining biopic of Lon Chaney Jr, a vehicle for Cagney. Although (because) the script heavily fictionalised Chaney's life, it earned the writers an Oscar nomination, making Goff one of three Australians to be nominated for screenwriting in the 1950s (the others were Alec Coppel with The Captain's Paradise and John Farrow with Around the World in 80 Days).

7) Midnight Lace (1961)

Producer Ross Hunter, famous for his glossy entertainments, was the one who made a movie out of Portrait in Black. He promptly hired Goff and Roberts to do another thriller, Midnight Lace, a highly enjoyable piece of tosh which always seemed to be on television when I was growing up. The opening sequence of Doris Day being terrified by a high pitched voice in a foggy London scared the hell out of me and still does

8) Mannix (1967-75)

Feature film work dropped off for Goff and Roberts in the 1960s so they entered the world of TV. They had critical success with The Rogues (1964-65) and a big fat hit when they took over as show runners on the second season of Mannix , a private eye series starring Mike Connors. Goff and Roberts made several key changes, removing Mannix's computer-using boss, introducing a secretary and adding more humour. The results helped turn the show into a big success that ran for years.

9) Charlie's Angels (1976)

Goff and Roberts worked on a variety of projects in the 1970s, mostly on the small screen. Their most notable one was when Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg hired them to write a pilot script about three female detectives called The Alley Cats. This morphed into Charlie's Angels which became a sensation on its debut in 1976. Goff and Roberts walked away from the project after doing the pilot, but they were the ones who created it. The show remains a cultural touchstone.

10) The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)

The careers of Goff and Roberts tailed off in the 1980s. Their last big credit was for The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Lew Grade's famous flop attempt to conquer the US market. Mind you, people judged it less harshly after the Johnny Depp version. Roberts died in 1984 and Goff effectively retired after that, although he lived until 1999. It was a hell of a career that should be better known.

Book review - "Screewriter, the Life and Times of Nunnally Johnson" by Thomas Stempel

A biography of Nunnally Johnson? Sure, why not? It helps that Stempel is a pleasant writer, who has done a number of illuminating book on screenwriting.

Johnson occupies a curious place in American film history - I'm not sure how well he is remembered. Possibly he was better known say 40 years ago when his films would have been more widely seen on television.

He was a journalist and short story writer who went to Hollywood, as so many of them did at that time (Charle Brackett, Ben Hecht etc). Like many of them he sometimes had a reputation of someone who sold out their talent - a trope which Stempel rightly mocks. Did we really lose so much from Johnson giving up his stories of small town life in Georgia for Hollywood screenplays?

It took him a little while to get going, but what made him thrive was working for Darryl F. Zanuck at the new Twentieth Century Pictures, which became 20th Century Fox. Johnson became one of Zanuck's gun screenwriters, along with Philip Dunne and Lamar Trotti. Like he eventually moved his way up to producing, more out of boredom than anything else. Like Dunne he became a director as well who isn't remembered particularly fondly - though I feel his reputation is slightly higher than Dunne's because he made Three Faces of Eve with Joanne Woodward.

He did leave Zanuck for a period, working for Bill Goetz at International Pictures, but didn't do particularly well and returned to Zanuck. He eventually retired in 1970.

It was an extremely good career, a lot of classics: House of Rothschild, Jesse James, The Grapes of Wrath, Roxie Hart, The Gunfighter, The Desert Fox, How to Marry a Millionaire. He kept relevant up until the end - in the 1960s his credits included popular James Stewart comedies like Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation (with Fabian), as well as The Dirty Dozen and Flaming Star. He tried Broadway a few times and it didn't work but there's no shame in that.

He seems to have been a nice man, gentlemanly, perhaps a little fond of the bottle, very dedicated to work. The book hints his third wife - the marriage that lasted - wasn't perhaps entirely happy giving up her acting career.

Stempel doesn't touch on some of the more racist aspects of Johnson's work such as the depiction of blacks in The Prisoner of Shark Island. He is very strong otherwise on analysing Johnson's scripts, particularly the man's interest in writing about marriage and having married heroes.

A very interesting book.

Movie review - "Trumbo" (2007) ***

The best known members of the Hollywood Ten would probably be Ring Lardner Jnr, Edward Dmytryk and Trumbo. Trumbo has a special place in history because of his justly famous letters which reveal him to be one of the genuinely nicest and liberal of the Ten - Richard Corliss in his book on screenwriters Talking Pictures would praise Trumbo's letters but criticise his screenplays. Trumbo is also the writer with the greatest fall from grace, going from one of the top paid writers in Hollywood to be on the blacklist - but also with the best comeback, winning two Oscars secretly (Roman Holiday and The Brave One) and the first to be credited again with Exodus and Spartacus.

This is an unusual sort of film - part documentary, with the standard talking heads (including Trumbo's kids) and footage from the time (eg the ten being self righteous at the hearings, home movie work) - interspersed with famous actors reading from letters to and from Trumbo: Josh Lucas, Liam Neeson, Brian Dennehy, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Joan Allen, Paul Giamatti, David Straithairn. It's a little distracting to be honest - the latter piece feels a bit too theatrical for me (the letters have been turned into a play), and you can see the actors Acting.. I felt myself watching and going "wow Josh Lucas has good teethe" instead of concentrating on the content.

It remains interesting and Trumbo is a fascinating, admirable figure. Even he couldn't give up Hollywood money and concentrate on novels, though.

Movie review – “In a Lonely Place” (1950) ***1/2

Highly regarded in some circles – I wasn’t wild about it but it’s an engrossing thriller/melodrama. Humphrey Bogart is very good as a screenwriter who may or may not be a serial killer – it fits in with his persona, being believable as a person who is literate, attractive enough to have all these women after him but with a trigger temper. (Fans of Nick Ray will probably be aware this character was very close to that of Ray himself - talented, handsome and attractive but self-destructive.)

The audience surrogate is Gloria Grahame, an actor I’ve never been wild about – I guess she’s okay, her acting is fine, I just wish she was played by Lauren Bacall. It really is her story since it's mostly from her POV. The view of Hollywood is believable, with its dingy dives, small-time glamour girls, drunken old time actors, beaches at night time, deserted streets, etc.

Book review – “The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood” by Joe Eszterhas

“By” Joe Eszterhas is a bit rich – it really should be “edited by”. Oh, OK, there is some original material, about a chapter’s worth, where Joe suggests what sort of routine to use to write a screenplay, and gives some advice about what to do. But most of this book consists of him quoting others, in particular others about Hollywood, especially screenwriting – William Goldman is quoted extensively, so is Robert McKee (who Eszterhas sometimes makes fun of, sometimes seems to approve what McKee says), also John Gregory Dunne’s Monster, the autobiographies of Zsa Zsa Gabor and Swifty Lazar, the books of William Froug, other books on screenwriting, Phil Noyce’s book. 

This is an irritatingly lazy book. Eszterhas already wrote a brilliantly entertaining memoir on his life and career, Hollywood Animal (material from which he re-hashes here). Why another one? It must have been the money. He hasn’t had a screenplay credit since he moved back to Cleveland, is what why? But his books have sold well.

Reading this you can’t shake the feeling that part of Eszterhas wishes he could wind the clock back to the early 90s, when he was still smoking and drinking and making millions with his spec scripts (many of which had basically the same plot: person falls in love with person so obviously guilty of murders that they must be innocent and they turn out to be guilty) and bragging about being a great family man by living in Marin County and commuting to Hollywood, rooting around on his wife pretty much non-stop, including with Sharon Stone, telling execs to get stuffed, writing blockbusters, making records. Since then he got re-married (he says he’s faithful), had a new family, quit smoking after a bout of cancer, moved from LA, returned to prose – but he keeps looking back at Old Joe with one suspects a touch of wistfulness.

Book review - "My Movie Business" by John Irvin

A book only really of interest to fans of Irving and the book/film The Cider House Rules. Irving is a good writer, and the book only short, but his displays a bewildering inability to come up with a decent showbiz anecdote. Instead we get a lot of stuff about streamlining narrative and changing characters around which is interesting... but how about a bit more saliciousness? He is also a bit of a whinger - despite having director approval, cast approval, script approval... he still complains he doesn't have approval over marketing. And when his son isn't cast in a lead role. Its filmmaking John!!

Book review - "Robert Bolt" by Adrian Turner

Brilliant biography of the playwright and screenwriter Bolt which I finished in only a few days, it was so enjoyable. I thought it made a slight mistake starting the book with the story of Bolt going to Tahiti in 1977 to work with David Lean on a new Bounty film, then having a stroke: this section felt as though it went on a bit too long, and involved too many story strands and relationships tht you probably would have been better knowing more about. But that's it's only real flaw. Turner is a skilled writer, has done some superb research (including rare access to MGM legal files), and has enthusiasm and sympathy for his subject.

I was aware of the big hits of Bolt's career - A Man for All Seasons, the Lean films - but not aware his first hit was in fact something called A Flowering Cherry (a mid life crisis drama similar to Death of a Salesman), and before Seasons he wrote another play, Tiger and the Horse, which was an even bigger hit. Before then he had a substantial reputation as a BBC dramatist.

Despite that he was often held up as a sell out - how can it be a sell out to write for David Lean, but that was the mood of the times. Also it was his agent, Peg Ramsey, (whose reputation Bolt made) who most frequently called him a sell out (John Mortimer wrote a brilliant sketch of Ramsey in his memoirs). To be fair he did kind of sell out when he was arrested for a CND protest in the 1960s - Bolt agreed to promise not to do any more protests so he could get out of gaol and work on Lawrence of Arabia - a compromise (one he needn't have done) he always regretted.

Bolt's life was fascinating: early life in Manchester, war service, joining the Communist Party, discovering his gift for learning and becoming a teacher, shot gun marriage, being an inspirational teacher, the early writing (he knew he wanted to write then stumbled upon play writing).

His life was marked by some tragedies and scandals: in the early 60s his wife left him for a handyman (he was obsessed with his work so it wasn't such a surprise - he came home and his new house was full of cupboards because the wife kept getting the handyman around), he married Sara Miles but they got divorced after the scandal where her personal assistant (and occasional lover) became obsessed with her killed himself - with Miles whispered as his possible murderer; his eldest daughter died in a possible suicide; he had a crippling stroke which permanently debilitated him (people blamed it on David Lean but a 60 cigs a day habit may also have had something to do with it). He married a third time, unsuccessfully - but then blow us all down if he and Miles didn't get remarried, surprising many people who thought it was only a glam match.

What of Bolt the writer? In the 60s he was the leading one in the world, though his final credit list isn't too long - he worked too long on projects. His main credits post stroke, The Bounty and The Mission, were based on scripts written in the 70s before his stroke. Up until the end he remained busy and in demand - you might wonder why as his credits grew increasingly sparse, but the Lean films and Seasons were classics, so why not?

Its a great shame his Bounty scripts were never filmed in the way they were intended, though one can understands studios being wary of them; ditto some of his other scripts such as one on Gandhi. Its a shame some of his unproduced scripts can't be published in some form or another; it's also a shame Bolt didn't write a little more for the stage, though he always tackled decent projects on screen - it's just that the stage stuff would have had more chance of being produced.

It's a marvellous read and highly recommended.

Book review - "Backstory 4" Ed Patrick McGilligan

Another brilliant instalment of this excellent series, covering writers who excelled in the 70s and 80s. Unlike the previous editions, all of the writers are still working. It includes several of my favourites: John Milius, Walter Hill, Larry Cohen. Full of surprises - Alvin Sargeant's insecurity, Donald Westlake's extensive career. Endlessly fascinating.