Backstory 1: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood’s Golden Age. By Patrick McGilligan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. 382 pages.

By Patrick Charsky

When Film Historians look back to the beginning of sound Cinema one hundred years from now where will they look for information about how it really was? Will they look to the Moguls or Movie Stars? Perhaps. Some searching for a deeper understanding will come to Patrick McGlligan’s excellent foray into Hollywood lore; Backstory1. Backstory is the first in a series of five books about Screenwriters working in Hollywood.

In searching for information about the Golden Age of Hollywood, Historians will seek out Screenwriters to learn from the soldiers of the motion picture industry. They will search out writers’ voices who never had a voice in a time when Hollywood reigned supreme over the World. McGilligan accomplishes this feat grandly. He shows a range of opinions and stories from the people you never heard of, but who made possible some of the best films ever made.

The review will consider three aspects of the book. First it will look at the different kinds of voices in the book. From “Company men and a woman”, to Screenwriters admittedly on the Left, and to odd balls who worked outside of the system or were blacklisted and had their screenwriting career ended. The second part of the review will discuss the accuracy of the information the screenwriters talk about. There is a lot of squabbling over those precious credits; who wrote Gone With the Wind? Who came up with the unforgettable ending of Casablanca? Lastly we will consider if the Golden Age Screenwriters are still relevant to contemporary Cinema.

Patirck McGilligan has written extensively about Cinema. In addition to Backstory 1, there are four other books in the series that document Screenwriters’ lives and work. A prolific biographer, he has published books about Hollywood celebrities like Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicoholson, and Mel Brooks. He is an adjunct Professor at Marquette University’s Film and TV Department.

The book is unique in its treatment of Screenwriters. Never before has a book gone so far as to arrange and allow Screenwriters to be heard. There have been other books about the Golden Age. McGilligan references these in his first rate introduction to the book, which serve as primary sources for further reading. Backstory reveals a treasure trove of early sound films to epic masterpieces from the 1950’s. If there ever was a course about the Golden Age of Hollywood, Backstory 1 could serve as a primary text for students.

One of the strengths of Backstory 1 is its diversity of voices from the Golden Age. The book is structured around sixteen interviews with Screenwriters who were successful to one degree or another in the Studio System that prevailed at the time they were working. The interviews give voice to Screenwriters who were known as lowest on the totem pole of the Studio System.

Some of the writers had worked for twenty years or more for a specific studio. W. R. Burnett worked in the Studio System from the earliest days of talkies. In his interview, he says he didn’t want to be a “company man” because that would engender ill feelings toward him from other writers. His interview shows what it was like to work with studio heads. It is incisive, funny, and deeply informed; his memory is crystal clear. Another screenwriter who worked in the studio system was Lenore Coffee. She was the only female screenwriter to have worked in the studio system documented in the book. Her interview provides a glimpse into a woman’s view of the Golden Age of Hollywood. She worked on “Women’s” pictures mostly. Her career started out in the Silent era but progressed into feature films as the age of “Talkies” dawned. Chatacteristially she avoided any talk of politics.

Opposite of her was John Lee Mahin. Mahin worked in the Studio System during its heyday, he contributed to Gone With the Wind, and knew Victor Fleming well enough to tell an interesting anecdote about Vic being exasperated with the production and giving up. Later he would be wooed back to finish the famous last scene in Gone With the Wind by Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. Casey Robinson was another “company man.” He grew into such a success that he was making five thousand dollars a week at Metro. Despite the money, he quit because according to Robinson, “Metro is the graveyard of writers.”

These interviews comprise stories about what their lives were like, mostly how much they got paid. It also details their interactions with studio heads like Cecil B. DeMille, Daryl F. Zanuck, and Howard Hughes. Each has their own view of Hollywood and the politics of the times. Mahin was a staunch Conservative who had no sympathy for the “Hollywood Ten.” Burnett felt similarly, but was more sympathetic. Through these interviews the deep Conservatism of the big studios is revealed. If you were a Communist, or sympathizer, working for the big studios wasn’t going to last long. If you worked at organizing writers, then your career would be compromised.

The next group of interviews reveals a Left-wing in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Writers like Julius J. Epstein, Richard Maibaum, Philip Dunne, and Donald Ogden Stewart. Each of these screenwriters professed to be staunch Liberals who supported Roosevelt or, later on, Adlai Stevenson. Epstein worked for Warners most of his early career. He wrote the classic Casablanca with his brother. Whether he wrote the famous ending is a matter of controversy. Maibaum was the genius behind the adaptation of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Maibaum and Epstein are both self-deprecating and humble about their grand accomplishments in Screenwriting. Dunne is equally humble about his many years writing for Fox. Dunne wrote some of the most memorable films of the 1950’s, even though he is not so proud about them. Dunne was deeply involved in the politics of his time, but remained a gentleman through and through in his interview. Lastly, Donald Ogden Stewart may have been the most Left of all the interviewees in the book. Stewart’s screenwriting career was ended prematurely by the HUAC controversy and he was unable to write after 1949. It is a tragedy that his talent was never allowed to bloom further.

The next batch of Screenwriters from the Golden Age are unique in that they were from a different country, chose to work free-lance, or had some success, or were a couple that chose to leave Hollywood and return to Broadway.

James M. Cain was a very well known novelist who tried to work in Hollywood for many years with some success. His novel The Postman Always Rings Twice was a success commercially and was heralded as one of the great hard boiled novels of all time.. The film has been produced four times; twice in Hollywood, once in France and another time in Italy by Luchino Visconti.

Norman Krasna was ahead of his time. He wrote completely free-lance in an era where the contract writer was the standard way to work in the Studio System. Krasna went on to great success with many hits, his major theme being mistaken identity. Many of his films were risque for 1930’s and 40’s.

Charles Bennett was from England. He is the only non-American to be interviewed for Backstory. He endured hardship many times, but found success working with Hitchcock on his early films, and with Cecil B. DeMille on his WWII films. Goodrich and Hackett were a married couple with deep ties to theater. They penned some of the best romantic comedies of the era including Father of the Bride.

These last group of writers show that it wasn’t required to work as a contract writer to have success in Hollywood. For Krasna and the Hacketts straddling the nation with gigs in both Hollywood and Broadway were their way of succeeding as writers. It is rare for that to happen in contemporary times. James M. Cain, despite being a big name in Europe as a novelist, was never enormously successful in screenwriting. He spent the later part of his life in suburban Maryland and said he never watched his movies or hardly any movies for that matter.

Many of these writers spent years trying to make it work in the Studio System. With rare exception they left after many years of struggle, worn down by constant criticism, writing by committee, and pictures that flopped. They turned back to theater or novel writing from which they had come. The most successful turned out films that never won awards or critical acclaim. Many worked as “fixers” on screenplays, brought in like mercenaries to re-write screenplays that had problems. The stories they tell aren’t of lavish lifestyles, but of working on film after film for a credit. Some of the screenwriters were bitter about their time in Hollywood.

Another area where multiple voices are expressed in Backstory is on the subject of credits. As McGilligan explains working in the Studio System was more writers by committee than the Auteurs we have in Cinema today. Before reading the book I only knew one screenwriter from the whole list; Julius J. Epstein. He wrote, with his brother Philip, Casablanca. However, in the book Casey Robinson claims he had found the play Everybody Comes to Rick’s, the play on which the movie is based, before the Epstein’s ever thought of writing the script. He also claims that he wrote the famous ending between Bogart and Bergman. Further along, Howard Koch says he had a role in writing the script. A claim refuted by Epstein in his interview. Epstein says Koch had nothing to do with writing Casablanca. It is controversies like these that make Backstory essential reading and important in deciding who gets those all important credits and the awards that may follow.

John Lee Mahin relays another story about credits. This time it is about Gone With the Wind. Mahin says he wrote some of Gone With the Wind but was uncredited. W. R. Burnett and Mahin both worked on Scarface (1931) where there were six credited writers on IMDB.com. Movies with multiple credits were all too common in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Perhaps this is why writers were so frustrated and movies not taken seriously as literature.

It’s A Wonderful LIfe was written primarily by Goodrich and Hackett, but there are four other credits listed for the screenplay on IMDB.com including the director Frank Capra. Goodrich and Hackett said they had a terrible time working with Capra and swore they would never work with him again.

In the Golden Age credits meant everything. Having your name on a film could lead to greater pay, greater roles like director or producer, or bigger projects as a writer. Prior to Auteur theory, the Golden Age meant a rabid scramble for screen credits. Backstory shows just how important those credits were to Screenwriters. They had to fight for recognition and many times, as is evidenced in the book, they took uncredited contribution rather than have their name roll past in the opening of the film.

Backstory gives a voice to the voiceless or now dead Screenwriters of the Golden Age. Everyone remembers Coppola or Tarrantino, but who remembers Philip Dunne, Norman Krasna, or Niven Busch? It is the great success of this book to reveal the great writers of the Golden Age who were undervalued and unappreciated during their time.

Why study The Golden Age of Hollywood? Why read McGilligan’s Backstory 1? I think Backstory 1 is not only an essential text for Screenwriters, but also for anyone who wants to understand the origins of Hollywood. The Studio System is long dead. Laid to waste by the advent of Television. The contract writer has morphed into the free-lancer. The studios taken over by large conglomerates.

Still issues of gender, freedom of expression, working conditions for writers, and what it means to be a success permeate not just The Golden Age but today’s contemporary media industry. Backstory 1 shows how writers fought for those things they thought were important. Many of them paid a dear price during the McCarthyism of the 40’s and 50’s.

With Independent movie theaters closing all over the country and Disney controlling 38% of box office, it is a very trying time to be Screenwriter. It makes the “bad old days” of the Golden Age look like a better time. Working as a contract writer while the studios cranked out hundreds of films a year seems much better than long periods of unemployment in an intensely competitive business. The “bad old days?” They never had it so good. ( )