A.I. Bezzerides

“Fox bought a novel of mine, Thieves’ Market. They didn’t want to use the original title because San Francisco objected to it. So, it became Thieves’ Highway. I said okay. Then the director, Julie Dassin, says, ‘For the prostitute, I want Valentina Cortesa, so rewrite it for her.’ He was going with her. We were going to have Shelley Winters, who would have been perfect. But I rewrote it. And we go to the meeting with Zanuck. The first thing Zanuck says is, ‘I want a new beginning. I want the father still alive. He’s crippled. That’s why the kid’s trucking.’ Now in my story the father is dead at the beginning. The kid starts trucking because he’s trying to make his father’s life valid. I only knew that story from my life. But that didn’t matter. I said, ‘Yes, Mr. Zanuck.’ I wrote another beginning. So the picture didn’t do real well. Oh, I tell you, once you give in a little bit, you’re finished.” A. I. BEZZERIDES in Lee Server’s Screenwriter: Words Become Pictures”
― A.I. Bezzerides, Thieves' Market