Schmucks With Underwoods: Conversations with America's Classic Screenwriters

by Max Wilk

(Applause Books). "Where were you when the page was blank?!" a beleaguered screenwriter once asked a demanding director back in the golden age of movies. Max Wilk, an esteemed writer himself, admits "dignity for screenwriters is long overdue." That's why he has assembled this insightful homage to the men and women whose words created the foundation for our best and most-loved films. Here are face-to-face interviews with some of the historic giants of the industry, spanning the silent era to the 1960s, including Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Sidney Buchman ( Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ), Donald Ogden Stewart ( The Philadelphia Story ), R.C. Sherriff ( Goodbye Mr. Chips ), Albert and Frances Hackett ( It's a Wonderful Life ), Evan Hunter ( The Birds ), John Collier, Edmund Hartmann, Ben Hecht, Nunnally Johnson and many more. In addition, Schmucks with Underwoods (a derogatory label for screenwriters coined by none other than the irascible Jack Warner) includes quotes and commentary about many other towering figures of the day, including Raymond Chandler, Edward Chodorov, Preston Sturges, Howard Koch, Dorothy Parker, Herman Mankiewicz and Paddy Chayefsky. Always entertaining, this book offers invaluable insight into the craft of writing, a fascinating portrait of a lost era of Hollywood, with enough hilarious anecdotes and behind-the-scenes trivia to please even the most casual movie buff.

Genres: Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Writing, History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of interviews and anecdotes about screenwriters in the Golden Age of Hollywood, capped by a remarkable and moving portrait of director Ernst Lubitsch by screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. Breezy, informative, and very enjoyable.

[Bryan Stubbles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid book full of fascinating interviews. Not everything has been fact-checked, so some of he stories should be taken with a grain of salt. Highly recommended.

[Henry Sheppard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love movies. I love the 'Golden Years of Hollywood' in particular. I love screenwriters and have written quite a few (unproduced) screenplays myself. Which brings me to this book about screenwriters from the 'Golden Years of Hollywood.' It consists of anecdotes by, and about, dozens of screenwriters obtained when Wilk interviewed them in the UK and the USA, across a non-specific number of years. The book is worth reading, provided you have a deep interest in the subject. If you're looking for a bunch of snappy quotes and funny anecdotes, you will—I'm sorry to relate—be disappointed. For example, Dorothy Parker, one of the wittiest people who has ever lived, is referenced in this book some twelve times. Of those, ten are simply her name included on yet another list of famous writers who worked in Hollywood, one is a secondhand quote, and one is a letter lifted from the Screenwriters Magazine, 1936. If you knew nothing about Dorothy Parker before reading this book, you won't be inspired to research her life story any further, and that would be a pity. The Groucho Marx anecdotes manage to be mildly interesting, at best. And so it goes. The fascinating, the amusing, the instructive have all been left to the other writers who cover this era and these same characters. I suggest you read some of those instead of this.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good interviews and reminisces from Hollywood screenwriters of the 1930's and beyond. The chapters on Billy Wilder, Harry Kurnitz, and Ernst Lubitsch are the best of them.