Backstory 1: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age (No. 1) [Paperback]

Patrick McGilligan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 9, 1988 | Series: Backstory

The illustrious line-up in this volume includes Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett, the sophisticated husband-and-wife team of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, the Astaire-Rogers writer Allan Scott, and many more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Until Backstory burst on the scene in 1986, not much had been written about the early days of Hollywood screenwriting. But as Patrick McGilligan states in his fine introduction, those days were quite different from the ones that followed. The whole craft of the screenplay didn't develop until the end of the silent era, and after it had developed, writers tended to be isolated from one another. Screenwriting was seen as hack work, something a legitimate playwright, novelist, or even a journalist did to raise money. Backstory 1 features interviews with 15 of the finest Hollywood scenarists from the 1920s and '30s, including Charles Burnett, James M. Cain, Lenore Coffee, Philip Dunne, Julius J. Epstein, Albert Hackett, Norman Krasna, Richard Maibaum, Casey Robinson, and Donald Ogden Stewart. These writers may not be familiar, but their movies surely are. This anthology of interviews is invaluable for its insights into a budding craft and into artists whose work has been obscured by critics and audiences who preferred to propel actors, directors, and producers into stardom.

From Publishers Weekly

Hollywood reminiscences are apparently as limitless as they are irresistible to film buffs. Backstoryan old screenwriting term for the story that has taken place before the action of a movie beginsgives veteran screenwriters their turn in this collection of 14 interviews.It has the usual quota of who-said-what-to-whom anecdotes, but with less than their usual amusement value. Among the interviews, some of which have been previously published, only three were conducted by McGilligan, a contributing editor to American Film. Long the victims of notorious mistreatment by the studios and now well advanced in years (several have died since these interviews took place), the writers here can be forgiven the impulse to have the last word and settle accounts, but the frequent squabbling over screen credits and insistence on their own importance gives this collection an aggrieved, sometimes crabby, tone. There are plesant memories and bright patches (Julius Epstein, Donald Ogden Stewart), valuable comments on the art of screenwriting and occasionally some interesting gossip (director Frank Capra had a painting of Mussolini on his bedroom wall; WW II Secret Service/FBI meetings were held in Cecil B. DeMille's office), but overall the interviews confirm the cliche that old Hollywood was a bad place for writers, leaving them well-paid but frustrated, cynical, or wistfully disappointed. Photos. First serial to American Film. (December
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 382 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (May 9, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520056892
• ISBN-13: 978-0520056893
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,647,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have resource, January 20, 2005

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PonyExpress (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Backstory 1: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age (No. 1) (Paperback)

I own a library of approximately 1,000 titles relating to film-as well as having worked for several years in a film-specific bookshop. That said-this particular volume, a collection of interviews with some of the most important names in the history of screenwriting, is one I'd rank among the top ten must-have titles for anyone seriously interested in movies. It's that good.

First off, in my opinion there's no better source for history than first-person statements of professionals, and that's what these interviews are all about. It's great when a talented author produces an interesting biography or history of the Hollywood studios' "golden age"-but how much better to read the raw, (virtually, presumably) uncensored memories! From this book, with its several dozen subjects, you'll get a taste of just about everything to do with filmmaking: the dealings with the front office, studio politics, actors, directors, censorship, the blacklist(BOTH sides of that terrible period-from SEVERAL perspectives-fascinating and unusual), life in general during the depression and oh, yes--the peculiar job of screenwriting.
I can't think how often I've pulled this one down off the shelf to refresh my memory, and also-it's tremendously entertaining reading--some of it is laugh-out-loud hilarious. These were talented men and women, folks-witty, often brilliant, with a unique perspective on the art of film. Patrick McGilligan does a masterful job of editing; reading his cogent and sensitive introductions to each interview is a great added bonus. My hat's off to him as to all too few other writers on this subject(Kevin Brownlow among them). Really, if you're the least bit interested in the history of Hollywood OR in screenwriting, you've got to have this.