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Unraveling the Enigma of Movie Authorship
Among creative people in Los Angeles there exists a long-term malady that's almost as common as smog infection. Call it Screenwriters' Complaint-a condition of anguish and exhaustion brought on by not getting credit for work done, or getting credit for work not done, or getting credit for work altered beyond recognition. Most screenwriters prefer to suffer in silence, but hardly a season passes in Hollywood when skirmishes do not arise over the authorship of the biggest movies. "Did you hear who really wrote Tootsie?" (Fill in any combination of Don McGuire, Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal, Elaine May, Robert Kaufman, Barry Levinson & Valerie Currin, and Robert Garland.) "I know the guy who wrote all of Eddie Murphy's gag-lines in 48 HRS. in one weekend." (The rumored whiz-kid, Stephen E. de Souza, scotched that whopper.)
Confusion of authorship is rooted in Hollywood history. Rarely ever did big studio movies spring from a single pen, which is one reason Dream Factory scribblers became well-known only if they got headstarts elsewhere. From gangster dramas to Late Show weepies, movies got written and re-written, with multiple credits and many anonymous assists. Some random examples: Angels Wim Dirty Faces was written by John Wexley and Warren Duff from a story by Rowland Brown. Camille was adapted by Zoe Akins, Frances Marion, and James Hilton from the Dumas play. Casablanca had a screenplay history almost as complicated as Tootsies: Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein took the first swipe at the Murray Burnett-Joan Alison play, Everybody Comes to Rick's; Howard Koch then brought it close to final form; and Casey Robinson and Lenore Coffee helped director Michael Curtiz slap it to life. On Gone With the Wind, producer David O. Selznick hired at least ten writers to work on the script, including Ben Hecht, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jo Swerling, Edwin Justus Mayer, John Balderston, and Oliver Garrett, though sole credit went to Sidney Howard.
Ghostwriting has always been a Hollywood way of life. In the Thirties, Selznick kept young writers like Budd Schulberg and Ring Lardner, Jr. on hand to do odd jobs like the endings of Nothing Sacred (1937) and A Star is Born (1937). After he became a writer-director, John Huston rarely...