How They Write a Script: Richard Brooks

Another in the Go Into The Story series “How They Write a Script,” excerpts from interview with notable Hollywood screenwriters. Today, we spotlight screenwriter, director, and novelist Richard Brooks (1912–19920. Here is a list of Brook’s extensive movie credits:

1942
Men of Texas (Ray Enright). Additional dialogue.
Sin Town (Ray Enright). Additional dialogue.

1943
White Savage (Arthur Lubin). Script.
Don Winslow of the Coast Guard (Ray Taylor, Lewis D. Collins).
Serial, additional dialogue.

1944
My Best Gal (Anthony Mann). Story.
Cobra Woman (Robert Siodmak). Co-script.

1946
Swell Guy (Frank Tuttle). Script.
The Killers (Robert Siodmak). Uncredited contribution.

1947
Brute Force (Jules Dassin). Script.
Crossfire (Edward Dmytryk). Adapted from his novel The Brick Foxhole .

1948
To the Victor (Delmer Daves). Story, script.
Key Largo (John Huston). Co-script.

1949
Any Number Can Play (Mervyn LeRoy). Script.

1950
Crisis (Richard Brooks). Script, director.
Mystery Street (John Sturges). Co-script.
Storm Warning (Stuart Heisler). Co-story, co-script.

1951
The Light Touch (Richard Brooks). Script, director.

1952
Deadline U.S.A. (Richard Brooks). Story, script, director.

1953
Battle Circus (Richard Brooks). Script, director.
Take the High Ground (Richard Brooks). Director only.

1954
The Last Time I Saw Paris (Richard Brooks). Co-script, director.
The Flame and the Flesh (Richard Brooks). Director only.

1955
The Blackboard Jungle (Richard Brooks). Script, director.

1956
The Last Hunt (Richard Brooks). Script, director.
The Catered Affair (Richard Brooks). Director only.

1957
Something of Value (Richard Brooks). Script, director.

1958
The Brothers Karamazov (Richard Brooks). Script, director.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks). Co-script, director.

1960
Elmer Gantry (Richard Brooks). Script, director.

1962
Sweet Bird of Youth (Richard Brooks). Script, director.

1965
Lord Jim (Richard Brooks). Script, director, producer.

1966
The Professionals (Richard Brooks). Script, director, producer.

1967
In Cold Blood (Richard Brooks). Script, director, producer.

1969
The Happy Ending (Richard Brooks). Story, script, director, producer.

1971
$/Dollars (Richard Brooks). Script, director.

1975
Bite the Bullet (Richard Brooks). Script, director, producer.

1977
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Richard Brooks). Script, director.

1982
Wrong Is Right (Richard Brooks). Script, director, producer.

1985
Fever Pitch (Richard Brooks). Script, director, producer.

Novels include The Brick Foxhole, The Boiling Point, and The Producer .

Academy Awards include script nominations for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Professionals, and In Cold Blood; and Best Screenplay (Based on Material from Another Medium) for Elmer Gantry in 1960.

Writers Guild awards include nominations for Key Largo, The Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Professionals, and In Cold Blood. Brooks’ adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry won Best-Written American Drama in 1960. Brooks was named the winner of the Laurel Award for Achievement in 1967.

Here are some key excerpts taken from an interview with Brooks included in Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s, edited by Patrick McGilligan.

ON HOW HE BECAME A WRITER

I couldn’t get a job when I got out of Temple University and the School of Journalism. This was in Philadelphia during the Depression and [at the time] they were firing newspapermen from the Bulletin, the Inquirer, the Ledger . They were firing guys who had worked there for thirty years! When I went to job interviews, they asked, “What makes you think you’re a newspaper man . . .?” and I answered, “I went to a School of Journalism . . .” so they threw me out! That was the worst thing I could have said.

I got on a freight train and left town. Went as far as Pittsburgh the first time. Sold a story in Pittsburgh for a dollar and a half or two dollars. A newspaper story. There was interest in what was happening on the road and that is what I wrote about.

The next stop was the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I think. I got four dollars for that piece. They wanted to know who was traveling on the road, what were the conditions under which people were traveling, etc. And they were right to ask those questions, because at the time whole families were traveling by freight train, carrying a birdcage, a blanket, and a mattress.

I was asked to embellish by writing a few more paragraphs on the problem of getting off the trains. There were problems because as soon as you got off, you had to have a place to eat and sleep. Every town, every city, wanted you out . They had thought it was the other way around, that the problem was getting on the trains. They had heard stories about fellas with axe handles coming around and beating people if they found them on trains. But really, they just didn’t want you to get off the train!

I arrived the second winter at a big railroad yard in Wheeling, West Virginia. I was hanging around there with some guys who had got off a coal car. I was talking to a fella who looked like an old man to me — he was probably thirty — who had a railroad watch in the watch pocket of his trousers. Every time a train would go by, he’d look at his watch. He seemed to know about trains. I was interested in finding out which ones were going south, because the weather was turning cold. The ones that started south weren’t necessarily going south, as they might just be leaving the yard. But he knew which ones were going south and which ones were really just heading out of the yard to pick up a load somewhere.

Finally he said, “What do you do?” Meaning, what do you do when you could be hired to do it? I said, “I’m a writer.” He said, “What do you write?” I told him I worked at some newspapers, lying a little bit about the extent to which I had worked on them. I also told him I was writing short stories. He said, “Ever get any published?” I said, “Not yet.” In those days you could get twenty-five dollars if you wrote a short story for Liberty magazine, but it was not so easy to get published. He said, “What kind of reading do you do?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, have you ever read Dostoevski?” I said, “I think I read part of one of his novels, yeah.” He said, “Ever read Tolstoy? Whitman?,” He rattled off a string of other names. “Well, kind of,” I said.

Knowing that I hadn’t read most of what he was talking about, he said, “As a matter of fact, you haven’t read much of anything, have you?” I said, “I’ve read a lot of short stories, some novels, I’ve read some Upton Sinclair, Willa Cather. . . .” He said, “Well, you ain’t a writer yet. You gotta read 10,000 words for every one you write. Maybe then you’ll become a writer.”

I realized that my education was not over. It was just beginning.

ON HOW HE BECAME A SCREENWRITER

I’d written some short stories before, but none was published. Anyway, every day, another short story. Everything became grist for a short story. It began to drive me crazy . . . a different plotline every day. My ambition: write one story a week instead of a different story every day. In about eleven months I wrote over 250 stories. I even devised a system whereby on Fridays I wouldn’t have to write a short story. I called that day “Heels of History.” I would take a fable and convert it. As a matter of fact, I used one afterwards in [a scene in] The Blackboard Jungle .

“Jack and the Beanstalk,” for example. Jack: Now there’s a hero for you. His father is bedridden, unable to work. No food in the house. Jack’s mother is desperate. She decides to sacrifice their only cow to stave off starvation. She tells Jack to take the cow to market and sell it. With the money, she will be able to feed Jack’s stricken father and perhaps buy medicine to alleviate his pain. Here’s the “right stuff” all right. The stuff of which heroes are made.

On the way to market, Jack meets a con man. Jack trades the cow for a couple of magic beans. So our hero has already disobeyed and cheated his mother. He has also forsaken his father. His mother throws the beans out of the window. At once, the magic goes to work. Out of the beans a mighty beanstalk grows, taller, higher, finally into the clouds. Jack climbs the beanstalk. [From the giant and his wife who live at the top] he steals the goose that lays the golden eggs, and steals the harp that plays music by itself, so he’s a thief also. When he climbs down the beanstalk, the giant chases after him — why? Because the giant is a bad guy? No, he’s the victim of a thief! Why is he bad? Because he’s taller than other people? He’s a giant! As the giant chases down the beanstalk after Jack, Jack chops down the beanstalk and commits murder! And Jack is supposed to be the good guy!

“The Heels of History.” One day a week. When I had trouble writing a story, all I had to do was convert one of these fables.

Finally, I read somewhere that if you wrote a movie, you would be paid $1,000 a week. I set up a meeting with a producer at Universal, whose name was George Waggner with two g’s. He said to me, “Yeah, yeah, as a matter of fact we need somebody right now to do a rewrite on a script. How are you at dialogue?” I said, “Great!” He said, “Well, all right. . . .” I said, “What’ll you pay?” He said, “What are you asking?” I said, “$1,000 a week.” He said, “I’ll call you back.” A week went by, he didn’t call. So I called him. He said, “Are you crazy! I’m the producer of the goddam movie and I get $200 a week! What do you mean $1,000 a week?!” I said, “What will you pay?” He said, “$100 a week.” I said, “I’ll take it!”

That was my first job. The picture was a rewrite of White Savage, with Maria Montez, Jon Hall, and Sabu. I worked about eight days and the job was over! I got paid $100 plus a day or two prorated, and they put my name on [the screen] as “additional dialogue.” I didn’t quit the job at NBC because I didn’t know how long this was going to last. A few months went by, and I got another job on a movie, Men of Texas [1942]. Then I worked on a serial, Don Winslow of the Coast Guard . They wouldn’t even let me sit at the writers’ table, because anybody who worked on serials wasn’t a writer to begin with. (Laughs .) Anyhow, this went on for almost a year.

ON HIS FIRST BIG BREAK AS A SCREENWRITER

Bogie had read The Brick Foxhole, and Bogie was very friendly with Mark Hellinger. He gave Hellinger the book to read. Hellinger wasn’t interested in making this kind of book into a movie. But he wrote me a letter, told me he liked the book, and told me if I ever got out alive, come out and see him, maybe we could work on a movie. I was determined to get out alive if I could. I did. I came to see him.

He gave me a play to read. A very good play, but I’ve forgotten what the name of it was [The Hero by Gilbert Emery]. He made it into a movie called Swell Guy [1946]. I wrote the screenplay for it. That’s how I came back to work [in Hollywood].

The second or third night I was back, we went to a restaurant owned by Preston Sturges. The Players Club. A real expensive restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, right near the Chateau Marmont — and that’s where I first met Betty and Bogie. Bogie told me things were a little tough for him. He had worked for seven years for Warner Brothers, playing George Raft’s brother-in-law, even after The Petrified Forest [1936], before he became a star. High Sierra [1941] and The Maltese Falcon [1941] didn’t make him a star. Casablanca [1942] made him a star, after all those years. He was very funny [about it].

Anyway, that’s where I first met Bogie and that’s where I began with Mark. As a matter of fact, after Swell Guy I worked on another movie for Hellinger, called Brute Force [1947], a prison picture, and I had been working on that a month or two when he said, “Hold it. I was just up to meet Hemingway and I bought a short story from him. You ever read The Killers?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Good story?” I said, “Yeah, terrific.” He said, “Well, it’s five, seven pages long, something like that. Two guys come into a town, they go to a diner, they make some jokes, and then they go look for the Swede to kill him. So, what’s the story?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “Well, write a story. If you’ll write the story, John Huston, who is in the Aleutians just finishing up — he’s gonna be discharged any day now — will write the screenplay.”

So I stopped working on the prison picture to write a story. I went up to see Hemingway in Idaho just to find out if he knew something more about the story that was not in the story. I said, “Why do the two guys come in to kill the Swede?” “How the hell do I know?” he said. “That’s all you got to say?” I said. “That’s all I got to say,” he said.

I went back to newspapers. I spent a week, I guess, looking up old newspapers and magazines until I came across a story about the holdup of an ice factory. A bunch of guys had robbed the joint of a payroll, and sped out of the factory in a car with the top down, heading the hell out of town, the police chasing them. The police caught the car with three, four guys in it, but there was no money. The guy who had the money was a former boxer who had run across the street and hid the money (in a suitcase) in a pushcart. That was the story in the paper.

Based on that, I wrote a story like in the old days at Universal, except that we invented a character who was an insurance inspector. The insurance company will have to pay back the money to the factory and they don’t want to; what they want is to find whoever the hell did it! That was the Eddie O’Brien character.

When the killers do come to get the money, some of it is gone — because the Burt Lancaster character had become involved with a girl. That was [to be] Ava Gardner’s first leading role. Up to that time she’d played a girl who sat around while the Marx Brothers made jokes! Or something like that.

I sent it off to Hellinger, he sent it off to John, and John wrote the screenplay. While we were shooting the movie, Mark said to me, “I’m not going to be able to put your name on the screen.” I said, “Okay, that’s all right.”

He said, “I want you to know why. How’s it gonna look, ‘Story by Hemingway and Brooks’? Who the hell is Brooks? Nobody knows Brooks!” I said, “Hey, Mark, it’s all right!”

He said, “Just so you don’t feel too bad, I can’t put John’s name on it either.” I said, “Why not?” He said, “Well, John’s still under contract to Warner Brothers. You know how it is when you’re under contract to a studio? You’re on a seven-year contract, you go to war for three or four years, that don’t count! You still owe them three years! So we can’t put John’s name on it.”[*]

The screenplay [The Killers, 1946] was nominated as one of the best screenplays of the year, and the night of the awards we were sitting in Mark’s house in his bar. I was sitting on the floor listening to the radio and drinking. Mark was pretty good with the bottle. I said to John, “Suppose the damned thing wins. Who picks up the award? . . . How is that gonna make you feel?” John thought about it for a moment or two and said, “Well, kid, let’s pray it loses.” (Laughs .) John was terrific. It lost. Saved us that embarrassment.

ON HOW HE CAME TO MAKE THE MOVIE “ELMER GANTRY”

I’ll tell you a story about Sinclair Lewis. When I read the review of my book [The Brick Foxhole ] in Esquire magazine, I wrote Mr. Lewis a letter and thanked him. He wrote back a letter on the back of my letter because he didn’t waste a page. He said, “If you ever get to New York, give me a call, I’ll buy you a drink. . . .” About two or three months later, I got a pass to New York and I phoned. He said, “I’ll meet you at the Astor bar.” He came. We went inside. He wanted to know what I did in the Marine Corps. I said, “I’m in the photographic section.” He said, “Oh, well, at least that’s not dangerous.” I said, “We lose more people than the infantry because somebody has to be on the fucking beach when they come in. How do you think the pictures get taken?”

He said, “Do you make movies?” I said, “Well, of a kind. There’s a book of yours I’d like to do one day.” He said, “Which one is that?” I said, “Elmer Gantry .” He said, “You liked that book?” I said, “Yeah, it’s an interesting story about America today.” He said, “Well, if you ever do it, make sure you read all the criticisms that have been printed. Some of them are very harsh, some are pretty good. The toughest of them all was [H. L.] Mencken. Mencken and I have been fighting for years. We disagree about everything, but he’s good, and he was rough on the story. Read it, read them all. Maybe that’ll help you.”

He added, “There’s only one real word of advice I have to give you. If you ever do make this into a movie, make a movie, don’t make a book.”

So with the money I got from The Brick Foxhole I took a first option on the book [Elmer Gantry ]. I kept taking options every year for eleven years. It was $2,000 an option. The book finally cost [me] $25,000 or thereabouts.

[After the filming,] I was called to New York to talk to the Catholic Legion of Decency, which made out the list of movies that Catholics were not supposed to see. I had to go to Madison Avenue, someplace around 51st, in Manhattan, where the cardinal lived, to talk to three Jesuits about the end of the movie.

They liked everything but the ending. Gantry turns down the job of running the new tabernacle by quoting from the Bible, “When I was a child I spake as a child and I thought as a child, but now that I’m a man I have put aside childish things.” And Gantry walks away down the pier. . . .

The newspaper guy says, “See you around, brother!” Gantry stops, glances over his shoulder and says, with a smile and a wave, “See you in hell, brother.” That was the end of the movie. They asked me, “Why does he say that? That’s what we object to.”

Three days [we talked] — they were good. These Jesuits were good! They could dance around on the head of a pin for hours! “Why did you write this? Why did you want to do this story to begin with?” They questioned all parts of it; they didn’t want to take anything out, just those last two lines. Not even two, the last one. Lancaster was calling on the phone, saying, “What do they want?” I said, “They just want to take out the last two lines.” He said, “Well, take them out for chrissakes!”

I was fascinated by them; I couldn’t stay away from these three guys in this room who were like Talmudic teachers.

It got to this point, which shows you the humor and wit of the Jesuits.

Finally I said to the monsignor, “Well, sir, obviously you know a great deal more about religion and the formal teaching of religion than I do. I concede that you are probably right. I’ll do what you want. We’ll remove the line. I’ll have to remove the line before it too, otherwise it doesn’t make much sense. He’ll just walk away on a pier and that’s it.” They said, “Now, wait a minute. We didn’t tell you that you have to do anything. We’re just telling you that we cannot approve the movie.” I said, “However you want to put it, I’ll take it out. I’m not knowledgeable enough to dispute it with you anymore.” And the monsignor says, “Be careful, Mr. Brooks. Such humility has no humility.” I’ll never forget it. The very last word was still on the head of a pin!

ON WHY TRUMAN CAPOTE CHOSE BROOKS TO MAKE “IN COLD BLOOD”

Truman and I went for a walk on the cold streets near the United Nations building. We stopped for a drink at a little diner on Second or Third Street. It was near where Monty Clift used to live. We were having a drink. I said, “Truman, why did you want me to do the picture?” He said, “You’ll be surprised. I don’t know if you’ll remember it, even. It all began in London. I was working on the story with Bogie and Lollobrigida, Beat the Devil [1954]. John [Huston] was doing that picture and when the picture was finished, John threw a dinner at the White Elephant restaurant. Do you remember that night?”

I guess you can gather by now that I love John Huston, not only respect him, but love him. He can be a great, terrific, generous man, with everything he has — everything! He’ll share anything with you except his women. Money, time, whatever, he’ll share. But John can also be a hard man.

[That night] Peter Viertel was there and Ray Bradbury was there and the whole cast was there, Bogie and Betty and Lollobrigida and her husband, the doctor [Yugoslavian-born physician Drago Milko Skofic], and Capote. John was in a foul mood. I don’t know why. He started in [on Ray Bradbury], saying, “Now there’s Ray Bradbury.” — Ray was working for him doing the screenplay on Moby Dick [1956] — “Now, Ray writes all these stories about Mars and interplanetary travel, but did you know I was going to take Ray over to Paris with me one weekend” — John had a girlfriend in Paris — “ and Ray said — how did you put it, Ray?” — and Ray is beginning to cry — “Ray said to me, ‘I don’t fly, I don’t even drive a car, Mr. Huston.’ Isn’t that right, Ray? The fella who writes all about missiles, going to Mars and Venus and all of these other planets, he doesn’t drive!” By that time Bradbury is weeping. We took him outside — he was staying at the Dorchester Hotel, which was two blocks away from the White Elephant. Peter walked him to the hotel. I went back in the restaurant.

By this time John had gone after Lollobrigida. “And now we have Miss Lollobrigida . . .” — she’s already beginning to cry before he says anything. He starts in on her husband. “What’s your name, doctor? What kind of doctor are you, doctor? . . .” And he goes on like that, around the table. Bogie: “Can’t wait to get back to your boat, can you, Bogie?” Betty said, “Hell, John, you know we all have our weaknesses.” And John said: “Except some of us have more than others! How about you, Betty? . . .” Now she was in tears, she got up and left the table. He had gone around the table by now and he started in on Capote. Capote was already crying for the other people, let alone for himself.

Finally he got to me. “Well now, here we have the heretic. Here we have the great maverick. This man never wore a suit, I mean a whole suit! Isn’t that right? Now, he’s got a foreign car, an MG, haven’t you, Richard? Pretty soon you’re going to have a swimming pool, I hear. A pool, right?” I said, “Well, that’s what they say.” He said, “All these columnists out in Hollywood that you think are phoney. Now you are being quoted by them, aren’t you? . . .”

So it went, that evening. A dreadful, disastrous, tear-soaked evening.

Here I was listening to this story as Capote was rehashing it, and I said, “Yes, I remember that evening. What’s that got to do with why you wanted me to do the picture?” He said, “You’re the only guy in the room who didn’t cry.” I said, “That’s why?” He said, “That’s right. You didn’t rage, you didn’t hit him, you didn’t cry. That’s the man I wanted to do this film.”

ON HOW SCREENWRITERS WORKED TOGETHER

Screenwriters were always getting together someplace — in those days, 1,000 percent more than now. Nowadays, screenwriters never get together unless they accidentally fall over each other somewhere. But in those days there was a screenwriters’ table at each studio. There was a directors’ table, a producers’ table, and as for actors, they ate everywhere. But screenwriters would have discussions mostly about the horrors they had run into from producers or studios.

However, the difference was, I could call Clifford Odets and say, “Gee, I got a problem with this story,” and we could talk about it. And Odets felt the same way. At the time he was doing the play The Country Girl, I was on my way to Europe to look for locations for something, and he came to see me at my hotel. I read his play during the day and then we took a long walk, all the way to Harlem. “What do you think?” he asked me. I said, “Terrific play.” He asked, “Any thoughts on it?” I said, “Only one, but I don’t think it’s important.” He said, “What is it?” I said, “I don’t know why the Wife is still trying to make him a successful actor. He’s a drunk. She knows it. She’s had a bad time with this bum for such a long time. Why does she stay with him? Why is she trying to make him a star? Why didn’t she leave him a couple of years ago?” He said, “Because she loves him.” I said, “Bullshit. I don’t believe it.” Now, I’m John Huston. (Laughs .)

“What don’t you believe?” he asked. I said, “I don’t believe that one partner stays with another out of love when either one is a drunk. I don’t believe it.” He’said, “Why do you think she should stay with him?” I said, “She stays with him because she wants him to become a star on Broadway again, so that she can leave him. She can’t leave him when he needs her. She doesn’t love him, but she can’t leave him.” He said, “That’s not bad. Let’s talk about it.” So we walked back to Harlem. And he included that in the play.

With some people you could talk theory, but it wasn’t college film-class discussions about theory. More likely you would meet with a writer and say, “I have a problem. I can’t make this thing work.” You could talk with a writer or a group of writers without being afraid that someone was going to steal your idea and get it on TV before you were able to finish it. There was a different feeling among writers at that time.

ON NARRATIVE THEMES IMPORTANT TO BROOKS

Pieces of the movies are part of me. There is a bit of all of us in the movies that we make. Lord Jim. Gantry is half me. That minute-and-a-half speech about what is evangelism — that’s me. Bite the Bullet was my love poem to America. I love those people and the beauty of our country.

There are parts of me in most of the movies I worked on. Each of them reminds me of something close. I like the weak ones, the unsuccessful ones, sometimes as much as the others. Each one means a part of my life. Key Largo means as much to me as any movie I’ve ever seen or made! All the experiences I had on it. That’s what made me a director — that movie.

Maybe some kid beat the shit out of me when I was a kid and I wanted another shot at him. Maybe I was humiliated by some employer somewhere, at a garage or a factory or wherever the hell I was working, and though I knew what I should have said to him, I didn’t say it. Maybe I failed in times and places where nobody else knew about it at all except myself. That story was very close to me but it’s a universal theme — of someone who is clean, but got himself dirty somehow, and now he is trying to wash it off.

The difference between man (and I mean “man” for men and women both) and all the other animals in the world is that other animals can know hunger, fear, pain, but they know nothing about hope. Man does. That’s the big difference. That’s what makes man a different kind of animal. He knows about hope.

That’s what I try to put into a picture, even if it’s a bleak picture. That there is something worthwhile [to aspire to]. Sex is a tremendous drive, and love, but that is not enough. People have to care about each other, too. Then the picture means something. People care when someone reaches a hand out to someone. Then you begin to care about the movie, whether you know it or not.

ON HOW HE CAME TO WRITE VISUALLY

I think I always did [think and write visually], though not to the extent that you eventually develop this art. It seemed to come quite easily to me. I remember when I was in school, the only place we could get books was in the library. Nobody bought books, unless it was a Dick Merriwell, which only cost fifteen cents or so. One time I went to the library to get a Tarzan story; I saw a book which I thought from its title was a Tarzan book. I took it to the lady [at the checkout] holding the pencil with a rubber stamp on the end of it. She said, “You sure you want this book?” I said, “Yeah.” She stamped the book and I took it home.

It was called The Hairy Ape [by Eugene O’Neill]. I opened the book. Why, there was a name in the center of the page and underneath the name was what [that person] said — it was a play! The Hairy Ape ! I was about eight years old and I’d never seen a play form before. I said to myself, “That’s the way to write something. You leave out all those ‘he saids,’ ‘she saids.’ It’s not telling you what they’re thinking . It’s telling you what they’re saying and what they’re doing. That’s pretty good. How long has this been going on?”

Back I went to the library and I said, “You got any more of these things?” She said, “Like what?” I said, “Where they talk like that.” She said, “Well, don’t you know, that’s a play! That’s not a novel! Would you like to see more of those?” I said, “Yeah.” And she introduced me to the play department.

That was the first time I ever realized there was another kind of writing. Matter of fact, when I came to MGM, doing my first work there, I wrote the screenplay in the form of a play. At that time the script form consisted of the page divided — the action on one side, the dialogue on the other. I said, “I can’t read it.” The importance was inverted. The most important thing was the action, and the dialogue went from side to side, the action was sort of in the center, but you couldn’t figure out where the dialogue fitted! I was always looking in the center for the dialogue.

Mr. Mayer’s office sent a man down who said to me, “What are you doing? You’re not writing the screenplay the way it’s supposed to be written. Nobody can read it up there!” I said, “But I can read it down here! I’m going to have to shoot it, so I’ve got to write it the way I see it.” So from the beginning really, I wrote this way, based on seeing things in these books which are written with an eye to the image. . . .

Tell the story. I may stop somewhere and give some information to the cameraman. I may stop and add a parenthetical remark that has to do with special effects. But most of the time, I don’t even do that.

ON HUMANISM IN HIS MOVIES

Is it not interesting that Cagney would kill twenty-two guys in a movie and you could still love him? Why? That wasn’t just his personality. There was something built into those stories. It had to do not only with the glamor and excitement of a gangster; it had to do also with what made him a gangster in the first place. It had to do with the psychological background [of the character], where and how he grew up.

Why do the blacks look with such hatred on somebody who walks through their neighborhood if he is white? They haven’t approached the answer yet in [film] stories, or very rarely. The big, successful pictures with blacks in them have blacks in them who are not really black. They’re really white guys. They don’t have any danger in their eyes. But if you go into Harlem or downtown here [Los Angeles] on the south side, and you see those kids standing in the school yard around the basketball hoop, you have to ask yourself, “Do they stand there every day? How long do they stand there? Why are they there? Do they think that the world is really made of basketball?”

A lot of Caucasians would say, “Well, why don’t they get a job?” But that’s the problem: they can’t get a job. If they had a job where they could earn money, maybe they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. Today, you have stories about black pimps — it seems that all blacks play pimps, with the exception of Sidney Poitier and [Bill] Cosby. But you don’t have that kind of psychological background for those characters. They used to do that [sort of thing] in the early days at Warners. You don’t do that with close-ups. You do that with story.

Humanism is not in the texture of movies anymore — it’s not in the writing of the movies; it’s not in the making of the movies; it’s not in the playing.

ON HIS WRITING HABITS

Whenever I can. All the time. I write in toilets, on planes, when I’m walking, when I stop the car. I make notes.

If I am working at a studio, I work at the studio in the morning, then come home. I am really writing two days instead of one. After the studio, I have my second day [at home]. I write whenever I can.

I only sleep two or three hours a day, so I’m writing all the time. I make notes wherever I can make them.

Let me show you what I do with a good book — a book that there is a good possibility for making a movie out of — how I break the book down.

I write an outline of the book. It’s like a dictionary of the book. What is its structure? Who does what when? Is there a flashback? If so, then I may make a note of two words in the margin, forty or fifty times throughout the book: “How Dram?” meaning, how do you dramatize this? For example, somebody’s thinking about something, or the author is talking about something — how do you dramatize it?

I have no special feeling about it. Whatever. But it’s easier to adapt in the sense that it already has a structure; because a movie is structure. I can make a movie with half-assed camerawork, or with actors who are not quite up to par, or with composition that misses, and the picture may still work because of good structure. But if the structure is not right, you can have forty great scenes in a movie and still have no movie. Structure is the beginning and end of a movie.

ON WRITING BEING INVOLVED IN EVERY PART OF MAKING A MOVIE

Everything connected with movies is a form of writing. Directing and editing — and there is even another step after that, which is the music — are a form of writing. Writing a script is about people, not about the camera. The camera comes later! If I were to compare it with a painting, the writing of it is the idea: What are you going to put on the canvas? You make little pencil marks for composition, you think about color and subject material — that’s the writing. When you pick up the brush, that’s when you begin to direct. From that moment on, it’s technique. Directing is an extension of writing.

The real hard part about the writing is when you’re alone and you have to fill that page — and not just fill it. I hear all the sounds: the opening and closing of doors, the traffic, the music, the voices. I feel the pain [of the characters]. . . .

There’s a big difference, in my opinion, between movies and the spoken and/or written word. It seems to me that when you read something — a book, newspaper, whatever — before you can understand it, the primary emotion has to be intellectual, because first of all it must go through the brain. You have to translate whatever has been written. Same with the stage — it’s all one master shot. You do the editing with your eyes, but to hear the words and understand the words and translate the words, it first has to go through your mind. The first reaction is intellectual. The second may be emotional, if the words are put together skillfully.

With movies, it’s my opinion that the opposite is the case, because movies are images, and you don’t have to hear the words. I could ask you about your favorite movie right now, and unless it came from a stage play, I would doubt that you could remember any lines from it. You can remember that you saw the movie, you can remember moments . You can remember Bette Davis walking up the stairs to die in Dark Victory [1939], but I doubt if you can remember what she says, if anything. The images come first, and with images, like music, the primary reaction is emotional. If the images are put together expertly, you may get an intellectual reaction after that. It helps to have good dialogue, too — it helps at the moment you are watching the movie — but the effect has to be orchestral.

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