What was Hollywood’s first spec script?

In 1967, William Goldman wrote and sold Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for a reported $400,000. While we may consider it the first spec script of the contemporary era, it is not Hollywood’s first.

The 1942 movie Woman of the Year is often cited as the first spec script, but not if you believe Katherine Hepburn who claims she passed along an outline written by Garson Kanin to MGM who bought it for $250,000 — half for the story rights, half for Hepburn to appear in the movie.

No, as best I can tell, the very first spec script to sell in Hollywood was The Power and the Glory by Preston Sturgess. Per Wikipedia:

He also sold his original screenplay for The Power and the Glory (1933) to Fox, where it was filmed as a vehicle for Spencer Tracy. The film told the story of a self-involved financier via a series of flashbacks and flashforwards, and was an acknowledged source of inspiration for the screenwriters of Citizen Kane. Fox producer Jesse Lasky paid Sturges $17,500 plus a percentage of the profits, a then-unprecedented deal for a screenwriter, which instantly elevated Sturges’ reputation in Hollywood — although the lucrative deal irritated as many as it impressed. Sturges later recalled, “The film made a lot of enemies. Writers at that time worked in teams, like piano movers. And my first solo script was considered a distinct menace to the profession.”

This historical footnote is supported by Sturges’ son Sandy who created this overview of his father’s life and career. Under the heading 1933, he writes this:

• Sells original screenplay, The Power and the Glory, to Fox.
• Writes original screenplay, The Great McGinty. No takers.

So in fact, Sturges not only wrote and sold the first spec script in Hollywood, he was also wrote the first spec script not to sell.

Not immediately. In 1939, he sold The Great McGinty to Paramount for $1 [later bumped up to $10 for legal reasons] to allow him to direct the movie.

To acknowledge Sturges’ role in the history of the spec script in Hollywood, here is a clip from the movie The Power and the Glory. Pay special attention at the :30 mark in the credits where it reads “Original Screenplay by Preston Sturges”.

And here’s to you in hopes you may join the ranks of those writers who have sold an original screenplay to Hollywood.