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The many laughs of a script writer By Teet Carle HERE’S COMEDY NOSTALGIA - Mac Benoff (center) is shown with some of the comedy stars for whom he wrote radio and TV material. That’s a lot of laugh talent in one group. Of course the chaps are George Jessel, George Burns, Eddie Cantor and Jack Benny. t Among the many changes on the Hollywood scene in the past few years is the emergence into the spotlight of the screen writer. Where heretofore only the producers and directors joined actors for curtain calls, now the screen writers, too, are taking bows. It’s the age of relevance. The public, at last, has become aware that the glamour guys (actors, directors, producers) start with something called a script. Now, when a movie is good, ticket buyers want the writer to step up front. So, as the limelight moves to the scripter, one of a strange breed stands up to be counted. Once, the writer actually preferred to communicate exclusively with other scribes, establishing a rhapsodical, madcap world for himself. Rarely did the “plot guy” allow anyone inside his world to observe or chronicle what he said or did, even though a hilarious play and movie titled “Boy Meets Girl,” put the microscope onto a pair of screen scripters. Mac Benoff is an excellent specimen of the breed. Because he wrote the screenplay for Stanley Kramer’s “Bless the Beasts and Children,” he has been pulled out of the comforts of his office at home by inquisitive folks. Inasmuch as the movie is controversial, many people are curious about the man who wrote it. The story concerns some youngsters who attempt to thwart an organized hunt group from exterminating a buffalo herd. It probes motives and explores man’s behavior toward his fellow men. Benoff, one of today’s top comedy writers for television, toiled at major studios during the years when most writers lived in anonymity. He went to work in a studio in the early 1940s. It has been 23 years between his “Bless the Beasts and Children” and his previous script for a movie. In the interim, Benoff has written scores of television shows and a few plays. The way he returned to movie writing is highly interesting. He explains, “I read that Stanley Kramer had bought the novel, ‘Bless the Beasts and Children,’ which I had liked. In blissful ignorance of today’s mode of manuevering, I telephoned Kramer and talked spiritedly about how the story might emerge on the screen. He said, ‘Working on the project might interest you, at that. But I couldn’t make a deal with you. You have no agent.’ I told him, ‘You be my agent,’ and the deal was set. That, of course, is a far cry from the ways of operating during the days of the movie factory. Then, an agent got each client a 9 to 5 job in a studio. For better or for worse, the old days had charm and bushels of laughs, Benoff admits. To begin with, writers classified all studios as one would rate restaurants today. “The ratings pertained to everything but the quality of product,” he says. “Warners had tennis courts, Paramount great secretaries in the steno pool, Metro grand offices, Fox a pleasant .atmosphere and plush commissary, and Columbia had Harry Cohn, who was difficult to work for 7