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THE SCREEN WRITER
earn his directing credit as much for the thought he gives to the picture before it reaches the floor as for what he does once shooting has begun.
In any case, only the screenwriter knows how often
a director has been acclaimed by the critics for this or that clever touch which could be traced back, did they but know it, to an inspiration that emerged originally from his own typewriter!
The Editorial Committee, having formally apologized to Mr. Joseph L. Mankiewicz for deleting material from his article, "Film Author! Film Author!" in the May, 1947 issue of THE SCREEN WRITER ivithout first consulting him, herewith supplies the missing portions of his text. In presenting his opinion that there is an urgent need for the Hollywood screenwriter to dedicate himself to a study of his craft, Mr. Mankiewicz stated:
! A RE1V l\ polit
political utterances at the time were unfortunately of a nature which made everything he said seem equally wrong — but he was never closer to right, unhappily, than when he branded most Hollywood screen writers as 'Mechanics.' He was wrong, of course, in one important aspect. When a mechanic shows a union card, you can be pretty sure he knows his craft. The possession of a paid up SWG card has never offered any assurance that the bearer could write a screen play. Nor, apparently, is it intended to carry the assurance that he can write anything else. At a recent meeting, a suggestion — offered with some timidity — that returning veteran screen writers write original stories and screen plays, was greeted with catcalls and hoots of derision. As if it
were ingenuous to the point of infantilism to suggest that a writer make his living by writing.
"Similarly at the same meeting, and others before and since, there could be noticed the growing manifestations of what seems to be a new SWG faith. A strange belief, comforting for many and frightening for a few, that the screen writer will advance in importance and authority not in relation to his knowledge of his particular craft and his individual skill in it, but by a series of fevered mass resolutions and statements of policy that are periodically moved, seconded, passed and carried to the morning papers. These writings may well be a joint credit for Tom Paine, John Brown and Uncle Tom; they cover all the colors of the political spectrum; they attack, defend and propound local, national and international economics on a global front ; they have to do with everything under the sun but screen writing. It seems to some of us that screen writing could also become a concern of the Screen Writers' Guild."
"It would be edifying, for example, to have a public reading — before a full Guild membership lured together by some provocative political bait — of the complete list of original screen plays submitted by the American screen writer for Academy Award consideration."
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