Movie writers -- Garbo
Movie writers. . .not screenwriters (the people who write the movies) but writers (real and fictitious) in the movies, as characters:
Every job is more interesting and more glamorous when a character does it in the movies, isn't it? If you've ever spun dough in a pizza parlor, or tried to stay awake during an overnight shift behind a hotel check-in desk, or spent an entire day revising a 600-word article for which you got fifty bucks and two copies of the newsprint magazine, you know Hollywood makes almost any career look intriguing and full of drama and/or comedy.
Happily, I don't need a realistic depiction of the writing life to make a film enjoyable. Here are some of my favorite "writer movies":
In 1977, Jane Fonda played Lillian Hellmann in "Julia."
The summer I saw the movie, I was working on my first novel (originally called Tutti-Fruitti, later retitled Olé, Baby) and the heat and humidity in my apartment were nearly unbearable. My typewriter's carriage return didn't work properly, and I used a string tied to the carriage-return lever to move down the page. My "desk" was a homemade plank table next to the bedroom window, and when the carriage return lever-string failed me yet again, I imitated a scene in "Julia" by tossing my malfuncting Sears portable out the unscreened window. Very satisfying for a moment. Then of course I had to go out the front door and around to the side yard to get the darn thing. I don't remember it working any worse after being hurled onto the lawn.
One of my favorite movies from the 1990s stars Jeremy Piven (who I knew as a bookstore clerk on the sitcom "Ellen"). In "Just Write," Piven plays a man who works for his father, conducting bus tours of Hollywood.
Piven's character is surrounded by people who are super-supportive and urge him to quit the family business. His encouragers include (evenutally) his father. At the time I saw "Just Write," I was struggling in life, trying to fit writing in among my many responsibilities. I loved the idea of all these people urging someone they cared about to do what they really wanted to do.
I've never supported myself entirely by writing, but I over the years I did bring in a steady stream of side income. Very little of it was earned through creative writing. The work that paid was newspaper and magazine stuff. Everyday journalism was part of my life for decades.
Who doesn't love the most-fun journalism film ever, 1931's "The Front Page"? I have good news (as it were). If, like me, you are used to watching spliced-together, faded prints from reels used too many times on local TV "Moonlight Matinee" programs, you'll appreciate this wonderrful restored version --it's on YouTube, for free!
To finish up today, here are Bette Davis and George Brent doing a little skit for a studio trailer. 1935's "Front Page Woman," in which Bette plays an advice columnist who begins to use her typewriter to turn out crime reporting isn't a great movie, but the trailer is really fun.
Every job is more interesting and more glamorous when a character does it in the movies, isn't it? If you've ever spun dough in a pizza parlor, or tried to stay awake during an overnight shift behind a hotel check-in desk, or spent an entire day revising a 600-word article for which you got fifty bucks and two copies of the newsprint magazine, you know Hollywood makes almost any career look intriguing and full of drama and/or comedy.
Happily, I don't need a realistic depiction of the writing life to make a film enjoyable. Here are some of my favorite "writer movies":
In 1977, Jane Fonda played Lillian Hellmann in "Julia."
The summer I saw the movie, I was working on my first novel (originally called Tutti-Fruitti, later retitled Olé, Baby) and the heat and humidity in my apartment were nearly unbearable. My typewriter's carriage return didn't work properly, and I used a string tied to the carriage-return lever to move down the page. My "desk" was a homemade plank table next to the bedroom window, and when the carriage return lever-string failed me yet again, I imitated a scene in "Julia" by tossing my malfuncting Sears portable out the unscreened window. Very satisfying for a moment. Then of course I had to go out the front door and around to the side yard to get the darn thing. I don't remember it working any worse after being hurled onto the lawn.
***
One of my favorite movies from the 1990s stars Jeremy Piven (who I knew as a bookstore clerk on the sitcom "Ellen"). In "Just Write," Piven plays a man who works for his father, conducting bus tours of Hollywood.
Piven's character is surrounded by people who are super-supportive and urge him to quit the family business. His encouragers include (evenutally) his father. At the time I saw "Just Write," I was struggling in life, trying to fit writing in among my many responsibilities. I loved the idea of all these people urging someone they cared about to do what they really wanted to do.
***
I've never supported myself entirely by writing, but I over the years I did bring in a steady stream of side income. Very little of it was earned through creative writing. The work that paid was newspaper and magazine stuff. Everyday journalism was part of my life for decades.
Who doesn't love the most-fun journalism film ever, 1931's "The Front Page"? I have good news (as it were). If, like me, you are used to watching spliced-together, faded prints from reels used too many times on local TV "Moonlight Matinee" programs, you'll appreciate this wonderrful restored version --it's on YouTube, for free!
To finish up today, here are Bette Davis and George Brent doing a little skit for a studio trailer. 1935's "Front Page Woman," in which Bette plays an advice columnist who begins to use her typewriter to turn out crime reporting isn't a great movie, but the trailer is really fun.
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| Garbo |
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