Oscar Profile #423: Ben Hecht

Born February 28, 1894 in New York City, Ben Hecht was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. At ten, he was considered a child prodigy on his way to becoming a violin virtuoso but at 12 he became an acrobat in the circus.

The family moved to Racine, Wisconsin where Hecht attended high school. He would spend his teen summers with an uncle in Chicago and moved there permanently after graduation at the age of 16. He became a reporter, working for several newspapers, and at the end of World War I was sent to Berlin as a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. While there he wrote his first and most successful novel, Erik Dorn in 1921. Meanwhile, he had also become a successful playwright with his first play, The Hero of Santa Maria which opened on Broadway in 1916. The Egotist appeared in 1919 and The Stork in 1925. By the time The Front Page opened in 1928 he had already received his first on-screen credit for 1927’s Underworld for which he would win an Oscar when the first Academy Awards for 1927/28 were presented in 1929.

The Front Page made it to the screen in 1931. The following year his Twentieth Century opened on Broadway, which along with The Front Page has remained one of the most enduring American plays to be frequently revived on Broadway.

Hecht’s 165 credits for writing are a testament to his reputation as not only one of the most prolific writers in film history but also one of the best uncredited contributors to numerous screenplays. Among his credited stories and/or screenplays are 1932’s Scarface, 1933’s Topaze and Design for Living, 1934’s Viva Villa! , 1935’s Barbary Coast, 1939’s Gunga Din and Wuthering Heights, 1942’s The Black Swan, 1945’s Spellbound, 1946’s Notorious, 1947’s Kiss of Death and Ride the Pink Horse, 1954’s Ulysses, 1956’s Miracle in the Rain, 1957’s A Farewell to Arms and 1964’s Circus World.

Among those screenplays for which Hecht contributed uncredited work are 1932’s Back Street and Rasputin and the Empress, 1933’s Queen Christina, 1937’s A Star Is Born, The Prisoner of Zenda and The Hurricane, 1938’s Angels with Dirty Faces, 1939’s Stagecoach and Gone with the Wind, 1940’s The Shop Around the Corner, His Girl Friday and Foreign Correspondent, 1942’s Roxie Hart, 1944’s Lifeboat, 1946’s Gilda, 1948’s Rope and Portrait of Jennie, 1950’s Edge of Doom and September Affair, 1952’s Hans Christian Andersen, 1953’s Angel Face, 1955’s The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, 1956’s Trapeze 1960’s North to Alaska, 1963’s Cleopatra and 1967’s Casino Royale.

Ben Hecht died April 18, 1964 at 70. His semi-biographical 1963 novel, Gaily, Gaily about his early days in the newspaper business was made into an Oscar nominated film in 1969.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE FRONT PAGE (1931), directed by Lewis Milestone

The Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur classic newspaper story had fallen into public domain with many poor copies taken from the international release of the film. It was restored from its long unseen original US release print for inclusion in Criterion’s Blu-ray release of the 1940 remake, His Girl Friday complete with Adolphe Menjou’s final line, “the son-of-a-bitch stole my watch” which had been excised from the film at the dawn of the production code a few years after the film’s release. It had been nominated for three Oscars including Best Picture, Director and Actor for Menjou as the editor opposite Pat O’Brien as his star reporter.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939), directed by William Wyler

Hecht and MacArthur received one of the film’s 8 Oscar nominations for their adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic novel. The film, which only covers the first half of the novel, was also nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Laurence Olivier), Supporting Actress (Geraldine Fitzgerald), Art Direction, Score and cinematography (Gregg Toland) which accounted for its only win. The film had previously won the New York Film Critics award for Best Picture, breaking a tie between initial front-runners Gone with the Wind, for which Hecht had a hand in the script, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

NOTORIOUS (1946), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Hecht received his sixth and final Oscar nomination for his beautifully realized screenplay for the Hitchcock classic after contributing to the scripts for Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent and Lifeboat and receiving his first on-screen credit for the director’s Spellbound a year earlier. His was shockingly only one of two Oscar nominations for one of Hitchcock’s finest films which might also have been nominated for Best Picture, Actor (Cary Grant), Actress (Ingrid Bergman), Supporting Actress (Leopoldine Konstantin), Cinematography, Art Direction and Score.

MONKEY BUSINESS (1952), directed by Howard Hawks

Hecht’s collaborations with director Howard Hawks go back to 1932’s Scarface and Hawks’ 1934 film of Hecht’s 1932 Broadway comedy, Twentieth Century, one of the first screwball comedies, of which Monkey Business about a chemist’s accidental discovery of the fountain of youth was one of the last. The film failed to receive any Oscar nominations, its only awards recognition coming from a Golden Globe nomination for Ginger Rogers as the chemist’s wife for Best Actress – Comedy or Musical. Cary Grant played the chemist with Charles Coburn as his boss and Marilyn Monroe as Coburn’s secretary.

GAILY, GAILY (1969), directed by Norman Jewison

Based on Hecht’s 1963 semi-autobiographical novel, this zany comedy was a career breakthrough for Beau Bridges as the aspiring writer. Nominated for 3 Oscars (Art Direction, Costume Design and Sound), Brain Keith was a runner-up for the New York Film critics award for Best Supporting Actor as the alcoholic reporter who becomes his mentor. Melina Mercouri, in one of her most memorable Hollywood roles, plays the madam of the house of ill repute Bridges calls home. Margot Kidder, in her film debut, is the young prostitute who helps him on his way to manhood. Hume Cronyn, George Kennedy and Wilfrid Hyde-White co-star.