Top Secret Affair: Movies about Writing

A lady publishing mogul in 1957! How shocking! Well, this is a comedy so I guess it was okay.

Susan Hayward is playing Dottie Peale, a magazine owner and editor who is angry that a family friend was passed over for a position in favor of Major General Melville Goodwin (Kirk Douglas). She and her team invite Mel to her home for an in-depth interview. In truth, she plans to use her journalism skills to dig up dirt about the general and publish a scathing expose complete with photographs. Mel is wise to her from the get-go, yet Dottie still gets him into some silly situations.

Despite Mel’s derogatory remarks (he compares women to poodles at one point), they fall in love. However, Mel is instantly ready to break it off just as Dottie is ready to give him a good article. She instead goes back to her scandal cover story and includes a top secret story that Mel told her in confidence. Mel changes his mind, wanting to marry Dottie, however, the magazine is about to run. This scandal ends up angering their readership and Dottie’s team tells her to apologize to Mel in the magazine. Oh, and there’s a Senate hearing over her printing classified stories.

At first, I thought his was going to be a story about how a woman journalist went to far because she was a woman. I kept waiting for more sexist remarks about how a woman shouldn’t run a magazine because she’s too emotional. Still, it’s pointed out that Dottie making rash decision and refusing to apologizing for her mistakes is not a “female issue”. Instead, it is established that she comes from a long line of family members with the same traits who all ran the magazine before her. The movie also brings up questions of interview ethics. Apparently, the words “off the record” didn’t exist yet. I agree that Dottie should have given up her place as publisher for not showing good judgement as a writer and journalist.

Come Live with Me: Movies about Writing

Let’s look at some scandalous behavior - 1941 style.

Johnny Jones (Heddy Lamarr) is an immigrant escaping Nazi occupied Austria. Barton Kendrick (Ian Hunter), her publisher boyfriend, is desperate to keep her in America, however he’s already married (gasp). By the way, how did this woman escape from Vienna DURING World War II. The real Heddy Lamarr got out before the war broke out. Johnny meets a broke writer, Bill Smith (Jimmy Stewart) and pays him to marry her so she can stay in the country. The exact amount is the bare minimum of his living and typewriter expenses and Bill plans on paying her back when the whole thing is over.

The arrangement is that once a week they meet up for her to pay him and he knows nothing else about her. Bill is instantly intrigued by their situation and starts typing it into a novel. Bill sends a carbon copy to every publisher in the city in a scene of him with pushing large packages into a mailbox. It looked exhausting.

Bart learns about this situation when his wife, Diana (Verree Teasdale - how’s that for a name) reviews Bill’s book for the publishing company. She gives him the summary, explaining how implausible it is and still needs an ending. Still, she’s confident that Bill’s writing is so strong that the book will sell.

Bart recognized the scenario and calls in Bill asking him where he got the idea of the story and why the character of the “other man” (who is Bart in reality) is not as well written. Bill states that the character is giving him a lot of trouble and hopes to write him out by the end of the novel. Bart debates the ending with Bill in front of Diana and gives away his affair. Diana also forces Bart to give Bill an $500 advance on his book. $500! Holy crap! Diana, I know you are realizing that you want Bill to get the girl so your husband doesn’t, but I still salute you.

Bart’s wife is really a key in his publishing business as she has more insight into public trends and what would ruin him. That having been said, he still cheats on her and is under the delusion that he’s successful on his own. Bill on the other hand has gifted kid syndrome. He’d been told he was a genius and feels like he has nothing to show for it. When he's working out the novel, he outlines each chapter with the questions he’d like to ask Johnny about her life. Realistically, Bill is working in his pajamas. I am currently doing the same. Respect, Bill. Respect.

My favorite scene is when the milkman asks Bill how the book is going. He told his wife the plot and she’s excited to read it, stating it will only be really good if the couple end up together. Bill admits that his characters aren’t together.

“What’s keepin em?” the milkman demands.

“The girl.” Bill states this after writing all night.

“Well, you’re never going to get no place if you let her act like that!”

SPOILERS

Bill refuses to to divorce Johnny unless she comes on a trip with him. He uses the $500 advancement to take her to meet his grandmother and see where he grew up. She calls Bart to complain about being coerced into the trip so he can come rescue her. Of course, by the time Bart shows up, Johnny is having a good time and falling for her husband. Bill tells her that writing about her is why he’s successful now because he needed to write about his real feelings. Naturally, Bart shows up just as Johnny decides she wants to stay married to Bill. There a brief moment where Bill worries that his new writing success is not based on his own merit, but Bart admits that Diane said it was good and he always trusts her. It’s a good thing he goes back to his wife at the end or he wouldn’t have a publishing house any longer.

Somewhere in Time: Movies about Writing

My mom loves this movie, especially the soundtrack. Richard Matheson wrote the book this is based upon where the main character is also named Richard. This Richard is a playwright portrayed by Christopher Reeve who falls in love withe a 1912 photograph of actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour) while staying in a historic seaside hotel. Through this obsession, Richard manages to time travel and meet Elise, causing her to fall for him as well. Matheson based the idea on his youthful obsession with a photograph of Maude Adams, who he researched and based Elise upon (although I’m fairly certain that the real Maude Adams was gay).

The movie opens with Richard as a college student who is presented with a pocket watch from a mysterious elderly lady who pleads with him to “come back to her” at his first successful play. Years later, while going through a writing block on his latest work, Richard goes to a hotel as a way to jump start his brain and sees the photograph, discovering that Elise was who gave him the watch almost a decade earlier. He gets personal information from Elise’s biographer Ms. Roberts (Teresa Wright), discovering that after a final performance in 1912, Elise completely shut herself off from the rest of the world.

Richard manages to hypnotize himself back in time to meet Elise and her obsessive (this story has a lot of obsessive men) manager William Fawcett Robinson (Christopher Plummer). The somewhat psychic Robinson believes that Elise has a destiny on the stage and objects to the budding romance between the pair. Jane Seymour does a fantastic job as a comedic actress of the time and Plummer is creep in his high back chair sitting in the wings. I do like a scene where Richard watches the 1912 cast being criticized by their playwright, showing that nothing ever changes.

SPOILER ALERT: The couple are very happy for a time, making plans to marry and run away from Robinson. The manager tries to separate them and make Elise think Richard doesn’t love her. However, she is steadfast and leaves Robinson to find Richard. Just as their lives look to be content full of future plans, Richard comes across a 1970s coin in his pocket which breaks the hypnotism and sends him back to his own time.

Long story short - Richard never finishes his play. He throw away a successful career to SPOILER ALERT (again) slowly dies of a broken heart. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great movies but . . . In my opinion, I get that they are supposed to be a great love story, but he sort of ruined both of their lives. She spent the rest of her life pining for him and he died young pining for her. I supposed they meet again in the What Dreams May Come afterlife.

Written in the Stars: Movies about Writing

Why? Why did I watch this?

This is a Hallmark rip-off I found on the Roku Channel and decided to torture myself with. It does open with the lamentations of a struggling writer. Kelsey (Kimberly Crossman) is tired of just editing other people’s work at the magazine that pays her to do so. Finally, she convinces her boss to let her research and write about an upcoming meteor shower from the point of view of both those who believe in horoscopes and who can convince her to believe in fate. This pairs her with Carter (David de Lautour) and his super cute dog that she doesn’t even pet upon first meeting! The dog isn’t even in as much of this as he could be! She should’ve given him scritches! She does get to pet him later, but why don’t these screenwriters ever realize that the dog is the selling point for some of these movies. Oh what? I’m supposed to be invested in the romance? Do you not realize just how cute that dog is?

Kelsey’s best friend/co-worker Molly (JJ Bowman) go to a bed and breakfast near the meteor shower festival and, wouldn’t you know it, the place is run by Carter’s parents. His parents are great hosts. They give their guests cookies upon arrival. However, Carter is not keen on giving an interview. Kelsey is so determined to get the story, she starts stalking the poor guy. It turns out he doesn’t trust reporters due to a past butcher job article written about him and his brother’s astrology app in its start-up days. Oh and the reporter was his girlfriend at the time. He only agrees to help Kelsey because she gives him her sob story about wanting to be reporter and this is her first chance.

I don’t feel like I’m spoiling the movie if I tell you that this is a girl meets boys, girl loses boy (for eight minutes and fifteen seconds - I timed it), girl wins boy back story. There is an underlining plot about ethics in journalism and being upfront with your subject from the start. I’m just kidding. It doesn’t get that deep. Her boss just keeps telling her to make the article about disproving astrology and she is worried about hurting Carter. Realistically, she does have trouble writing the article and stays up late each night trying to get to 600 words. Naturally, Molly has been telling her repeatedly what a good writer she is, but Kelsey is more in awe of when Carter lists what makes her a good writer. You couldn’t believe your friend who is also a writer! You could only believe the hot due? Fine. She also gets praise from her boss when she turns in an article different from what he wanted. She is officially successful with opportunities to write more.

Some odd things I noticed in this film:

1. Kelsey’s last name is Graham. She’s Kelsey Graham, not Grammer, but come on!

2. There’s a sundial set up on a table. How will it give the proper time if people are sitting around it creating shadows.

3. This woman wears a lot of blazers. Blazer equals serious writer.

4. “The stars always include pizza”. The stars are bad for your health.

5. Carter has a super nice car that he’s trying to fix up. How did he get that from running an app about star signs?

6. Why do people in these movies always have a million outfits, but only bring one suitcase with them? I want their magic Mary Poppins suitcase.

7. There aren’t any more things I noticed. I got bored part way through and stopped paying as close of attention to the background.

Mad Holiday: Movies about Writing

In this 1936 who done it, an actor pigeonholed into playing Selby, a popular detective from a series of novels, has declared that he quits until an actual murder takes place on his vacation.

Phillip Trent (Edmund Lowe), the actor, is onboard a cruise ship when he runs into a over-excited blonde and a dead body. This encounter turns out to be a publicity stunt planned by his studio alongside the author of the Selby books, Peter Dean. Trent is ready to give Dean a piece of his mind as he finds the books as low-quality cash grabs, only to find that Dean is actually an attractive woman (Elissa Landi) who uses her grandfather’s picture on the back of the books. As she has a good laugh over the fake murder, the pair stumbles over a real murder. A wealthy man in possession of the priceless “dragon” diamond is found stabbed in Trent’s estate room.

And so a rather silly investigation begins. Donovan (Edgar Kennedy), the police sergeant on board, is fed up with Trent, Dean, and a cast of slapstick characters getting in his way. The party includes Williams, the dead man’s valet played by Edmund Gwenn - you know, Santa Claus, Morgan, a studio yes man onboard to build up publicity for the next Selby movie played by Ted Healy, Mrs. Kinney, a ridiculous fan of Trent’s played by Zasu Pitts who is often in the background with her dog and husband, and Li Tai, a Chinese heiress and wife of an Asian actor whose family used to own the diamond. And Li Tai is played by Soo Young, an actual Chinese American actress. Just don’t look too hard at her servant or you’ll be upset with Hollywood once again. Also, a very painful scene where the two leads attempt to do Asian accents.

I’m not going to give away the ending, but Dean as the author living out her books alongside the actor who brought them to life is pretty funny. She can’t help giggling every time the killer says something cheesy that' she’s used in a book. She and Trent escape from danger by using one of the actions sequences she wrote. Throughout the movie, Dean takes notes so she can turn the real-life adventure into one of her novels. She also takes offense when everyone calls them “trash”.

When Ladies Meet (1933 & 1941): Movies about Writing

Yes, this another of those situations where the same movie was remade less than a decade after the original. When you can’t re-watch a movie on TV, it stands to reason that a studio can just remake it for more money. The two movies are very similar (the 1940s version is longer, but I’m going to focus on mainly what is the same in both - and the 30s version because I liked it better).

Mary (Myrna Loy/Joan Crawford) is a novelist working on the last chapter of her latest book alongside her publisher Woodruf (Frank Morgan/Herbert Marshall) who she not-so-secretly is hoping to marry . . . for some reason. Frank Morgan is not my idea of a zaddy, but to each their own I guess. In the 40s version, Mary is popular enough that people stop her at parties asking to have books signed. Jimmie (Robert Montgomery/Robert Taylor) is a journalist and friend of Mary’s who is in love with her, yet brutally honest. He points out how her previous book had more plot holes than “Swiss cheese” and if Woodruf praised it, he has ulterior motives. Jimmie tells her that she “used to be able to write about men and women” and that her “last book has neither”. He also points out that her writing a story about a married man who no longer loves his wife and finds another woman to end his suffering is a cheap cliche and that if Woodruf suggested it to Mary, she should be careful. Jimmie is blunt, but he seems like a good beta reader.

Another rather loud friend in their group almost admits that she usually doesn’t like Mary’s books, however shows interest in her love triangle story. It makes Mary think a little about how this new book might not be as good a Woodruf has been claiming. She wants the wife and mistress of her tale to meet and he objects as he knows this is her asking to do the same with his wife.

Jimmie sets up an impromptu meeting between Mary and Mrs. Clare Woodruf (Ann Harding/Greer Garson) without revealing to either woman who the other is. He’s not doing this to hurt Clare, who Jimmie instantly likes. He’s doing this try to knock sense into Mary (and convince her to finally him instead). Clare is a fantastic person, funny and intelligent. She wins Mary over with a wonderful review of one of Mary’s previous novels, stating how “true” the main character was. Mary loves this because it’s the first time a woman has made her feel good about her characters and writing style (usually, it’s just Jimmie). Rightly, Mary wants the opinion of women since her main characters are all women. Clare points out that “women can’t fool women”. Mary asks Clare to be a beta reader on her book about the mistress and wife, still not knowing who Clare actually is. Clare’s insight into the characters in Mary’s book by talking about her own marriage. Mary is shocked that any many would cheat on Clare.

I won’t give away the ending, but I will say I liked it. It does include women with empathy, acts of self-confidence, and a writer who realizes that she doesn’t understand people as well as she believed.

Best lines:

Mary: “I’ve been working on the last chapter today.”

Bridget (Mary and Jimmie’s friend): “Oh, have you, Mary? Well, well, I didn’t know that. I mean, I saw you sitting around with the pencil in your hand, but I didn’t know anything was going on. Anything creative, I mean. This creative business is so funny. You never do know what is going on. I suppose people themselves, don’t.”

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm: Movies about Writing

I first saw this movie as child and remember how long it is. Also, that the fairy tales told in the movie did not align with the original versions written by the Brothers Grimm. I also didn’t realize that the first version I’d ever seen was cut off on the edges because it was the second film in Cinerama.

Even though the movie feels long, I’ll keep this blog short. Also, I apologize to the many talents in this film, but I am not going to list all of them! Charles Beaumont (a staple of the Twilight Zone) was one of the screen writers and Henry Levin and George Pal both directed. Pal probably did the stop motion bits. Laurence Harvey plays Wilhelm, who is presented as the more fanciful of the two brothers, even though he has a wife (Claire Bloom) and two historically inaccurate children to support. He and brother Jacob (Karlheinz Bohm) have been commissioned by a Prussian Duke (Oscar Homolka) to write his family history. However, Wilhelm cannot keep away from collecting folktales to write down from what locals women will share with him. The most notable of these is the witch-like Anna Ritcher played by Martita Hunt. A bookshop owner Stossel (Walter Slezak) keeps telling them that no one will buy books of fairy tales while trying to set up beautiful Greta (Barbara Eden) with Jacob. I should add that almost everything I just described did not happen in reality, but who knows. I wasn’t there.

Wilhelm keeps putting their livelihood in jeopardy by chasing stories. By the way, the man has a traveling writing desk and no one seemed to tell the actor that was what it was. He keeps writing awkwardly on his knee. The movie adapts three tales (each one with a musical sequence). Wilhelm’s obsession costs them their job with the Duke, his brother’s faith in him, and his health. Oh The Drama.

Spoiler Alert: Jacob decides that Wilhelm is more important to him than getting sued by the Duke, marrying Barbara Eden, or having a personal library. Meanwhile, Wilhelm has fever dreams about fairy tale characters busting into his sick room and demanding his help in making sure they don’t fade away. The pair get back to work, mixing their work on grammar and history with collecting stories for children. They receive a prize for their non-fiction work, however the children of Berlin show their own gratitude as a frightening mob demanding a fairy tale.

Irish Wish: Movies about Writing

So it turns out this Netflix produced Hallmark movie rip-off starting Lindsay Lohan is about an editor who wants to get her own novel written/published . . . and makes a wish that she is marrying her last collaborator, Irish author Paul Kennedy. Waste of a wish, lady.

Maddie has worked alongside Paul (Alexander Vlahos) for a year polishing his latest bestseller and pining for him. However, he hits it off with her best friend, Emma (Elizabeth Tan). Next thing Maddie and her other best friend, Heather, (Ayesha Curry) know, they are in Ireland for the pairs wedding. Despite meeting a handsome English photographer named James (Ed Speleeers - you know, the kid from Eragon) upon arrival, Maddie still makes a wish that she was marrying Paul instead of Emma. A fairy (who is supposed to be Saint Brigid which is very confusing to me) dressed in late 60s mod fashion grants the wish. Now Maddie is marrying Paul and James is their wedding photographer. Oh and Jane Seymour plays her mom who spends most of the film on Maddie’s phone screen or in her own B-plotline. I expected more Jane Seymour.

Before I talk about the writing elements, I want to talk about the “Irish” elements. First of all, Paul lives in a giant estate with a English accent mom. Colonizers! You know his family stole land from the Irish long ago and clearly don’t care. Second, most people in the movie have no Irish accent or a really poor accent (sound like me when I’m trying to impersonate an Irish lady I stayed with on a college trip and who did not seem to care for me). There’s a scene in a bookstore where the clerk barely tries to use an accent, the puts a God’s eye in withe books purchased. Why? Third, the stock photo scene of the Irish countryside don’t match the sets where the actors are. Fourth, what the crap is a “wishing chair”? There are so many other ways they could have worked Maddie’s wish into the movie that come from actual Irish folklore. Even the movie Leap Year came from an actual old Irish tradition. Fifth, Maddie’s favorite author is James Joyce. No one’s favorite author is James Joyce. I think they just looked up the most famous classic Irish author and said, “That will work.” And lastly, Saint Brigid?! Sorry, I can’t get over that part.

Anyway, back to the parts about writing. Heather points out that Maddie had to edit so much of Paul’s book it was practically like she wrote it. I feel like if Paul was truly into his own writing, he wouldn’t have allowed her to change that much. Her character had been working as a freelance writer before that and I appreciate how the movie points out how difficult it is to live off freelance writing which is why she became an editor for the publishing company that handled Paul’s books. Also, Paul’s book is apparently in present tense which I can only handle in certain books. No wonder she had to over-edit it. Present tense is really hard to keep up throughout an entire novel. Paul writes both of their wedding vows, pointing out that HE is the writer, even though he knows she writes as well. Of course, they have to work the love story into her career. Paul states that he knows she needs time to work on her own novel, but first he wants her help on his next novel, despite him promising to hype her up to the publisher they both work for. Naturally, James points out that she should take time for her own writing and all that. James also notices the book she edited is better than any of Paul’s other books.

Spoiler Alert . . . After realizing that Emma and Paul are better for each other and that Maddie likes James, she reverses the wish. Oh, and she tells Paul to only work with her again if it was as a co-writer.

The Wild Party: Movies about Writing

What did I just watch?

This is a Merchant Ivory Film which is NOT about England at the dawn of a new century, so I’m not entirely sure what to do with it. It’s loosely based on a poem which is loosely based on the Fatty Arbuckle scandal. Very loosely.

James Coco plays Jolly Grimm, a silent comic actor throwing a party in order to sell his latest picture, despite so many studios moving to sound films. His long time and long abused girlfriend Queenie (Raquel Welch) is in charge of making sure everything goes perfectly. Of course, it doesn’t. As the night melts into a chaotic mix of booze, orgies, and Jolly taking out all of his frustrations on Queenie, she is driven into the arms of a new Hollywood star.

All of this is observed by Jimmy (David Dukes), Jolly’s writing collaborator and Queenie’s friend. He predicted doom from the start as he 1) saw that Jolly was being extra hard on Queenie and 2) felt the new film could have been better thus asking that his name be taken off of it. While he watches the Hollywood royalty and L.A. elite descend into debauchery, Jimmy begins to create couplets in his head to wax philosophical of a series of wasted lives. As a writer who doesn’t want to be at a party would - either that or go find the house’s pet or hide in a corner.

SPOILER ALERT

Jolly gets drunker by the second, almost kisses an underage dancer, and grows depressed that he’s lost Queenie forever. The party ends with him firing up a staircase, killing Queenie’s lover. When Jimmy tries to stop him, he’s also shot and not in time to save Queenie who dies in Jolly’s arms. And what does Jimmy do in the hospital? Why write down his poem of course! Personally, I would have written it as an article and sold it to a tabloid. If you get shot by a trusted collaborator, you should be able to make the quickest money off of it.

Here We Woe Again (Wednesday): Movies about Writing

In case you’ve missed it, the Wednesday TV series follows the titular Addams character (Jenna Ortega) at school, usually solving murders and protecting her werewolf roommate, Enid (Emma Myers). However, I’m going to focus on the parts about Wednesday writing her novel.

In season one, Wednesday was working on a girl-detective novel. In season two, she’s trying to get it published. The first episode of season two starts (after a scuffle with a serial killer played by Haley Joel Osment) with Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones) checking in on her daughter, asking where she’s been all summer.

Wednesday’s reply is, “Writers should always refill their creative cups before the begin again. So I indulged in my favorite passions, torment and humiliation.”

Morticia asks, “When do I get to read your novel?”

Inside of her head, Wednesday says, “When the sun explodes and the earth is consumed in a molten apocalypse.” Out loud, she of course says, “Soon, Mother, soon.”

This sums up a extrovert writer so well. She both wants to be published, but doesn’t want her parents to read it. I like how she doesn’t notice the contradiction.

When Enid asks about the publisher Wednesday reached out to, she confesses that they wanted to heavily edit her novel. “This novel was two years of my life. They’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands before I change a single word.”

The last twenty minutes of the episode take place at a school celebration where Wednesday’s stalker has stuffed her manuscript into a raven shaped pyre that will be lit as part of the festivities. I’ve mentioned many times how this is the most evil of crimes! Enid gets annoyed when she finds out that Wednesday only has one copy since “copy machines aren’t even 21st century technology”. And worst of all, the arsonist stalker says they found more typos!

Two on a Guillotine: Movies about Writing

Ruh oh, Raggy.

Two on a Guillotine is about Cassie Duquesne (Connie Stevens), the estranged daughter of a famous magician (Caesar Romero) who was famous for his dangerous and shocking tricks. When he dies, she inherits everything, despite him having given her to relatives after her mother (also Connie Stevens) disappeared twenty years earlier. Cassie has to stay in her father’s gothic mansion in order to get the money (wait, I know this story).

The press is fascinated with her which bring us to the writer character of this silly horror story. Val Henderson (Dean Jones) is a reporter pretending to be a real estate agent trying to get the inside scoop on her life. Cassie still finds his ethics questionable when he pushes to get close to her. Clearly, he works for a rag of a paper if his boss is insisting he write a story about her without her consent, essentially interviewing her off the record without her knowledge. However, Val sticks around because the house is full of tricks and booby traps that Cassie isn’t keen on investigating on her own. Despite this being a very cornball film, Cassie is a well done character. She is is innocent and empathetic without being naive or unrealistic. Val falls for her and becomes protective of her. When she starts to breakdown over the idea that her father might have actually wanted her, he realizes how people could use that to hurt her or take her money. This, naturally leads to Cassie finding out that Val is a reporter. Boy snoops on girl, boy falls for girl, boy loses girl . . . for snooping.

SPOILERS: There’s a horribly filmed nightmare sequence and Cassie decides that Val is still the only person she can trust. Of course, it turns out that her father is still alive (gasp), haunting his own house, and completely out of his mind. He accidentally murdered her mother twenty years earlier with a trick involving a guillotine. Believing Cassie to be her dead mom, he knocks her out, CHANGES HER INTO HER MOM’S STAGE COSTUME (that’s right, her father stripped and redressed his full grown daughter who he thought was his wife - gross), and sets her in the guillotine. Val runs in just in time to see the magician attempting the trick, convinced it will work this time. And it freaking does! Despite this, Cassie’s father is too far gone to realize that he almost murdered his daughter. Does Cassie get any money from her dad’s estate if he’s in the loony bin? Will she find a good therapist in the 1960s? Does Val actually put any of this into his article? Who knows. The film ends with a close up of a rabbit.

Footsteps in the Dark: Movies about Writing

Oh Errol Flynn, you charming rogue!

In this film he plays businessman Francis Warren, who lives in a tidy, expensive house with his wife Rita (Brenda Marshall) and mother-in-law Agatha (Lucile Watson). Rita and Agatha regale him with the latest gossip about the shocking mystery book by F.X. Pettijohn, an author as shady as his books according to the local tea. What neither knows is that Warren is secretly Pettijohn, enjoying the made-up lurid life his of alter-ego and how all of the local lady’s club is suing him. The only person in the know is his assistant/chauffeur Willard (Allen Jenkins). He does his research by constantly interviewing Inspector Mason (Alan Hale), who semi-dares Pettijohn to attempt to solve a real crime on live radio. A jewel smuggler, Fissue, played by Noel Madison, draws him into the city’s underworld after he is murdered.

Warren starts his own investigation coming into contact with a burlesque dancer (Lee Patrick), a gambler, and a dentist (Ralph Bellamy) while driving Mason’s top detective Hopkins (William Frawley) crazy. A friend of Rita’s see Warren out with the dancer and gives her the impression that he’s having an affair. Enter a seedy private detective hired by Agatha to follow Warren and Willard around. This gets Rita mixed up in the entire case.

For a writer, Warren is a massive extrovert. Besides being charming and overconfident, he’s puts on acts for his police work with over the top accents and verbose characters despite his gun being made of licorice. He is dedicated to his writing though. Everyday, he and Willard spend his lunch hour in a little cottage he rents. He gets several hours for lunch and he uses them to dictate his novels while Willard types them out. Still, when pressed by Rita about his “vile book”, he says it was a “hobby” like “collecting butterflies”. I feel weirdly defensive when a rich man says he only wrote a bestseller as a hobby.

Deadly Visitor (Wide World of Mystery/Classic Ghosts): Movies about Writing

This was part of an hour long anthology series that was recently release by Kino on bluray. The story is about Jamie (Perry King), a novelist who moves into a cheap boarding house where his friend Virgil (James Keach) already lives. Mrs. Moffat (Gwen Verdon) is their older landlady, not old, but about 16 years apart from her crush Jamie. She shows more interest in his novel than she shows in Virgil’s sculpture or the third tenant’s medical career (Stephen Macht). Jamie wants to write a story based on a girl he’d known who killed herself over an unrequited love and a young man like himself who has never known love.

Despite the house being quite large and rent being cheap, the house loses people based on a violent past and reputation for haunting. People believe that the 70 year old Mr. Petersen who built the house and his 17 year old bride still reside as ghosts after she was found with her throat slit and him strangled.

Soon after moving in Jamie is the obsession of a very corporeal ghost who keeps first wanting to touch him, then attack him. Instead of being frightened, Jamie and his two housemates are fascinated by the invisible being they manage to tie up in his bedroom. That’s right. They tie up a ghost. A breathing ghost, no less. Then Jamie feels the ghost up, determining that the body is female. Nope. Jamie just lost by vote for hero of the tale. If you had tried that with Claude Raines, he’d have taught you some manners . . . then murdered you. Jamie continues to philosophize and thinks of how this life experience will help his art. That’s right. He pretentious and a perv.

Since this isn’t readily available to watch, I’ll give away the ending for those of you who are curios.

SPOILERS!

Jamie and Mrs. Moffat have a night together and immediately following, Jamie sees a crying young woman in his room briefly. He’s convinced that the entity is Lucy, a girl he and Virgil knew who drowned (the subject of his novel), but the rest of the house thinks it must be the young bride with the cut throat. Jamie reveals in conversations with the tied up presence that he’d told Lucy he’d loved her because “he wanted her”, then admitted that he was incapable of actually loving anyone. He tells the ghost that if he’d been married, he could have never finished his novel and it was almost done.

Even though he says that Lucy was jealous of his writing, he wants to read parts to her, thinking she will be proud of him. Jamie sets her free when the others plan on trying to kill her (not sure how that works) thinking that she’ll forgive him and leave him alone. Instead, she burns his novel. Normally, when an author’s work is destroyed in a movie or book, I’m devastated. But not this time. Screw you, Jamie!

While Mrs. Moffat thinks she and Jamie are in love (which is even more tragic since her previous marriage was an unhappy one), he is missing his ghostly companion and attempting/failing to rewrite his novel. One night, Jamie senses that the presence has returned and Mrs. Moffat catches him talking to his invisible friend. She naturally freaks out and Jamie calms her down with a glass of wine. When he returns to procrastinating on his writing, Mrs. Moffat hears a man’s voice in her room repeatedly asking, “Where are you?”

Back in his room, Jamie calls out to Lucy and sees the ghost of Mr. Petersen followed by Mrs. Petersen (Ann Miles) with her slit throat. Shortly after that, the presence attacks Mrs. Moffat and almost chokes her to death. Jamie and Virgil decide that the presence might not be an actual ghost but some unnamed evil using the images of the ghosts to mess with them. A mirror is dropped on the entity and they hear a woman’s scream, then assume whatever it was is gone. Sadly, Jamie survives and appears to learn nothing. Boooooo! Hiss!

Affair with a Stranger: Movies about Writing

Ug. This film. Well, spoilers ahead.

Bill (Victor Mature) is a married playwright who allows temptation to constantly get in the way of his personal life. His wife Carolyn (Jean Simmons) is about to miss the opening run of his latest play when he wants her opinion and this moment of his own neediness causes him to seek comfort in an intimate dinner with his lead actress. The actress spreads rumors that Bill and Carolyn are about to divorce. The rest of the movie are a series of flashbacks about their life together and the reason why Carolyn doesn’t want to come to the play.

The flashbacks show many of the ups and downs of attempting to be a professional writer. Bill doesn’t want to return to working for newspapers as found he didn’t have the energy for the day job and the dream job. A friend of theirs, another newspaper man, agrees with him, confessing that he’s been trying to write a novel in his spare time for ten years. Because of this, Carolyn supported her and Bill with her modeling career at the start of their marriage, something Bill screws up with gambling habit. She also acts a little as his manager, cautioning him on reading contracts and getting paid what he’s worth, especially after his first play flops. And like all women in these films, she’s his cheerleader, helping him to create a schedule to keep him in the routine of writing and not giving up. I will give Bill some credit. Since he works from home, he pitches in with the housework. Way to stick it to 1950s stereotypes!

When Carolyn is pregnant, the couple have seen some success with Bill selling the rights of one of his plays to a Hollywood Studio. However, his gambling eats away at the money and he takes a job as a waiter in a swanky restaurant where he can slip copies of his plays into producers’ pockets. Interestingly, this strategy works and he has his first hit. Tragedy strikes the same night when they lose the baby and Carolyn struggles with depression for the next two years when they discover they’ll never have a child. Instead, they adopt a boy Carolyn used to babysit when his mother passes. Carolyn is still Bill’s biggest fan and goes to all of his openings until she has difficulty leaving their new son so soon after his birth-mother’s death.

Both Bill and Carolyn learn about their rumored divorce in the media. Both jump on trains to go running to the other one (Bill practicing in his head how he’s going to tell her that he technically hasn’t had an affair . . .yet). They find each other at the train station and everything will be peaches and cream for the rest of their married lives. The end.

I just feel like Bill got away with a lot of childishness in this film. Just because he’s an artist doesn’t mean he can’t be sympathetic to everything he put his wife through. I know it’s difficult to live with someone with depression, yet the film doesn’t show that. It only shows him giving up after their first big fight after the adoption. Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit. But why does the kid call Carolyn “Mom” after the adoption, but keeps calling Bill “Uncle Bill”?

June Bride: Movies about Writing

“I read everything you write.”

“Me too.”

Carey Jackson (Robert Montgomery) is a reporter with no assignment until he’s been transferred to magazine run by his ex-girlfriend Linda Gilman (Bette Davis). Together they are working on a feature story about a “June wedding”, an event being staged by the magazine team in wintertime. Carey, a former foreign correspondent, is already bored with the assignment and Linda, who is a no-nonsense editor, can’t understand why he refuses to just write the puff piece that won’t cause problems for the family involved. However, Carey finds out that there is an unrequited love quadrangle within the family and shenanigans ensue.

I don’t have a ton to say about this film and I won’t give away the ending. Like all 1940s movies about writers, Carey and Linda are quick witted. They ping-pong insults off one another without a thought and criticize each other’s work at a typewriter. Still, they both have skills of observation and understanding of people that is clearly a part of their writing.

Seven Keys to Baldpate: Movies about Writing

I was making a few early judgements when I found out that this 1935 movies was based on a book by Earl Derr Biggers, the mind behind Charlie Chan (wince). Still, this movie is very amusing and not just from a writer's point-of-view.

Our hero, Magee, is a novelist (a term his temporary landlord and landlady do not recognize) who is attempting to fulfill a betthat he can write a novel in 24 hours starting at midnight. He chooses a particular out-of-the-way mountain inn, thinking it will give him the peace and quiet he needs. He starts off rather superstitious, not placing his hat on the bed or crossing the path of a black cat. It turns out he is right to be superstitious as he no sooner open his typewriter case then a man enters the house with a key The author has been assured that he has the only key to the Baldpate Inn.

At first, the obvious criminal type amuses Magee because he has written it so many times. He remains calm as a gun is put in his back and hast to prove that he’s rented Baldplate for the purposes of writing. Then Magee outsmarts and locks up the criminal, just as a woman enters with her own key.

Magee’s next guest with a key is Mary, a woman who stops him from calling the police. He had seen her previously at the station, instantly taking a liking to her. She on the other hand is more suspicious of him, not believing his motives for being in the old inn. As the next person enters with his own key, Magee intends to prove his authorship by making up a character for the newbie. However, the man says that everything he makes up is true.

In case you haven’t figured it out, each key brings a new person and more intrigue, including a hermit writing his own book on the evils of women, a woman claiming to be a blackmail victim, and various crooks who keep calling Magee “Wise guy”. The whole affair continues to distract Magee, especially since he keeps coming in contact with his favorite cliches. All of the shenanigans revolve around thousands of dollars hidden in the Inn safe.

Spoiler alert: In the end, when everything is revealed, stolen money is returned to where it belongs, the crooks are arrested, and it turns out Mary is a reporter. Magee offers her his typewriter so she can write up her story, even though he will lose his bet. Apparently, he gives up his writing integrity at a chance of getting he girl.

Rewrite: Movies about Writing

The Rewrite is a fairly standard role for Hugh Grant who plays a befuddled and failing screenwriter who takes a teaching job at Binghamton University. Having only taken the position due to financial trouble and no other reason, Grant’s character maintains many of the disgruntled tropes - divorced, estranged from his son, rude to his co-workers, sleeping with a student, and still utterly lost in his own writing.

Keith Michaels (Grant) is at least happy to know that the town is where Rod Serling grew up. His agent has hounded him for year to write a sequel to the film that won him an Oscar. As he used to say it would be creative suicide, he is changing his mind as he no longer “believes” in himself. He meets a long list of characters played by a really good cast of character actors. J.K. Simmons plays the head of the English department, Allison Janney plays a Jane Austen loving professor (who has never seen Clueless which in my mind makes her a fraud), Chris Elliott plays a Shakespeare professor, and Marisa Tomei as Holly, woman back in college after a divorce. Everyone keeps saying, “I love your movie” reminding him that only one thing he wrote was a success.

As Keith doesn’t believe that writing can be taught, which Holly argues with him about, he blows off his class at first. However, through her badgering he finally reads some of the scripts from his students and finds talent. However, he can’t help taking advantage of their young minds to help with his sequel screenplay. Holly proves to have the insight needed to be a writer and her character is excellent at constructive criticism. He realizes that he needs to start with the basics of story structure and character development. His best advise is about creating a goal, an endgame for the story that you need to always keep in mind as the finishing line.

The movie is very much about how artists can be their own worst enemy and how their self-doubt can hinder or help those who look up to them.

Is My Face Red?: Movies about Writing

Pre-Code time! Spoilers ahead.

William Poster (Ricardo Cortez) is a successful and infamous gossip columnist constantly being sued for what the secrets he prints about the wealthy and the celebrities within the city. He feels they’ve lived scandalous lives without repercussions long enough. He also tries to get charities started for the forgotten famous, older women who are destitute and used to be the toast of the town. Poster’s fiancee Peggy (Helen Twelvetrees) acts as his inside man, using her status as a stage star to get the dirt on everyone else. She informs him of the beautiful heiress Mildred Huntington (Jill Esmond) is escaping from her recently broken engagement by taking a cruise to Europe.

Poster tracks down Mildred on the ship (after peeking lots of first class windows to see if there’s any other stories he can dig up) and they start an affair back in New York. Meanwhile, Poster and Peggy are witnesses to a murder in a speakeasy and threatened by the Italian bartender/murderer. Being the idiot he is, Poster prints the story of the murder. A terrified Peggy objects, saying that “something terrible might happen.” Poster tells her, “If it does, I’ll print it.” In her nervousness, Peggy’s engagement ring slips off. Poster takes it in order to have the stone reset.

In the midst of the death threats and giving his girl anxiety, Poster continues his affair with Mildred. Then she finds Peggy’s engagement ring and assumes it’s for her. Poster doesn’t argue and let’s her have the ring. WHAT A CAD! Peggy sees Mildred wearing her ring and reads in the paper that they are engaged. Also, Mildred realizes that he’s only with her to get secrets on all of her friends to print in his paper. Mildred breaks off the engagement and Peggy goes to Poster’s rival paper with the story of his two-timing.

While Poster and his rival newspaper man Maloney are getting drunk off bootleg liquor that Poster keeps in his water cooler, he talks about his regret over Peggy and how he doesn’t blame her for leaving. Maloney had once said to him that he never wanted to be as famous as Poster because he wanted to keep some integrity. As Maloney leaves, the Italian bartender shows up and shoots Poster. Peggy, who was in the building talking to the switchboard operator, gets him in time and his life is saved. Fittingly, Maloney scoops Poster on the story of his own shooting.

This is a movie about what is the ethical code of a writer. Writers can have sympathy and imagination, but not always empathy.

Only Murders in the Building (Adaptation): Movies about Writing

If you haven’t seen this show - Wait, why haven’t you watched this show?!

You disappoint me. Well, spoilers ahead.

Only Murders in the Building is a cozy murder mystery about three friends in a historic New York Apartment building attempting to solve crimes around while creating podcast content. The friends are made-up of Oliver (Martin Short), a former director of Broadway cheese, Charles (Steve Martin), an out-of-work actor who used to star in his own cop television series, and Mabel (Selena Gomez), a young woman with many talents who hasn’t really figured out her life yet. In season 4, the trio are simultaneously being observed by actors about to play them in a big-budget film and attempting to solve the murder of Charles’s oldest friend and stunt double Sazz (played by Jane Lynch). All caught up. Great.

In this episode, Hollywood writer Marshall P. Pope (Jin Ha) gets to narrate in an opening where we learn that his persona is a creation he think will bring him success. His monologue asks the question of “What make a writer a real writer?” while he adjusts a fake beard and mustache. Apparently, the first step to being a “real writer” is the look. If that’s the case, I suppose I should only write fiction where people are attacked by curly hair and can’t reach high shelves. Either way, I refuse to wear that tweed jacket he puts on. Marshall boasts that he can “quote David Foster Wallace and Ace Ventura”, which really to me is more of a question of whether he’s actually READ any David Foster Wallace . . . I haven’t, but I also don’t claim that I can quote him. Then he says something truthful. “It comes down to what’s on the page.” He worries that he’s a fraud. Fake facial hair probably doesn’t help.

Marshall keeps saying he wrote his screenplay based on how he envisioned the three main characters based on the podcast, yet his nervous speaking to them. He’s terrified of rewrites and is revealed when he’s named as a suspect. He’d rather be a murder suspect than be forced to rework dialogue. He is simultaneous praised by Charles for a “thumping brain” line and criticized by Oliver for a Tinkerbell metaphor. Still, he insists that imposter syndrome can be beaten through more work at your craft.

And for those of you who have seen this season I want to add more to this blog, shhh! Spoilers!

Isn't She Great: Movies about Writing

This isn’t the best movie, but it stars Bette Middler and Nathan Lane, therefore I’m in.

Middler plays Jacqueline Susann, a woman desperate for fame and constantly failing at it. She works in Broadway, radio, and even wrote her own play, but every attempt was a flop. Then she meets Irving Mansfield (Lane), an agent with a crush on her. In the movie they meet later in life, but in reality they married in the lat 1930s. He used his job to get her spots on television and help her write a series of humorous anecdotes about their dog. However, when their son is diagnosed as autistic, Jackie falls into depression after they are forced to put him in an institution (don’t judge people from the that time -there was no Americans with Disabilities Act yet).

Looking to give her a new opportunity for fame, Irving suggests Jackie write a novel. She and her friend, Flo (Stockard Channing as an amalgam of friends in Susann’s life) start listing all of their scandalous experiences and gossip. At first, no publishing house will touch what they consider to be a nearly “pornographic” and crude book. In case you are unaware, the Valley of the Dolls is about three women dealing with fame, love affairs, and drugs in the 1940s and 50s. It finally falls into the laps of a publishing house needing a big break, run by John Cleese, Amanda Peet, and David Hyde Pierce. Pierce as editor Michael Hastings tries to convince the hyperactive Jackie that her novel needs major rewrites. Instead, she wins him over with her personality and convinces him that the book needs to stay rough to keep the characters realistic. Meanwhile, Irving stars a word-of-mouth campaign to sell the book before it’s even published. All of this takes place while Jackie is secretly battling cancer.

After the book is out, the couple uses their natural talents to shmooze booksellers into carrying Valley of the Dolls on their shelves or even featuring it in windows. Jackie appears on talk shows and signings. She even gets insulted by Truman Capote on public TV. The novel becomes a bestseller (that’s not a spoiler, that’s really what happened) and changes their lives. Oh, also they go to the adaptation of the movie and, like all authors who get a movie, Jackie is not a fan.

I looked it up - pink typewriters were totally available back then!