The Ben Hecht Show

06/26/2023

I have reached 100 followers! Thank you for your continued support. I could not have done it without each of you. 🙏🤗🎉

02/28/2022

Today is Ben Hecht's birthday!

"For many years I looked on movie writing as an amiable chore. It was a source of easy money and pleasant friendships. There was small responsibility."

Six time Academy Award nominee (and two time winner) Ben Hecht wrote "Scarface" (1932), a thinly disguised biography of Chicago gangster Al Capone, in 11 days. After the script had been finished, but before shooting had begun, Hecht was in his Hollywood hotel room when he was "visited" by two of Capone's gunmen, who had somehow managed to obtain a copy of the script and wanted to "discuss" its portrayal of their boss. A nervous Hecht told them that the only thing it had in common with Capone was the title "Scarface," which was Capone's nickname (which he hated and was known to beat severely those unfortunate enough to use it in his presence). That was because they were using it to lure in audiences who would think that the film was about Capone which, Hecht told them, it really wasn't (although it really was). His story convinced them and they left him in one piece.

At a party in Hollywood one night in the 1950s, Hecht had a bit too much to drink and, as he was wont to do when "in his cups," began spinning a story. This particular night his story was about a group of astronauts who crash-land on a planet populated entirely by beautiful, h***y women who capture the astronauts and plan to use them to repopulate their planet. A year or so after that he heard about a low-budget sci-fi movie that had just been finished with that same plot line. He got hold of a script for the film, called "Queen of Outer Space" (1958), saw that it was the exact same story he spun the night of the party, got a lawyer and sued the production company. He received a settlement and a "story" credit on the film. (IMDb)

Happy Birthday, Ben Hecht!

11/23/2021

Ben Hecht wrote "Harpo was many other things, but his peacefulness was the quality most remarkable in him. The are many exciting personalities to be found who can stimulate you,, but I have come on few who make you feel content, as if some human sunlight were warming you."

Harpo was given the name Adolph, but changed it to Arthur during World War I because it was too 'German'.Bill Marx (Harpo's son) once wrote anybody who has s...

11/05/2021

Ben Hecht was the go-to script doctor for many years. I suspect he would have knocked off this bit of brilliance between lunch and cocktail time.

The ending of "Foreign Correspondent" (1940) with Joel McCrea delivering a propaganda broadcast as bombs fall on London was written (by Ben Hecht) and shot after the rest of the movie was completed. It replaced a more sardonic ending in which ffolliott (George Sanders, and, yes, the character's surname starts with two lowercase "f"'s) tells Haverstock/John Jones (McCrea) how the enemies will likely cover up the incidents depicted in the main part of the movie.

John Jones: "Hello, America. I've been watching a part of the world being blown to pieces. A part of the world as nice as Vermont, and Ohio, and Virginia, and California, and Illinois lies ripped up and bleeding like a steer in a slaughterhouse, and I've seen things that make the history of the savages read like Pollyanna legends. I've seen women..."
[bombs begin exploding]
English Announcer: "It's a raid; we shall have to postpone the broadcast."
John Jones: "Oh, postpone, nothing! Let's go on as long as we can."
English Announcer: "Madam, we have a shelter downstairs."
John Jones: "How about it, Carol?"
Carol Fisher: "They're listening in America, Johnny."
John Jones: "Okay, we'll tell 'em, then. I can't read the rest of the speech I had, because the lights have gone out, so I'll just have to talk off the cuff. All that noise you hear isn't static - it's death, coming to London. Yes, they're coming here now. You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes. Don't tune me out, hang on a while - this is a big story, and you're part of it. It's too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come... as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America. Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them. Hello, America, hang on to your lights: they're the only lights left in the world!"

This movie serves as a perfect example of why McCrea's nickname at the time was "The Poor Man's Gary Cooper," since Cooper had been Hitchcock's first choice for the title role, and McCrea's performance was widely regarded as "Cooperesque." Even with McCrea being paid far less than Cooper would have been, the production budget for this film ballooned to the point that, while it was a mid-level hit for United Artists, it wound up being one of the few Hitchcock titles that failed to turn a profit. (IMDb)

Happy Birthday, Joel McCrea!