Melnitz highlights young Hollywood’s women writers in ‘Movies
She Wrote’
Series sheds light on ‘myth’ of a male-dominated field
By Barbara E. Hernandez
Daily Bruin Staff
Patriarchal Hollywood is a given. The films made in the studio
system were made by men for men. Women writers were only good for
the few "women’s pictures" they would make each year, the script
given to a glorified secretary, who would receive no credit.
Right?
The UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Los Angeles
Magazine would like to suggest otherwise in the new series "Movies
She Wrote: Women Screenwriters in the Hollywood Studios." Although
such scenarios as the used secretary did exist in Hollywood, there
were a considerable number of women in Hollywood’s early years that
were responsible for westerns, B-movies, psychodramas and sci-fi
serials, films other than the stereotypical "women’s picture."
"Women writers outnumbered men 10 to one in the first decades of
the century," says Laura Kaiser, programming coordinator of the
archive and curator for the series. "It’s gone in waves through the
’30s and ’40s, until a drop in the ’50s. In this series it’s the
old guard, the most influential in the period."
The old guard includes Anita Loos who first introduced the
"gold-digger" in her novel "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," and used it
in many of her scripts, including The Red Headed Woman with the
perfect screen gold-digger Jean Harlowe. Her biting social satire
and wit made many of her scripts accessible years later.
Although some women like Loos were considered valued members of
a studio, others like studio head Jack Warner didn’t like women
writers. It was only the power of the box office, of stars like
Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford that made the
employment of writers like Catherine Turney, Lenore Coffee and
Silvia Richards possible. Without such a demand for female stars in
the ’30s and ’40s, many women writers would have been expendable.
"Women were allowed to be very strong," says Kaiser of the time of
the box office queens. "And women were a very strong audience."
Yet many found writing to be an ephemeral practice. Frances
Marion was reported to say that writing a screenplay had been like
writing on sand with the wind blowing. Often in the studio system,
scripts were worked on by so many writers that the end product
looked nothing like the original. The idea of credit for the
sectioned scripts went to whomever had seniority or influence.
Producer Virginia Van Upp, by many accounts, wrote the majority
of Gilda, a film about a South American love triangle featuring
femme fatale Rita Hayworth. "This was typical of what often
happened," says Kaiser, "of women not getting credit."
This happened because of various reasons, many having to do with
seniority or power, but also to camouflage one’s "femaleness." In
the 1930s, MGM was reputedly under the "tyranny of the woman
writer," and so women screenwriters would try to draw as little
attention to themselves as possible. Often talented writers like
Frances Marion (The Big House and The Champ) would hide their work
or agree to work uncredited.
Living in the male-dominated studio system, many women writers
hesitated to criticize gender roles, instead only empowering their
female characters with dialogue or humanity. "By and large, they
were not subversive," says Kaiser. "Sometime there are little
telltale lines where the female’s a little more real, where there
are more comic or sarcastic jabs."
The era of women holding any significant number of jobs in
Hollywood is a must see for any woman interested in the film
industry.
"It should be very encouraging to (young women)," says Kaiser.
"It’s an important time in this art form not acknowledged by
Hollywood."
To Kaiser, this isn’t only about learning women’s place in
history, it’s more about fairness and honesty. "This is not radical
feminist theory," she stresses, "this is an issue about
justice."
FILM: "Movies She Wrote: Women Screenwriters in the Hollywood
Studio" at Melnitz Theater. Running March 2 through March 18. TIX:
$5 general, $3 students/seniors, matinees $3 and $1.50
respectively. For more info call (310) 206-FILM.