The Screenwriter and the Social Problem Film, 1936-38: The Case of Robert Rossen at Warner Brothers

THE SCREENWRITER AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM FILM, 1936-38: THE CASE OF ROBERT ROSSEN AT WARNER BROTHERS By Brian Neve Brian Neve lectures in political science and infilm in the School ofHumanities and Social sciences, University ofBath, England. Recent work dealing with Hollywood in the 1930s includes extensive discussion of the role ofthe screenwriter in the film community, particularly in the second half ofthe decade when writers were centrally involved in political activity both in and outside the studios. (1) It was also during this period that Warner Brothers revived the 'topical' social problem picture that they had pioneered in the dark days ofthe early thirties, Peter Roffrnan and Jim Purdy, in their recent survey ofthe social problem genre, see the late thirties as the period when, particularly at the major studios, such films became strongly associated with a 'formula' that upheld the fundamentals of American democracy far more than it questioned them. (2) From the mid-1 930s on—and for at least a decade—a new generation of writers, and some actors, came to Hollywood and began to exert influence on the politics ofthe filmmaking community and on the films themselves. These writers had a stronger political sense than the generation that came west at the onset ofthe talkies and which has been held responsible for setting the cynical, socially 'superficial' tone ofmuch of Hollywood writing in the thirties. The new generation had experience ofthe leftist theatres of thirties New York rather than of 1920s Broadway, and they were "steeped in the thirties combativeness, ethnic origins, and the sense ofthe tough city." (3) An early arrival from the tough city—in 1936—was Robert Rossen. Rossen had grown up in the middle of Manhattan, on the East Side but outside of the lower East Side ghetto. Growing up with a variety of ethnic groups, Rossen learned to defend himself, and in the longer term something about "the impact of environment on character and vice versa..." (4) Rossen was involved, without great success, in the New York theatre ofthe first halfofthe thirties; directing two plays in 1932-Steelby John Wexley and The Tree, a play by Richard Maibaum about lynching. The next year Rossen and Irving Barrett presented Maibaum's play Birthright—one of several anti-Nazi dramas produced in the year ofHitler's accession to power. Rossen's own play, The Body Beautiful, lasted four performances on Broadway in November 1935, but it led directly to his writers contract at Warner Brothers. Mervyn LeRoy, a Warner's director since 1 928, admired Rossen's play and brought him to Warners under personal contract in 1936, when Rossen was 28. Rossen gained ten writing credits with Warners between 1937 and 1943, while also working on eight uncompleted projects. In a discussion ofRaoul Walsh's first three films at Warners-The Roaring Twenties (1939), (co-written by Rossen), They Drive By Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941>—it has been argued that the feeling for "crime, working class life and radical politics" found in these films owed much to the New York experiences ofthe writers involved—Rossen, Mark Hellinger, and Jerry WaId. (5) In terms ofradical politics, the leading role after 1936 was played by the Hollywood branch ofthe Communist Party. In that year V. J. Jerome came west in order to build up the Party's strength, and the late thirties saw the politicization of Hollywood in terms of Party membership, support for anti-fascist and progressive fronts and organizations, and battles over recognition for the Screen Writers Guild. The attractiveness ofthe Party to liberals and radicals alike had been enhanced by its adoption ofa Popular Front policy in 1935; the CPUSA was now to identify itselfas part ofa broad coalition supporting the New Deal and fighting fascism both at home and abroad. By his own estimate Rossen joined the Communist Party in the spring or summer of 1937, remaining a member until 1947. Rossen later argued that he had been looking for new horizons and "a new kind of society: There weren't any values, and the Communist Party seemed to be a place that had the values." (6) Lester Cole has written ofthe late thirties that it...