Philip G. Epstein
Birth : 1909-08-22, New York City, New York, USA
Death : 1952-02-07
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Philip G. Epstein (August 22, 1909 – February 7, 1952) was an American screenwriter most known for his adaptation in partnership with his twin brother, Julius, and others, of the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's which became the Academy Award-winning screenplay of the film Casablanca (1942).
Epstein was born in New York City and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His father was a livery stable owner in the days when horses were still common on the streets of the city. He attended Pennsylvania State College (now Penn State University), gaining his degree in 1931.
Jack Warner, head of Warner Brothers, had a love-hate relationship with the Epstein brothers. He could not argue with their commercial success, but he deplored their pranks, their work habits and the hours they kept. In 1952, Warner gave the brothers' names to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). They never testified before the committee, but on a HUAC questionairre, when asked if they ever were members of a "subversive organization," they wrote-in, "Yes. Warner Brothers."
Epstein died of cancer in Hollywood, California in 1952 at the age of 42.
His son Leslie Epstein directs the creative writing program at Boston University and is an accomplished novelist. His grandson Theo Epstein is the general manager of the Boston Red Sox. His granddaughter Anya Epstein is a screenwriter.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Philip G. Epstein, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Writer
Part of Frank Capra's World War II propaganda series made for the U.S. Armed Forces, this program presents newsreel footage addressing the Battle of China and shifting opinion as the United States moves from isolationism to supporting the war. Highlights include Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's moving address to Congress, Edward R. Murrow's reports from London during the Blitz and Charles Lindbergh expressing his opposition to America entering the war.
Screenplay
Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons include Dmitri, the eldest, an elegant officer, always broke and at odds with his father, betrothed to Katya, herself lovely and rich. The other brothers include a sterile aesthete, a factotum who is a bastard, and a monk. Family tensions erupt when Dmitri falls in love with one of his father's mistresses, the coquette Grushenka. Two brothers see Dmitri's jealousy of their father as an opportunity to inherit sooner. Acts of violence lead to the story's conclusion: trials of honor, conscience, forgiveness, and redemption.
Screenplay
Reporter Charles Wills, in Paris to cover the end of World War II, falls for the beautiful Helen Ellswirth following a brief flirtation with her sister, Marion. After he and Helen marry, Charles pursues his novelistic ambition while supporting his new bride with a deadening job at a newspaper wire service. But when an old investment suddenly makes the family wealthy, their marriage begins to unravel — until a sudden tragedy changes everything.
Screenplay
An aging actress has a hard time admitting she is too old to play the ingenue role anymore.
Writer
A young woman enters college and learns some hard truths about sorority life, including snobbery and the cruelty of hazing.
Writer
After a long absence, Mary Jane visits her schoolfriend Eloise, and Eloise's daughter Ramona. Eloise drinks too much and is unhappily married to Lew Wengler. Eloise falls asleep and remembers her time with her true love, Walt Dreiser, at the beginning of the Second World War. She recalls the events that lead up to her split with Mary Jane, and how Lew married Eloise rather than Mary Jane.
Theatre Play
A woman takes in boarders to support her husband's harebrained financial schemes.
Screenplay
Georgia Garrett is sent by jealous wife Elvira Kent on an ocean cruise to masquerade as herself while she secretly stays home to catch her husband cheating. Meanwhile equally suspicious husband Michael Kent has sent a private eye on the same cruise to catch his wife cheating. Love and confusion ensues along with plenty of musical numbers.
Screenplay
Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets married; but when he makes a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts, he finds out his aunts' hobby - killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar!
Producer
A beautiful but vain woman who rejects the love of her older husband must face the loss of her youth and beauty.
Screenplay
A beautiful but vain woman who rejects the love of her older husband must face the loss of her youth and beauty.
Writer
The third film of Frank Capra's 'Why We Fight" propaganda film series, dealing with the Nazi conquest of Western Europe in 1940.
Screenplay
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
Screenplay
A film of the life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan.
Screenplay
The trustees of Midwestern University have forced three teachers out of their jobs for being suspected communists. Trustee Ed Keller has also threatened mild mannered English Professor Tommy Turner, because he plans to read a controversial piece of prose in class. Tommy is upset that his wife Ellen also suggested he not read the passage. Meanwhile, Ellen's old boyfriend, the football player Joe Ferguson, comes to visit for the homecoming weekend. He takes Ellen out dancing after the football rally, causing Tommy to worry that he will lose her to Joe.
Screenplay
An acerbic critic wreaks havoc when a hip injury forces him to move in indefinitely with a Midwestern family.
Screenplay
A financially-strapped charter pilot hires himself to an oil tycoon to kidnap his madcap daughter and prevent her from marrying a vapid band leader.
Screenplay
Biff Grimes is desperately in love with Virginia, but his best friend Hugo marries her and manipulates Biff into becoming involved in his somewhat nefarious businesses. Hugo appears to have stolen Biff's dreams, and Biff has to deal with the realisation that having what he wants and wanting what another has can be very different things.
Additional Dialogue
Noted writer Kenneth Bixby, in love with his witty secretary Anne Rogers, is on a book tour when he meets up with a former college fling with a loopy Danish girl which he barely remembers. She remembers him, very well.
Screenplay
Director William Keighley's 1940 film adaptation of S. N. Behrman's stage hit, about an aspiring playwright who finds himself an overnight Broadway success, stars James Stewart, Rosalind Russell, Genevieve Tobin, Louise Beavers, Charles Ruggles and Allyn Joslyn.
Screenplay
An inventor and his bride get testy in the city as they try to make ends meet.
Screenplay
In this sequel to Four Daughters, Ann struggles to move on after the death of her husband as she falls in love with Felix, but on the day of her engagement discovers that she carries Mickey's child.
Writer
Nan Masters, a single mother living with her four marriageable daughters, plans to marry Sam Sloane, businessman. Out of the blue her 1st husband Jim returns after deserting the family 20 years earlier. The worldly wanderer Jim gets a cool family reception at first but his warm personality gradually wins the affections of his four daughters. In fact, youngest daughter Buff, who has her eye on a maverick of her own in Gabriel Lopez, is pleased when Jim grants his stamp of approval on her relationship. Buff plans to elope with Gabriel on her mother's wedding day, but 'unpredictable' is Gabriel's middle name.
Writer
Bill Reardon, a private detective, is working on a case involving stolen items from a local jewelry store. The case takes a different turn when Bill's prying wife wants to help catch the crook.
Screenplay
When the murdered body discovered by beautiful, vivacious socialite Melsa Manton disappears, police and press label her a prankster until she proves them wrong.
Screenplay
A crooked producer makes money from Broadway flops by selling more than 100% interest to multiple parties. He only fails if it makes a profit.
Writer
Americans Tommy Baldwin and Joe Dugan are hired to transport a fabulous diamond from Shanghai to San Francisco. They will be paid handsomely on success or killed on failure. The diamond is stolen as they take possession of it.
Screenplay
Wheeler & Woolsey comedy about two moronic ditch diggers, recruited for an archaeology expedition, getting mixed up with jewel thieves and an ancient Egyptian "curse."
Screenplay
When a grand jury acquits a gangster accused of murder, a retired elderly citizen decides it's up to him to see that the criminal is proven guilty and put behind bars.
Screenplay
Carolyn Martin is a fashion model who hastily marries her boyfriend, engineer Michael Martin. But part of the marriage arrangement requires that Carolyn quit her $50-per-week modeling job to be a full-time housewife; the couple will instead live on Michael’s $35-per-week job.
Screenplay
Aspiring Producer Michael McCreigh convinces Uncle Carlton to finance a play on the condition that he lives the play's ridiculous plot. If Michael fails, he must work in Carlton's meat packing plant.
