Ben Maddow
Birth : 1909-08-07, Passaic, New Jersey, USA
Death : 1992-10-09
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Benjamin D. Maddow (August 7, 1909 in Passaic, New Jersey – October 9, 1992 in Los Angeles, California) was a prolific screenwriter and documentarian from the 1930s through the 1970s. Educated at Columbia University, Maddow began his career working within the American documentary movement in the 1930s.
In 1936 he co-founded the short-lived left-wing newsreel The World Today. Under the pseudonym of David Wolff, Maddow co-wrote the screenplay to the Paul Strand–Leo Hurwitz documentary landmark, Native Land (1942).
He earned his first feature screenplay credit with Framed (1947). Other screenplays include Clarence Brown's Intruder in the Dust (1949, an adaptation of the William Faulkner novel), John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950, for which he received an Academy Award nomination), Johnny Guitar (1954, credited to Philip Yordan, God's Little Acre (1958, an adaptation of the Erskine Caldwell novel officially credited to Philip Yordan as a HUAC-era "front" for Maddow), and, again with Huston, an Edgar Award for Best Mystery Screenplay) and The Unforgiven (1960).
As a documentarian he directed and wrote such films as Storm of Strangers, The Stairs, and The Savage Eye (1959), which won the BAFTA Flaherty Documentary Award. Maddow made his solo feature directorial debut with the striking, offbeat feature An Affair of the Skin (1963), a well-acted story of several loves and friendships gone sour and marked by the rich characterisations which had distinguished his best screenplays.
In 1961, Maddow and Huston co-wrote the episode "The Professor" of the 1961 television series The Asphalt Jungle. In 1968 he wrote a screenplay based on Edmund Naughton's novel McCabe; while a film adaptation of the novel was ultimately produced as McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Maddow wasn't credited on the film. His final screenplay was for the horror melodrama The Mephisto Waltz (1970).
Self
The war in the South Pacific, a country doctor in Colorado, victims of industrial pollution in a Japanese village — all were captured in unforgettable photographs by the legendary W. Eugene Smith. This program showcases over 600 of Smith’s stunning photographs and includes a dramatic recreation in which actor Peter Riegert (Crossing Delancey, Local Hero) portrays the artist using dialogue take from Smith’s diaries and letters. Interwoven through the program are archival footage and interviews with family and friends of this brilliant, complicated man, whose work developed from twin themes of common humanity and social responsibility.
Writer
A documentary describing the devastating deterioration of intellectual documents such as pamphlets, photographs, films, drawings, and maps. Assesses the situation, demonstrates preservation and restoration techniques, and suggests ways to prevent deterioration in the future. Features remarks by several experts, writers, and historians, such as James Michener, Barbara Tuchman, Daniel Boorstin, and Vartan Gregorian.
Writer
A government agent, out to destroy a crime ring, finds himself in the middle of a mob war.
Writer
A frustrated pianist himself, music journalist Myles Clarkson is thrilled to interview virtuoso Duncan Ely. Duncan, however, is terminally ill and not much interested in Myles until noticing that Myles' hands are ideally suited for piano. Suddenly, he can't get enough of his new friend, and Myles' wife, Paula, becomes suspicious of Duncan's intentions. Her suspicions grow when Duncan dies and Myles mysteriously becomes a virtuoso overnight.
Screenplay
An American scientist is sent to Red China to steal the formula for a newly developed agricultural enzyme. What he is not told by his bosses is that a micro-sized bomb has been planted in his brain so that should the mission ever look likely to fail, he can be eliminated at the push of a button!
Screenplay
During World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.
Screenplay
In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.
Producer
A neurotic woman, her unhappy husband and three other New Yorkers share a complicated relationship.
Writer
A neurotic woman, her unhappy husband and three other New Yorkers share a complicated relationship.
Director
A neurotic woman, her unhappy husband and three other New Yorkers share a complicated relationship.
Producer
Shelley Winters is the madam of a house where customers play out their erotic fantasies, oblivious to a revolution that is sweeping the country. When her old friend, the chief of police (Peter Falk), asks her to impersonate the missing queen in order to reassure the people and halt the revolution, she offers instead three of her customers to play the general, bishop, and chief justice, all of whom have died in the revolution.
Writer
Shelley Winters is the madam of a house where customers play out their erotic fantasies, oblivious to a revolution that is sweeping the country. When her old friend, the chief of police (Peter Falk), asks her to impersonate the missing queen in order to reassure the people and halt the revolution, she offers instead three of her customers to play the general, bishop, and chief justice, all of whom have died in the revolution.
Screenplay
American-born Anna Vorontosov teaches school in a remote, primitive section of northern New Zealand. Her experimental teaching methods have won her the love and affection of her pupils and their parents and the admiration of the unhappily married school inspector, Abercrombie. Her personal life, however, is less secure; frightened of love and sexually inhibited, she has always been aloof with men. Eager to break down this barrier is Englishman Paul Lathrope, a somewhat irrational and immature fellow teacher who aspires to be a singer. Though Anna is attracted to him, she refuses to submit to his advances.
Producer
A journey through the dark side of 1950s Los Angeles. "The Savage Eye" is largely composed of documentary street footage, which, when coupled with its dramatized material, takes the form of a hybrid narrative about a divorcee who escapes to L.A. to eviscerate her past -- and all notions of love and faith -- with a boozy, cynical abandon.
Writer
A journey through the dark side of 1950s Los Angeles. "The Savage Eye" is largely composed of documentary street footage, which, when coupled with its dramatized material, takes the form of a hybrid narrative about a divorcee who escapes to L.A. to eviscerate her past -- and all notions of love and faith -- with a boozy, cynical abandon.
Director
A journey through the dark side of 1950s Los Angeles. "The Savage Eye" is largely composed of documentary street footage, which, when coupled with its dramatized material, takes the form of a hybrid narrative about a divorcee who escapes to L.A. to eviscerate her past -- and all notions of love and faith -- with a boozy, cynical abandon.
Screenplay
The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their beloved adopted daughter was stolen from the Kiowa tribe.
Screenplay
Claude is a ruthless and efficient contract killer. His next target, a woman, is the most difficult.
Writer
The marital difficulties of four couples living in a southern California housing development become intertwined. Among the unhappy couples are ne'er-do-well Jerry Flagg and his long-suffering wife Isabelle, flirtatious Leola Boone and her sadistic husband Troy, hard-working Herman Kreitzer and his understanding wife Betty, and newlyweds Jean and David Martin.
Writer
An ex-gunslinger (Stewart Granger) shunned by townsfolk is the only one who knows how to stop a ruthless cattleman.
Screenplay
In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon.
Writer
On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival, rallies the townsfolk to take revenge on Vienna's saloon – even without proof of her wrongdoing.
Additional Writing
The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club ride into the small California town of Wrightsville, eager to raise hell. Brooding gang leader Johnny Strabler takes a liking to Kathie, the daughter of the local lawman, as another club rolls into town.
Screenplay
Burt, a Marine suffering from Battle Fatigue, is deathly afraid of rain and confined to an asylum, but showing improvement. He wants to live with his sister's family, but they have young children.
Screenplay
Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.
Writer
Describes the challenges of aging as seen through the eyes of a woman, Mrs. Potter, whose husband becomes listless and unhappy following his forced retirement at age 65. She worries about him and knows that his lack of engagement is not emotionally healthy. When he dies after a few years of retirement, she gives up her home and goes to live with her daughter's family, which also presents challenges. The woman reflects on how to manage these life changes, and how to continue to live a rewarding, engaged life. She seeks a job but is turned away, apparently because the dress shop that is hiring prefers someone younger. She has some disagreements with her daughter about child-rearing. Ultimately, she and her daughter both conclude that they must show more respect and appreciation for one another.
Director
Describes the challenges of aging as seen through the eyes of a woman, Mrs. Potter, whose husband becomes listless and unhappy following his forced retirement at age 65. She worries about him and knows that his lack of engagement is not emotionally healthy. When he dies after a few years of retirement, she gives up her home and goes to live with her daughter's family, which also presents challenges. The woman reflects on how to manage these life changes, and how to continue to live a rewarding, engaged life. She seeks a job but is turned away, apparently because the dress shop that is hiring prefers someone younger. She has some disagreements with her daughter about child-rearing. Ultimately, she and her daughter both conclude that they must show more respect and appreciation for one another.
Writer
Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.
Adaptation
Bill Saunders, a former prisoner of war living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent, gets into a bar fight in which he in kills a man and then flees. He hides out with the assistance of a nurse, Jane Wharton, who believes his story that the killing was an accident.
Screenplay
Two friends return home after their discharge from the army after the Civil War. However, one of them has had deep-rooted psychological damage due to his experiences during the war, and as his behavior becomes more erratic--and violent--his friend desperately tries to find a way to help him.
Screenplay
Truck driver Mike Lambert is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon a venomous seductress. When her boyfriend robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert.
Writer
By the start of World War II, Paul Robeson had given up his lucrative mainstream work to participate in more socially progressive film and stage productions. Robeson committed his support to Paul Strand and Leo Hurwitz’s political semidocumentary Native Land. With Robeson’s narration and songs, this beautifully shot and edited film exposes violations of Americans’ civil liberties and is a call to action for exploited workers around the country. Scarcely shown since its debut, Native Land represents Robeson’s shift from narrative cinema to the leftist documentaries that would define the final chapter of his controversial film career.
Writer
Documentary detailing the 1939 strike by the Tool and Die Makers union against General Motors.
Writer
The film takes place in rural Tennessee, where communities have experienced economic and environmental devastation created by the coal mining industry. The introduction of the Highlander Folk School in 1931 by educator Myles Horton and the movement to bring labor union representation to the region are shown as means of empowering the population. Efforts are made to stop the union activities with the murder of a local organizer, but eventually the union movement is able to take root with the local workforce.
Writer
“Unhappy with the limited structure of league newsreels, Nykino, a splinter filmmaking collective, produced a MARCH OF TIME-type series under the banner THE WORLD TODAY. Only two episodes were released, the first premiering with Strand’s THE WAVE (1936). This one, like NATIVE LAND, addresses fascism in America.” - Bruce Posner” (via Light Cone). Not to be confused with the similarly titled Black Legion from 1937, directed by Archie Mayo.
