Screen Writers Guild

Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use mdy dates The Screen Writers Guild was an organization of Hollywood screenplay authors, formed as a union in 1933. A rival organisation, Screen Playwrights, Inc., was established by the film studios and producers, but after an appeal to the National Labor Relations Board and a vote by eligible screenwriters, the Screenwriters Guild won out as the sole representative body. Its house publication was The Screen Writer. In 1954, it became two different organizations: Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East.

Background and establishment

Screenwriters' earliest attempts at organizing date back to the 1910s, when film scenarists participated in The Authors League of America (now the Authors Guild). However, screenwriters soon identified a need to form their own organization, since they had different work products and challenges than literary writers. Another attempt at representation was the Photoplay Authors’ League, founded in 1914 in Los Angeles, but it disbanded after two years.<ref name=earlyhistory>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In Summer 1920, twelve writers announced the formation of the Screen Writers Guild. They published an open letter in Variety,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> defining six objectives of the organization, and inviting all industry writers to apply for membership. Members had to derive income from some form of film writing, and to receive nominations from two existing members.

File:The Writers First Annual Cramp - detail.png

Inaugural dinner party for The Writers social club at the Ambassador Hotel, December 1, 1920

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Starting in 1927, several historic trends caused the SWG's organizing and representation efforts to become nearly inactive. Louis B. Mayer founded the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences as a means of bypassing union negotiations. Warner Brothers released the first commercial sound film, The Jazz Singer, bringing fundamental changes to screenwriting. And the Great Depression began taking a toll on all aspects of filmmaking economics.<ref name=earlyhistory />

In 1933, ten writers met to discuss revitalizing the SWG as union under the protection of laws governing unions under consideration by Congress and eventually embodied in the Wagner Act of 1935. They included Donald Ogden Stewart, Charles Brackett, John Bright, Philip Dunne, Dorothy Parker and Howard J. Green; the union's first president.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Others active in the 1930s included Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett, Ogden Nash, Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Maurice Rapf.<ref>Deborah Martinson, Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels (Counterpoint, 2005), 125-6; William Wright, Lillian Hellman: The Image, the Woman (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 116-8</ref> John Howard Lawson was also a co-founder, who was also a key player in resurrecting it in 1937.<ref name=doherty2018>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Gladys Lehman became the organization's first official amanuensis and secretary, as no one else wanted the job. She continued as a screenwriter until 1953 and House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).<ref name=martinson127>Martinson, 127-8; Wright, 116</ref>

SWG sought to establish criteria for crediting authors for creating or contributing to a screenplay, known as "screen credits."<ref name=martinson127>Martinson, 127-8; Wright, 116</ref> Its house publication was The Screen Writer.<ref name=doherty2018/>

Screen Playwrights Inc. (1938)

The film studios responded by refusing to hire Guild members and forming a rival organization called the Screen Playwrights Inc.<ref name=martinson127 /> When the Guild appealed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the NLRB certified the Guild as the "exclusive bargaining agency" for screenwriters employed by 13 of 18 Hollywood studios, based on elections in 1938 which writers chose the Guild over the Screen Playwrights.<ref>The New York Times: "Screen Guild Wins Labor Board Vote," August 10, 1938, accessed December 28, 2011</ref><ref name=martinson127 /> At that time, Screen Writers Guild Inc. had 502 members, and Screen Playwrights Inc. had only 132. Screen Writers Guild received 271 out of a possible 342 eligible writers.<ref name=time1938>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The film producers acceded to the NLRB ruling in March 1939.<ref>The New York Times: "Screen Writers Guild Recognized," March 8, 1939, accessed December 28, 2011</ref>

HUAC (1940s)

Beginning in 1940, the Guild came under attack by the House Committee on Un-American Activities for the "radical communist leanings" of many of its members.<ref>Martinson, 165</ref> The attacks escalated in 1947, when more than a dozen writers were called to testify.<ref>Wright, 212-4</ref> Screenwriter Jack Moffitt, an ardent anti-Communist, who had been a member of Screen Playwrights, Inc. and had been embittered by its demise, testified against many screenwriters, including Frank Tuttle, Herbert Biberman, Donald Ogden Stewart, and John Howard Lawson.<ref name=doherty2018/>

Lillian Hellman responded with an essay in The Screen Writer, the Guild's publication, attacking the Committee for its investigation and the film industry's owners for submitting to the Committee's intimidation.<ref>Martinson, 217-9</ref> It described the committee's hearings:<ref>Wright, 212-4</ref> Template:Quote

Split (1954)

In 1954, the members of the Screen Writers Guild backed the formation of a national union of a broader organization of writers working in motion pictures, television and radio, divided into two geographical bodies: Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East.<ref>The New York Times: "Screen Writers Back New Union," May 21, 1954, accessed December 28, 2011</ref>

See also

• Writers Guild of America

Further reading

• Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–1960 (University of California Press, 1983)
• David L. Goodrich, The Real Nick and Nora: Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, Writers of Stage and Screen Classics (Southern Illinois University Press 2004)
• Victor S. Navasky, Naming Names (Macmillan, 2003)
• Nancy Lynn Schwartz, The Hollywood Writers' War (NY: Knopf, 1982)
• Colin Shindler, Hollywood in Crisis: Cinema and American Society, 1929–1939 (Psychology Press, 1996)