Ben Maddow (born David Wolff, August 7, 1909 in
Passaic, New Jersey
Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69,78 ...
– October 9, 1992 in
Los Angeles,
California) was an American
screenwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
...
and
documentarian
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...
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
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
of the
William Faulkner novel),
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...
's ''
The Asphalt Jungle'' (1950, for which he received an
Academy Award nomination), ''
Johnny Guitar'' (1954, credited to
Philip Yordan who wrote it on location), ''
God's Little Acre
''God's Little Acre'' is a 1933 novel by Erskine Caldwell about a dysfunctional farming family in Georgia obsessed with sex and wealth. The novel's sexual themes were so controversial that the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice asked a ...
'' (1958, an adaptation of the
Erskine Caldwell novel, originally credited to
Philip Yordan as a
HUAC
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
-era "front" for Maddow, and with title card restored to Maddow, only, during the
UCLA Film and Television Archive restoration), and, again with Huston, an
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...
for Best Mystery Screenplay) and ''
The Unforgiven'' (1960).
As a documentarian he directed and wrote such films as ''Storm of Strangers'', ''
The Stairs
The Stairs are an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1990 by vocalist and bassist Edgar "Summertyme" Jones, guitarist Ged Lynn and drummer Paul Maguire.
The band released one album and a handful of singles, prior to Lynn's departure i ...
'', and ''
The Savage Eye
''The Savage Eye'' is a 1959 "dramatized documentary" film that superposes a dramatic narration of the life of a divorced woman with documentary camera footage of Los Angeles. The film was written, produced, directed, and edited by Ben Maddow, Sid ...
'' (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
''An Affair of the Skin'' is a 1963 drama film written and directed by Ben Maddow. It is a complex story of the romantic entanglements of its several characters as seen through the eyes of a black woman photographer. Shortly after its release, the ...
'' (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).
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
Further reading
* Recent essay on Maddow, including a discussion of the effects of his blacklisting and of the possibility that he "named names" in 1958.
*Hagan, John (2000).
Ben Maddow, in Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast (editors), ''International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers, Edition 4'' (St. James Press), . Online version of article retrieved January 9, 2008.
*Haut, Woody (2008)
"Ben Maddow: Affairs of the Skin,"blog posted by a film critic who has published several books. Archived by WebCite from th
original2008-02-26.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maddow, Ben
1909 births
1992 deaths
American male screenwriters
Edgar Award winners
Columbia University alumni
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters