Herman J. Mankiewicz
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (November 7, 1897 – March 5, 1953; New York City) was an American screenwriter, who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Earlier, he was the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the drama critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott said that Herman Mankiewicz was the "funniest man in New York". Both Mankiewicz and Welles received Academy Awards for their screenplay. Mankiewicz's younger brother was Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993), an Oscar-winning Hollywood director, screenwriter, and producer. His nephew Tom Mankiewicz (1942 – 2010) was also a screenwriter and director. He was often asked to fix the screenplays of other writers, with much of his work uncredited. Occasional flashes of what came to be called the "Mankiewicz humor" and satire distinguished his films, and became valued in the films of the 1930s. The style of writing included a slick, satirical, and witty humor, which depended almost totally on dialogue to carry the film. It was a style that would become associated with the "typical American film" of that period. Among the screenplays he wrote or worked on, besides "Citizen Kane", were "The Wizard of Oz", "Man of the World", "Dinner at Eight", "Pride of the Yankees", and "The Pride of St. Louis". Film critic Pauline Kael credits Mankiewicz with having written, alone or with others, "about forty of the films I remember best from the twenties and thirties. ... he was a key linking figure in just the kind of movies my friends and I loved best.". Mankiewicz was an alcoholic. Ten years before his death, he wrote: “I seem to become more and more of a rat in a trap of my own construction, a trap that I regularly repair whenever there seems to be danger of some opening that will enable me to escape. I haven’t decided yet about making it bomb proof. It would seem to involve a lot of unnecessary labor and expense". A future Hollywood biographer went so far as to suggest that Mankiewicz’s behavior “made him seem erratic even by the standards of Hollywood drunks.” Herman Mankiewicz died March 5, 1953, of uremic poisoning, at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles.
Citizen Kane
(Screenplay)
Duck Soup
(Producer)
Love and Learn
(Dialogue)
Christmas Holiday
(Screenplay)
Stamboul Quest
(Screenplay)
The Enchanted Cottage
(Writer)
A Woman's Secret
(Producer)
Another Language
(Writer)
The Spanish Main
(Screenplay)
This Time for Keeps
(Characters)
Man of the World
(Screenplay)
Man of the World
(Story)
Stand by for Action
(Screenplay)
The Last Command
(Writer)
My Dear Miss Aldrich
(Screenplay)
Escapade
(Screenplay)
John Meade's Woman
(Writer)
Dancers in the Dark
(Writer)
Ladies' Man
(Writer)
The Pride of the Yankees
(Screenplay)
After Office Hours
(Screenplay)
Horse Feathers
(Producer)
The Vagabond King
(Screenplay)
The Man I Love
(Story)
Keeping Company
(Story)
Million Dollar Legs
(Producer)
The Pride of St. Louis
(Screenplay)
True to the Navy
(Dialogue)
A Gentleman of Paris
(Writer)
Ladies Love Brutes
(Screenplay)
Rise and Shine
(Screenplay)
The Road to Mandalay
(Story)
Men Are Like That
(Adaptation)
Dinner at Eight
(Writer)
A Woman's Secret
(Screenplay)
The Big Killing
(Writer)
Figures Don't Lie
(Writer)
Fashions for Women
(Writer)
Love in Exile
(Writer)
Meet the Baron
(Story)
Girl Crazy
(Adaptation)
Fast Workers
(Screenplay)
Dinner at Eight
(Screenplay)
Two Flaming Youths
(Dialogue)
Something Always Happens
(Dialogue)
Stranded in Paris
(Adaptation)
Honeymoon Hate
(Dialogue)
The Gay Defender
(Dialogue)
The City Gone Wild
(Dialogue)
A Night of Mystery
(Dialogue)
Avalanche
(Screenplay)
Abie's Irish Rose
(Dialogue)
What a Night!
(Dialogue)
The Water Hole
(Dialogue)
The Drag Net
(Dialogue)
Every Woman Has Something
(Adaptation)
My Dear Miss Aldrich
(Original Story)
The Barker
(Dialogue)
The Mating Call
(Dialogue)
His Tiger Lady
(Dialogue)
The Love Doctor
(Dialogue)
Love Among the Millionaires
(Dialogue)
Monkey Business
(Producer)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(Dialogue)
The Three Maxims
(Adaptation)
The Emperor's Candlesticks
(Dialogue)
Three Week Ends
(Dialogue)
Leave The Kitchen!
(Adaptation)
The Mighty
(Dialogue)
Honey
(Writer)
Avalanche
(Dialogue)
The Magnificent Flirt
(Dialogue)
Honey
(Dialogue)
Thunderbolt
(Writer)
The Dummy
(Writer)
The Royal Family of Broadway
(Adaptation)
It's a Wonderful World
(Original Story)
The Lost Squadron
(Dialogue)
The Ghost Comes Home
(Staff Writer)
Take Me Home
(Dialogue)
Laughter
(Writer)
The Perfect Gentleman
(Writer)
The Wild Man of Borneo
(Screenplay)
Suzy
(Writer)
Comrade X
(Writer)
The Good Fellows
(Screenplay)
Come On, Marines!
(Writer)
The Enchanted Cottage
(Screenplay)
It's in the Air
(Writer)
The Spotlight
(Dialogue)
That's Entertainment, Part II
(Thanks)
See Here, Private Hargrove
(Writer)
The Human Comedy
(Writer)
San Francisco
(Writer)
The Murder Man
(Writer)
Street of Shadows
(Writer)
Fast Company
(Writer)
Operator 13
(Writer)
Serenade
(Dialogue)
Live, Love and Learn
(Writer)
Moran of the Marines
(Writer)
The Show-Off
(Screenplay)
The Canary Murder Case
(Additional Writing)
Dude Ranch
(Additional Dialogue)
Lux Video Theatre
(Screenplay)