12 Noir City Sentinel Nov / Dec 2009

“First is First and Second is Nobody”

The Philip Yordan Story

by Alan K. Rode
Sentinel Senior Editor

W
ho was Philip Yordan? Was he the ent paean to American popular music. Though osten-
renowned Oscar-winning screen- sibly hired as a technical advisor, Yordan shared his
writer with upwards of 100 feature first official screenwriting credit on the film. “I tried
films—credited and uncredited—on to fix it up,” he recalled. “I knew little about screen-
his résumé, including such es- writing. Dieterle had one of these intellectual con-

Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

timable films noir as Dillinger (1945) The Chase cepts that made absolutely no sense, of combining the
(1946), House of Strangers (1949), Detective Story rise of modern architecture and the rise of jazz.”
(1951), The Big Combo (1955), and The Harder They After an abbreviated stint as an air flight
Fall (1957)? Or was Yordan’s screenwriting career the instructor during the war, Yordan caught on as a
most elaborate and prolonged “front” in Hollywood his- house screenwriter for the King Brothers, who were
tory? Was he the template for the character of Sammy grinding out second features for Monogram Studios.
Glick in Budd Schulberg’s scathing novel What Makes Former actor Arthur Gardner, a production assistant
Sammy Run? A cigar-chomping hustler who pitched for the Kings, remembered the youthful Yordan as
corkscrew deals from more angles than Luis Tiant? Did “very, very bright... a good writer and a forceful guy.”
he exploit blacklisted writers by taking their credit and “Phil was an opportunist with a lot of talent and
paying them a pittance? If so, why did blacklisted although neither of us made a lot of money, we
screenwriter Bernard Gordon, among others, speak so gained a lot of valuable experience,” recalled
highly of him? Why did top-notch directors like Gardner, still hale at 98 years of age. He credited his
Anthony Mann and Nicholas Ray repeatedly choose to and Yordan’s future success in Hollywood in no small
work with Yordan? How could a con man rise to glory measure to their apprenticeship in cut-rate filmmak-
orchestrating star-studded spectacles such as El Cid ing with the Kings.
(1961), King of Kings (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)? How did “Their real name was Kosinski. It was Frank, Maurice and Herman. They
a guy like Phil Yordan get his mitts on that much talent and that much cash? were from Boyle Heights, which was the principal Jewish neighborhood in Los
Yordan’s furtive 50-year history in Hollywood is reminiscent of the Hall of Angeles at that time. Frank was the smartest brother and the leader. Maurie
Mirrors denouement in The Lady from Shanghai (1946). One has to decipher watched the money and Hymie just kind of tagged along. They originally made
Yordan’s myriad reflections to pin down the real man. Nearly every story about their money in slot machines that were all over town. They gradually gave that up
him is followed by an alternate version. To add to the perplexity, Yordan (who died when they found out about movies. Frank had a good story mind and supervised
in 2003) left behind a draft of his intended autobiography. A jumble of typed and everything. I was at his elbow. After I left them to form my own production com-
handwritten pages, the manuscript is another blurred reflection—less a memoir pany (with Jules Levy and Arnold Laven), they continued to make films. I believe
than a map of buried treasure. Only no X marks the spot. Frank King would have succeeded in any business. He was a sharp as a tack.”
Born in 1914, Yordan grew up on the West Side of Chicago. As a teenager, The principal lessons absorbed by Yordan during his tenure with the Kings
he ran a mail order beauty supply business out of the family basement, buying involved the practicalities of completing a feature within a short schedule and a
wholesale stock, repackaging and selling goods to outlets at a profit. Bullied by tight budget. “The first words out of Frank’s mouth were that they never paid for a
peers for his owlish demeanor and Coke bottle glasses, Yordan was a voracious screenplay unless it was produced,” recalled Yordan. When he was hired, the King
reader of detective stories; he contemplated a career as a writer. After graduation Brothers wanted to sell a project to Monogram with a budget of $25,000. King’s
from high school, he earned a law degree at night school, bought a car, and hired initial treatment was unsatisfactory—“the plot was enough to give me cancer,”
a kid to chauffeur him around the Windy City. Yordan said—so he turned to production manager George Moskov for help.
Rumor has it that Yordan had also hired someone to attend law school under “Moskov’s advice was to avoid a gangster film. Action and gunfire was
his name, so he could get a degree without actually doing the work. No one who costly. He suggested a suspense melodrama with one set. I dreamed up an imita-
later dealt with Yordan in Hollywood dismissed this story out of hand. It would tion Hitchcock idea, all taking place in a roadhouse closed for the winter. Frank
have been a prototypical Yordan move. King liked the script, especially the low cost with very few extras. He couldn’t pay
Law bored him. After reportedly accepting a payoff and a weekly stipend more than the minimum and had to cajole and flatter the actors to get them. The
from his law partners for helping them duck a subpoena, Yordan stashed some loot brothers managed to get Victor Jory and Pamela Drake for almost nothing.”
for his family and disappeared to Hollywood to become a writer. At any rate, that’s The Unknown Guest was the first King Brothers production to appear on the
the version Yordan related to the late Bernard Gordon. Another account, from lower half of a double bill at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. As Yordan noted with
Yordan’s own manuscript, was that his Tinseltown grubstake came from selling his pride, “Subsequently, every film I wrote for the Brothers played Grauman’s. I had
mail order business to a fellow law student for three thousand dollars. arrived.”
Ensconced with his typewriter at the Mark Twain Hotel in Hollywood,

W
Yordan became frustrated after his numerous short story submissions were sum- orking with Monogram and the Kings had unexpected benefits.
marily rejected. After reading O’Neill’s Anna Christie, Yordan banged out Anna According to Yordan, the major studios had an agreement with the
Lucasta, a sprawling 400-page opus about a struggling Polish family in Chicago. Production Code Authority (dating back to the national crime wave of
He found an agent in the telephone directory, got his play optioned in New York, the 1930s) not to produce movies that might glorify actual gangsters by name.
and swooped onto the Great White Way in triumph—to discover that the option on Monogram Studios and the King Brothers were not included in this pact (if, in fact,
the play had been unceremoniously dropped. it even existed). Working beneath the PCA’s radar contributed to a box office coup
By then (1939) he’d already maneuvered himself into a position as factotum with Dillinger (1945).
for William Dieterle. The German-born director was a skilled filmmaker who ro- The King Brothers had upped their typically low budget line to six figures
tated between studios. At RKO, Dieterle helmed Syncopation (1942), an indiffer- and signed the fearsome Lawrence Tierney to play the title role. With Tierney’s
 Nov / Dec 2009 Noir City Sentinel 13
authentic menace leading the way, Dillinger grossed an astonishing $4 million— taking operation of his luxurious car from the backseat—an odd declaration for a
and Phil Yordan was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screen- writer who has sole screenwriting credit.
play. He reportedly wrote the script with neophyte director William Castle and Yordan had become hot enough in Hollywood to be represented by agent
Robert Tasker, screenwriting partner of John Bright, who’s served time in San Irving “Swifty” Lazar. He evolved into a writer-dealmaker, packaging endless con-
Quentin with Tasker. [See Philippe Garnier’s “They Made Me a Screenwriter” in cepts, treatments and scripts to different studio executives. It was difficult for them
the July/August 2009 Sentinel.] Neither Castle nor Tasker received any credit for not to be seduced by Yordan’s obvious intelligence, conceptual ability, and grow-
their efforts. Dillinger was an early example of Yordan’s life-long addiction to ing track record. And yet … where the hell were all these scripts coming from?
credit grabbing. He would become legendary for it, even for Hollywood. Later, he Yordan was hired by independent producer Walter Wanger to jazz up Aeneas
would pretend that screen credit didn’t mean much to him, but there seemingly was Mackenzie’s historically literate French Revolution story The Bastille. Under
always some reason why Philip Yordan was the credited writer—and other contrib- Wanger’s detailed guidance, Yordan’s draft turned into an exciting film noir.
utors’ names were omitted. Alternately titled Reign of Terror and The Black Book, the film had beautifully
Tenacity was a Yordan trait, as evidenced in a story he liked to tell about how crafted visuals courtesy of director Anthony Mann, DP John Alton, and production
he revived Anna Lucasta. While perusing Variety, Yordan was startled to discover designer extraordinaire William Cameron Menzies. Yordan later complained, iron-
that a black playwright, Abram Hill, had rewritten the play for the American Negro ically, that Wanger had stiffed him: paying only $10,000 for his Reign of Terror
Theatre in New York. Hill’s lighter, more comedic production received critical script.
accolades and became a marginal sensation.
Returning to New York, Yordan obtained financial

B
y 1950, Phil Yordan had become the pic-
backing, but in 1944 no one would stage a Broadway ture of a Hollywood “player”: sartorially
production with an all-black cast. Undaunted, elegant, a sylvan home in Beverly Hills, a
Yordan signed an agreement with Abram Hill and regular at the finest restaurants—he was excep-
producer John Wildberg. Anna Lucasta was revised tionally picky about food—and of course, a culti-
with a gala reopening at the Mansfield Theatre on vator of beautiful women.
August 30, 1944. The play was a triumph, ran for Although not conventionally handsome,
957 performances and spawned two movies. The Yordan’s charm and power attracted a succession
first film was released in 1949 with a white cast, of women who became increasingly younger over
reflecting Yordan’s original perspective on a Polish the years. Early on, he’d had a torrid affair with
family. It was a box office flop. The second version, actress Simone Simon, who jilted him. He was
produced ten years later with a black cast, helmed by ambivalent about the other romances, noting,
the capable Arnold Laven and starring Eartha Kitt “Hit-and-run was all I had in my capacity.” As for
and Sammy Davis Jr., was a qualified success. his wives: “I married them and supported them in
Nearly two decades later, Sidney Poitier thanked a life style none of them experienced before they
Yordan effusively for Anna Lucasta—he had met me. That’s all I had to offer. Only in my last
appeared in the road company as an understudy, marriage, did I offer…love.” Yordan’s fourth wife,
which “kept me eating for several years.” Faith, whom he met in 1964 when she gave him a
One wonders if Poitier would have been so lift after his car broke down in a Beverly Hills
effusive if he was aware that Yordan had hired sev- parking garage, was the better half of his most
eral black writers to rewrite Anna Lucasta for the enduring relationship. The union lasted until
American Negro Theatre—and was sued by them Yordan’s death.
when they didn’t get paid. An article in the May 17, Yordan’s limitless ambition was eventually
1947 Chicago Defender, “’Unknowns Demand Cut rewarded by what everyone in Hollywood dreams
in ‘Anna Lucasta’ Take” described the two-year-old of—the humongous lucky break. Yordan was
joint legal action of Lee Richardson, the late hired by producer Sol Siegel to write a treatment
Antoinette Perry and Brock Pemberton, who about an underhanded lawyer named Gino
“worked on the original script at the request of Minetti, featured in the novel I’ll Never Go There
Yordan” before the play premiered on Broadway. Anymore. Yordan’s resultant screenplay, House of
The article stated that Yordan proposed a settlement Strangers (1949), attracted minimal notice and
of the claim for $6000 and two percent of the royal- was a box office bust. (It was rumored that Darryl
ties. Abram Hill received no credit on the 1959 film. Neither did Richardson, Perry F. Zanuck pulled the film because its patriarchal dynamics were uncomfortably
or Brock Pemberton. Only Yordan. close to those of 20the Century–Fox president Spyros Skouras, who thought he
The American Negro Theatre was contracted to receive five percent of all was being caricatured).
production rights and two percent of the subsidiary rights for Anna Lucasta if the Sol Siegel, ever resourceful, remade the same story five years later as the
play went on the road with a different cast. After the show had toured for a few western Broken Lance (1954). It was a hit and Yordan won the Academy Award for
years, the 1944 Yordan-Wildberg-Hill contracts (filed with the Dramatist’s Guild) Best Original Story. After receiving his Oscar, Yordan took out a two-page ad in
mysteriously vanished. The ANT never received a penny for producing their suc- the trades that read, “Thank You, Sol Siegel” The gratitude was not reciprocated.
cessful version of Yordan’s play. A quarter of a century afterwards, Abram Hill According to Siegel, Yordan publicly thanked him for a project “…he had
remarked that divisiveness over Anna Lucasta destroyed the American Negro nothing to do with.” Although Yordan helped develop the characters, Siegel fired
Theatre. him after an incomplete first draft because the producer believed the script wasn’t
Back in Hollywood, Yordan followed up his Dillinger success with a series working. Yordan’s unfinished script was rewritten by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who
of crime pictures. Glamour Girl, released as Suspense (1946), was produced by the replaced Yordan’s dialogue with his own. He directed House of Strangers using his
King Brothers and touted as Monogram’s first million dollar picture. It was an own revised screenplay. The Screen Writer’s Guild decided that the credit should
unusual polyglot of lust and murder set against the backdrop of a skating review, read: “Original Story by Philip Yordan; Screenplay by Philip Yordan and Joseph L.
complete with musical numbers. Yordan got sole story and screenplay credit and Mankiewicz.”
played a bit part in the film. Mankiewicz, who recently had won a Guild arbitration case on A Letter to
Whistle Stop (1946) was a turgid crime drama starring George Raft and Ava Three Wives, sensed bureaucratic payback in the Strangers decision and, furious,
Gardner that marked Yordan’s entry into film production. By this time, Yordan rec- refused to split the credit. Yordan ended up with sole screenplay credit for House
ognized that production deals were where the big bucks resided. The trade papers of Strangers. He won his Oscar for Broken Lance based on whatever he did or did
reported that producer Seymour Nebenzal, lawyer Herbert T. Silverberg, and writer not do on House of Strangers. Years later, Mankiewicz sniffed, “Phil Yordan made
Philip Yordan had formed Nero Productions specifically to make Whistle Stop. a career out that screenplay.” Yordan’s version of the House of Strangers debacle?
The next Nero production was The Chase (1946), which featured a Yordan “Joe Mankiewicz tried to put his name on my screenplay as the co-author and Sol
adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s The Black Path of Fear. This dream-like picture, struck it off.”
directed by former Mack Sennett gag writer Arthur Ripley, is one of the most strik-
ing of postwar noirs (it begs for rediscovery in a legitimate 35mm print). Yordan

T
he blacklist proved to be a boon for Phil Yordan. With lefty scribes willing
failed to get the “name” female lead he wanted and settled for French actress to work under “fronts” from the early 1950s on, Yordan became a screen-
Michele Morgan, an unknown in the United States. The picture wasn’t a financial writer’s employment agency. His most prominent proxy was Ben Maddow,
success. Yordan later asserted that he invented the gimmick of the gangster over- who penned the scripts for Man Crazy (1953), The Naked Jungle (1954), Men in
14 Noir City Sentinel Nov / Dec 2009
War (1957), No Down Payment (1957), and God’s Little Acre (1958). All of these took immediate charge. He had Bronston and Ray halt production while he
films were credited solely to Philip Yordan. The deal Yordan struck with Maddow returned to Hollywood. Six weeks later he reemerged with an entirely rewritten
was to split the money down the middle, with Yordan assuming sole credit. script. He’d engaged Ray Bradbury to write the voiceover narration, used an
Maddow was an accomplished poet and screenwriter whose noir credits include the anonymous Italian writer for the script, and, as usual, assumed sole credit for the
underrated Framed (1947) and the classic The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Maddow, screenplay.
who would have to cope with his own demons after reportedly naming names to The revamped opus, King of Kings (1961) firmly cemented the Yordan-
HUAC, believed Phil Yordan was, “one of the great characters of the world.” Bronston partnership. Yordan’s deal with Bronston was for $400,000 per picture,
Determining who actually wrote the script of Johnny Guitar is particularly with unlimited expenses. Samuel Bronston was an ostensible film producer who
baffling. In the draft of his autobiography, Yordan claimed that MCA chief Lew couldn’t make it in Hollywood. He got access to funding through his relationship
Wasserman called him in to the Sedona, Arizona location to do an emergency with Pierre S. du Pont, who signed blank performance bonds for the diminutive
rewrite, due to star Joan Crawford’s recalcitrance over Roy Chanslor’s existing producer. Once the film had begun, du Pont, as the signor, guaranteed that all obli-
script. According to Yordan, Wasserman had sold Republic the script and director gations would be paid in full without any approval other than Bronston’s. With a
Nicholas Ray as a package deal. If Crawford backed out, everyone would end up blank check and an understanding of a postwar Spanish economy that, under
being sued, and MCA would be damaged. He described a desperate Nick Ray as Franco, was short of hard currency, Bronston established what amounted to an
being “in hock up to his ass” from gambling debts. Yordan rewrote the script on alternative studio system in Spain. Yordan lived like a feudal baron in Madrid and
the fly, giving Joan her way by letting her have it Paris. The gravy train had enough for everyone.
out with Mercedes McCambridge in the finale. Bernard Gordon observed that everyone, even those
For his part, Ben Maddow claimed to have only remotely associated with Phil Yordan, appeared
penned the entire Johnny Guitar screenplay, but to be on the Samuel Bronston Productions expense
recanted after seeing the picture years later. account.
Yordan fessed up that Maddow actually Yordan was fond of Bronston, who was born in
wrote the novel Man of the West, published Rumania, graduated from the Sorbonne, played the
under Yordan’s name in 1955. In Patrick flute in the Paris symphony, and was the official still
McGilligan’s Backstory 2; Interviews with photographer of the Vatican. Bronston was fluent in a

Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ©AMPAS

Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s, Maddow dozen languages, was a gourmet chef, obeyed a code
humorously recalled Yordan working the of chivalry that became extinct in the sixteenth cen-
phones, negotiating the screen rights for “his” tury, but, according to Yordan, he “knew shit about
novel with Warner Bros. by claiming it was movies.” Fox chairman Spyros Skouras offered
already published—then selling the book to Bronston $1,000,000 for the rights to King of Kings
Simon and Schuster by telling them a movie ver- during pre-production so it wouldn’t interfere with
sion was imminent. Having Yordan usurp credit George Stevens’s biblical epic, The Greatest Story
for his work eventually drove Maddow to an Ever Told. Yordan begged Bronston to take the easy
analyst, but he never complained. Yordan, he payday, but the producer refused. Yordan concluded:
noted, never welshed on a deal, and the two men “What I had underestimated was Sam’s ego. This
remained friendly over the years. blind drive for recognition in an industry whose
Yordan’s habit of constantly shopping acclaim rarely lasted longer than six months.”
scripts, book options, and story concepts all Yordan continued his dervish production sched-
around Hollywood —while under contract to a ule on his own projects, bringing Bernard Gordon to
single studio—created problems for him in the Spain to write Day of the Triffids (1962) under his
late 1950s. front. Gordon inked his contract with Yordan on the
He got two scripts mixed up and delivered back of a Madrid bar bill, joining a rumored stable of
a Fox script to producer Milton Sperling at writers already on retainer. In addition to Triffids,
Warner Bros., dropping the Warners script off to Phil Yordan backstage at the 1955 Academy Awards, holding Yordan produced The Thin Red Line and Crack in the
Darryl F. Zanuck at Fox. Zanuck threatened to his “Best Story” Oscar for Broken Lance, the western remake World—“to free up my frozen pesetas”—while work-
blackball Yordan at all the major studios. of House of Strangers. Joseph Mankiewicz was not amused ing for Bronston. Rumors about Yordan’s secret
Sperling then learned that it was actually stable of writers were confirmed by several sources,
Yordan’s secretary who had written the draft he’d bought of The Rise and Fall of including actor–dialogue director Mickey Knox. Knox wanted to direct and
Legs Diamond (1959). Confronted by Sperling, Yordan confirmed enough of the “Yordan bought me a book called Young Adam, written by a guy named Alexander
woman’s story to warrant being fired. Trocchi, who was a stone junkie,” Knox recalled. “I saw the writers in Yordan’s
Several years after the Legs Diamond episode, Bernard Gordon was writing basement while I was in Paris. I went down to get a trunk that I left and there were
screenplays for Yordan in Spain when he was introduced to a partially crippled four guys with typewriters, working away in cubicles.” Says Knox: “Everyone
woman, known only as Clem, ensconced in a penthouse suite Yordan kept. She told knew what was going on behind the scenes with Phil and his scripts, but he was a
Gordon that she’d worked with Yordan for more than fifteen years and had written nice guy to me.”
the bulk of his scripts. The Young Adam project died on the vine, but Yordan had many more irons
Clem also surfaces in Yordan’s unpublished manuscript: “She was a secre- in the fire. He engaged blacklisted writer Ben Barzman to write the script for El
tary, not only skilled in shorthand and typing, but in how to fill out descriptions of Cid (1961) with Bernard Gordon contributing a love scene reportedly included to
sets and streets which I was loathe to write.” Whatever the extent of his secretary’s woo Sophia Loren into starring. According to Norma Barzman, director Anthony
collaboration on his scripts, it seems her employment was terminated by Yordan Mann offered her husband the rewrite job after Loren turned thumbs down on
shortly after Gordon met her in Spain. Yordan’s script. Asked if Yordan wrote any of his screenplays, Norma Barzman
Another professional faux pas proved more serious. After serving as a writer- paused before saying, “Perhaps he did when he started, but certainly not in Spain
producer for The Harder They Fall, Yordan’s agent pitched Columbia studio head when Ben worked for him.”
Sam Briskin about hiring Phil, provided he could keep an office on the lot and that Inevitably, the Bronston empire collapsed like a house of cards. The suc-
his authorship of any scripts would be guaranteed. After the deal was made, Yordan cesses of King of Kings and El Cid had cloaked the fiscal inanity of the business
continued to shuttle scripts around town and showed up at Columbia only on pay- operations. Bronston reportedly used a large portion of $5 million in pickup money
day. Caught violating the terms of his contract, Yordan was forced to return the he and Yordan had convinced MGM to invest in King of Kings to pay off his huge
$25,000 he had already been paid. He was barred from Columbia, as well as personal debts. In addition to the firm’s Croesus-like production costs and unlim-
nearly every other studio in Hollywood. ited expense accounts, Yordan and producer Michael Waszynski were reportedly
diverting large sums for their own purposes. A third Bronston epic, 55 Days at
is professional life at its lowest ebb, Yordan struck gold in Spain. Outside Peking (1963) directed by a dissolute Nick Ray, was an abject box office failure.

H Madrid, Samuel Bronston was producing a biographical epic, The Son of Its only notable achievement was in breaking through the blacklist—and Yordan’s
Man, about the life of Christ. Nicholas Ray was at the helm and the script intransigence—by giving Bernard Gordon an onscreen writing credit.
was a mess. Could Yordan come over and straighten things out? Whatever Yordan’s The 55 Days debacle led directly to the financial cataclysm that was The Fall
professional standing may have been, no one had a better rep for screenplay dam- of the Roman Empire (1964). At this point, Yordan’s moneymaking schemes rede-
age control. With the studio system in disarray and his status tarnished, Yordan fined the word chutzpah. Samuel Bronston eventually was compelled to return the
eagerly signed on with Bronston. According to Yordan, he flew into Madrid and bank completion guarantees to du Pont as the production company began hemor-
 Nov / Dec 2009 Noir City Sentinel 15
rhaging red ink. Du Pont and Paramount Studios had jointly put up the funding for an opportunity to work if not for Phil Yordan. On the whole, he paid what was
Fall—over $20 million in 1962 dollars. With the ax poised above the golden goose, agreed upon and reserved his most blatant maneuvering for studio bosses and pro-
Yordan talked Pierre du Pont into a Byzantine deal called a “deficiency guarantee,” ducers who could either afford to be flimflammed or should have known better.
which provided him $5 million to complete the picture. The scheme reportedly Yordan didn’t create the blacklist, but he certainly capitalized on it.
involved Yordan persuading an aging Barney Balaban, president of Paramount, to So what did Phil Yordan actually accomplish as a screenwriter? His own
buy into the deal. The finale had Yordan hurrying to Rome where the last scenes assessment of his screenplays is immodest, to say the least: “Mainly schlock, but
were being shot and handing over the check to Bronston—who promptly paid him several distinguished efforts such as House of Strangers, Detective Story,
$200,000 for services rendered. Dillinger, Royal Hunt of the Sun, etc.” There is no doubt but that Yordan was a
The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) was a ponderous three-hour bore that skilled “spitballer”—a writer who can take an existing structure, premise, script or
sank from its own weight at the box office. Although Circus World (1964) was story, and punch up the dialogue, add bits of business, redesign or add scenes.
already in production and would be completed, Samuel Bronston was finished. Arnold Laven, who directed Anna Lucasta (1959) worked with Yordan on the
Owing millions to du Pont and Paramount, he declared bankruptcy, and eventually shooting script. After emphasizing that they were revising an existing work rather
was found guilty of lying under oath about his Swiss bank accounts. (Note: Bron- than creating something original, Laven said, “I’ve worked with a lot of writers and
ston was exonerated when the Supreme Court threw out his perjury conviction in producers who really didn’t know what they were doing. Phil Yordan was a com-
1973). “Bronston spent the last five years of his existence living in Houston in a plete professional and knew exactly what he was doing with that script.”
room above a garage,” Yordan dryly commented. The script for Detective Story (1951), for which Yordan was nominated for
Realizing his days with Bronston were numbered, Yordan returned to an Oscar, might be the best example of his ability to take an existing work, in this
Hollywood to pursue independent production deals. He launched into Battle of the case Sidney Kingsley’s play, and make it better. Gabriel Miller, author of a forth-
Bulge (1965) and talked his old colleague Milton Sperling—Harry Warner’s son in coming biography of director William Wyler, notes that the original Detective
law—into signing on as a producer to help clinch the deal with Warners. Gordon Story screenplay (dated November 11, 1950) is annotated “2nd draft by Philip
recalled collaborating on the first draft of the Bulge script with Yordan, a first dur- Yordan; Revised by Robert Wyler.” William Wyler’s brother was an uncredited
ing their lengthy association. He also noted that Yordan produced only one viable contributor to Roman Holiday (1953) and also did considerable work on Friendly
scene. Persuasion (1956) and The Big Country
Yordan maintained some of his (1958). Miller notes that “The film is pretty
momentum by underpaying an unhealthy faithful to the play; much of the dialogue is
Robert Siodmak to direct Custer of the West Kingsley’s. Yordan and Wyler rearranged
(1967), which was penned by Gordon and certain sequences, sharpening the dramatic
fellow blacklistee Julian Zimet. The focus, added a couple, cut some lines, and,
Spanish production was highlighted by a of course, had to get rid of the abortion ele-
memorable confrontation between Yordan ment—though it still comes across.”
and the ever-mercurial Lawrence Tierney. It is also worth noting that Yordan
“True to form, Tierney was a pain in worked closely with director Anthony
the ass,” Yordan recounted. “His perform- Mann on six major productions (The Man
ance was fine, but he hounded me for from Laramie, The Last Frontier, Men in
money. He threatened my life… shoved the War, God’s Little Acre, El Cid and The Fall
desk pinning me in my chair against the of the Roman Empire). Yordan might have
wall. The man was mad, utterly mad. used surrogates and parsed truthfulness but
Tierney had me pinned against the wall it defies logic that a director the caliber of
until my secretary returned with four thou- Tony Mann would continue to work with a
sand in cash. He was eventually picked up writer who couldn’t write, worked solely
for fighting in a bar and kicked out of the through fronts, or otherwise didn’t know
country.” his business.
After Custer, there was Krakatoa, Richard Conte tries to impress Jean Wallace with all that money can buy in Milton Sperling probably had it right
East of Java (1969) and then a gradual Yordan’s script for The Big Combo. Was this perhaps the closest Yordan came when he tabbed Yordan as a uniquely tal-
descent into less important films as his to a cinematic self-portrait? ented man compromised by his own self-
influence, and the big money, faded away. indulgence:
“Don’t let anyone tell you he couldn’t write. He could write exceedingly
n the 1980s Yordan lived with his wife in a tract home in a working class San well. . . . He had a kind of Jungian memory of film, a kind of collective uncon-

I Diego neighborhood. For a while, he worked as an adjunct screenwriting scious, a memory bank that would work for him in any given situation. He could
instructor at San Diego State University. He spent much of his time knocking have been one of the best writers. He had ability, no question about it. But his greed
out scripts for low budget horror movies released direct-to-video. His new com- overcame his creative talent. He was born twenty-five years too late. Had he been
pany, Visto International, disappeared through a figurative trap door. When Patrick in Hollywood in the twenties, rather than the late thirties, he would have ended up
McGilligan visited for an interview, Yordan spun his unique cobweb of fascinating running a studio.”
stories, insightful observations, and outright lies. He wanted McGilligan to polish “Filmmakers try to make good films, that’s their big mistake,” Yordan once
his memoir, and couldn’t comprehend why his life story wasn’t worth thousands of remarked. He believed that anyone could make a superior film if they pushed ahead
dollars. and got it done. Finishing the work and getting paid were the principle tenets of his
It is impossible to quantify Philip Yordan’s authentic screenwriting contribu- filmmaking philosophy. His professional legacy should perhaps not be that of an
tions. Without access to production files or living colleagues, determining the ori- accomplished screenwriter, but rather of a skillful producer. For Philip Yordan,
gins of a script like The Big Combo is problematic. Yordan remarked to McGilligan moviemaking was always about the art of the deal.
that he’d hired a bookstore clerk named Dennis Cooper to write the first draft of His personality did, however, find its way into those films that reflected both
When Strangers Marry (1944). Yordan further muddied the waters by lying about his street smarts and his all-consuming ambition. Perhaps the signature Yordan line
his work during the few interviews he gave, most notably to French director and was clipped off by Richard Conte’s mob boss in The Big Combo (1955): “First is
film historian Bertrand Tavernier, who in 1962 published an extensive interview first and second is nobody.” Yordan must have savored that one; Conte repeats it
with Yordan in Amis Americains. It was only after the interview that Tavernier dis- several times.
covered the truth about Yordan’s “surrogates,” and that he’d been naïve to accept
Yordan’s tales at face value. Postscript
It is also difficult to reconcile Yordan’s experience with blacklisted writers Shortly before old age began to dim his all-consuming quest for money,
with a taped interview of him included on the DVD release of Dillinger. Once cog- Yordan was visited at his San Diego home by a colleague of mine. He was osten-
nizant of Yordan’s use of Maddow, Gordon, Barzman and others, it’s hard not to sibly there to discuss special effects for a horror movie Yordan was trying to get
gag when Yordan declares “We were all in it together against the government and made. “It turned out to be much ado about nothing,” my friend related, “but it was
the studios. . .” Yordan wasn’t simply apolitical; he was oblivious. This was a man worth it just to spend time with him.” Yordan invited him for a lunch he cooked
who bragged that he hadn’t read a newspaper until he was 50 and was so focused himself. Picture it: the legendarily enigmatic Phil Yordan, in a pair of Bermuda
on his scripts, deals, and moneymaking that the rest of the world scarcely made an shorts, a stogie clamped in his teeth, grilling eggs and frankfurters.
impression on him. “Kid,” he said, “You can do all these special effects in your bedroom. I’m
But it’s equally true that none of these writers would have had has much of gonna make you a million bucks.” n