bryant recently pointed to a trove of academic texts now online from the University of California. My attention immediately went to a collection of interviews with Hollywood screenwriters of the 60s. Genre fans may be drawn at first to the Richard Matheson piece, though actually it’s a bit on the dry side. Highly recommendable for aficionados of classic film are the Ring Lardner Jr. and George Axelrod interviews, packed with anecdote and vinegar. Lardner (Woman of the Year, M*A*S*H) talks about growing up around the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker and provides a fresh, hysteria-free account of his experiences as one of the Hollywood Ten. If you read nothing else, scroll down to the William Wellman story. Axelrod (Seven Year Itch, Bus Stop)serves up his impressions of Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe, and discusses the ins and outs of writing cow jokes for the Grand Old Opry. There’s a whole bunch of others, too, that I haven’t gotten to yet, but they’re waiting for me on my PDA.

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