Algonquin Round Table News 5 Things You Don’t Know About Herman J. Mankiewicz

5 Things You Don’t Know About Herman J. Mankiewicz

Mank

The trailer has been released for the new David Fincher-directed film Mank, about Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. The movie will come out in theaters in November and on Netflix in December. Mank is only the second biographical film about a member of the Algonquin Round Table; Alan Rudolph’s Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) was the first.

Mankiewicz was one of the great screenwriters and producers of the Golden Age of Hollywood. He is one of the 30 members of the Vicious Circle whom I wrote about in my book The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide. There are many facts about his incredible life (for example, he produced the three best Marx Brothers movies); and most probably will not make it into this film, sadly, but I’ll share them here.

1. He was born in New York City in 1897 but as a child grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where his father was a teacher. As a boy his beloved bicycle was stolen. That was the inspiration for Rosebud in Citizen Kane.

2. He was incredibly gifted and entered Columbia when he was just 15, graduating three years later and then onto graduate school. He was a voracious reader, and it’s said that his book collection in Hollywood was among the greatest private libraries in the city.

3. Mankiewicz enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served in World War I. Because he spoke fluent German, this helped him in post-war Germany, where he worked for the Red Cross and as a newspaper correspondent.

4. He did not join the Round Table until he moved to New York in 1922, brought there by George S. Kaufman. Mankiewicz worked at the World, where he met Franklin P. Adams and Heywood Broun. He then transferred to the Times. All of these newspaper experiences are in Citizen Kane.

5. Mank was hired by Harold Ross and Jane Grant as one of the first writers for The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott called him “the funniest man in New York,” and Robert E. Sherwood said he was “the truest wit of all.”

He quit journalism and went to Hollywood in 1926, right when silents transitioned to talkies. He famously sent a telegram back to New York to Ben Hecht: “Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don’t let this get around.”

For fans of the Algonquin Round Table, it looks like the cast has other characters with names familiar to the group and The New Yorker. There are roles in the film for George S. Kaufman, Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht, and S.J. Perelman. The always-great Gary Oldman plays Mankiewicz.

The trailer and the photos from the film look amazing. Fincher of course is a meticulous auteur, and if the film is anything like his previous work such as The Social Network or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, this movie will do justice to the tragic life and brilliant career of Herman Mankiewicz.

Related Post

Book Launch Party at the AlgonquinBook Launch Party at the Algonquin

The Algonquin Round Table New York (Globe Pequot Press) was published today. I hope you can find a copy in your local bookstore. Here you can enter your ZIP code and it will tell you the closest bookstore to shop local.

We had a fantastic book launch party at the Algonquin Hotel. What was wonderful was the descendants of the Vicious Circle that attended, I thank them so much!

citizen kane

Round Table Movies in the Library of CongressRound Table Movies in the Library of Congress

GIANT

Edna Ferber and James Dean on the set of Giant.

The Algonquin Round Table has many ties to film history. With so many writers and actors, it’s no wonder there are links to many classic Hollywood productions. Most of these names are in The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide. Lucky for us, the Library of Congress National Film Registry is around.

Motions pictures that members of the Round Table contributed to, and that the Library of Congress has added to the National Film Registry. These films are to be preserved in the national archives for perpetuity:

A Night at the Opera (Harpo Marx, star; George S. Kaufman, screenplay)

Citizen Kane (Herman J. Mankiewicz, writer)

Duck Soup (Harpo Marx, star)

Giant (Edna Ferber, writer)

Showboat (Edna Ferber, writer)

It’s A Wonderful Life (Dorothy Parker, un-credited script doctor)

The Big Parade (Laurence Stallings, writer)

The Philadelphia Story (Donald Ogden Stewart, adapted screenplay)

The Sex Life of the Polyp (Robert Benchley, writer & star)

The Sound of Music (Peggy Wood, co-star)

How many have you seen? Do you think any were overlooked?

Heywood Broun

Heywood Broun on Actors and VaudevilleHeywood Broun on Actors and Vaudeville

Heywood Broun

Heywood Broun


On this day in 1938 Heywood Broun died. Here is a sample of one of his columns. From “It Seems To Me.” He loved vaudeville and the stage.

On Actors

Nothing in the world dies quite as completely as an actor and the greater the actor the more terrifying becomes the sudden transition from radiance to darkness. One day he is there with all his moods and complexities and curious glints of this and that, and the next day there is nothing left but a few wigs and costumes; perhaps a volume of memoirs, and a scrapbook of clippings in which we learn that the dead player was “majestic in presence” that “the poise of his head was stag-like” that he had “a great voice which boomed like a bell,” that he was “regal, subtle, pathetic,” and that “every one who was ever associated with him loved and respected him.”

Ask some veteran theatergoer “What was Booth like as Hamlet?” and he will say “Oh, he was wonderful.” Perhaps the face of the old theatergoer will grow animated and Booth may live again for a moment in his mind, but we who have never seen Booth will never know anything about him. Nobody can recreate and explain the art of a dead actor to the next generation. Even men who do tricks and true magic with words are not adept enough to set down any lasting portrait of an actor on the wing.