Prison Made Me a Screenwriter!
In the 1937 Warner Bros. picture San Quentin, Pat O’Brien plays a military captain named Stephen Jameson, newly appointed the prison’s warden. Midway through the film, he is seen visiting inmates. One, Simpson, is known in the joint as “the writer.” He has a typewriter in his cell and is played by a good-looking actor, Dennis Moore.
JAMESON
Writing, eh? How’s the story going?
SIMPSON
Fine, Captain. I’m about finished. Here, read this.
JAMESON
Well, I’ll wait till after it’s published. You know, I never could understand how a man with your brains would ever end up in a place like this.
SIMPSON
Well, I couldn’t live on rejection slips. I didn’t start getting accepted until I got in here.
JAMESON
Mmm. Maybe the address impressed them.
In the next shot, the warden stops in front of another inmate, Dorgan, who is in for forgery.
DORGAN
I’m a writer, too.
JAMESON
Oh, I think I remember now, it’s writing other people’s names on checks now, is it?
DORGAN
Right, Captain. Trouble is, I retired so long, I got out of practice.
No fewer than eight writers were put to work on . The purchase price of the story was expensive: $18,901—almost had been a huge hit in 1931, and Bright went on writing for the actor until he ran afoul of Warner Bros. production chief Darryl F. Zanuck, who fired him for “personal reasons.”
