In Capra's Shadow: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin

by Ian Scott

Because screenwriter Robert Riskin spent most of his career collaborating with legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra, Riskin's own unique contributions to film have been largely overshadowed. With five Academy Award nominations to his credit for the monumental films Lady for a Day, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, Here Comes the Groom, and It Happened One Night (for which he won the Oscar), Riskin is often imitated but rarely equaled. In Capra's The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin is the first detailed critical examination of the Hollywood pioneer's life and work. In addition to being one of the great screenwriters of the classic Hollywood era, Riskin was also a producer and director, founding his own film company and playing a crucial role in the foundation of the Screen Writers Guild. During World War II, Riskin was one of the major forces behind propaganda filmmaking. He worked in the Office of War Information and oversaw the distribution -- and later, production -- of films and documentaries in foreign theaters. He was interested in showing the rest of the world more than just an idealized version of America; he looked for films that emphasized the spiritual and cultural vibrancy within the U.S., making charity, faith, and generosity of spirit his propaganda tools. His efforts also laid the groundwork for a system of distribution channels that would result in the dominance of American cinema in Europe in the postwar years. Riskin's postwar work included his production of the 1947 film Magic Town, the tale of a marketing executive who discovers the perfect American small town and uses it for polling. What Riskin created onscreen is not simply a community stuck in an antiquarian past; rather, the town of Grandview observes its own traditions while at the same time confronting the possibilities of the modern world and the challenges of postwar America. Author Ian Scott provides a unique perspective on Riskin and the ways in which his brilliant, pithy style was realized in Capra's enduring films. Riskin's impact on cinema extended far beyond these films as he helped spread Hollywood cinema abroad and articulated his vision of a changing America.

Genres: Writing

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 3, 2006

Reviews

[Erik Howlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly written from an academic's point of view whose bias in regards to the legacy and influence of Riskin should be noted.

Really fascinating stuff if you love early Studio power-structure classy Hollywood.

The prose while academic is not strictly so and some anecdotes are exceptionally fun to read.

An argument is made that Riskin is one of the true greats of the golden age, the patriarch of the screenwriter's craft.

I buy it.

He was, in quick summary, a dedicated craftsman, wrote some of the most noteworthy films of the 1930s, invented the screwball comedy, and influenced and shaped Frank Capra in an artistic partnership that isn't well known or regarded today since Capra erased or blurred his legacy as he embraced auteur theory in his winter years.

The biography isn't dismissive of Capra, only disputing Riskin's contributions. It's one flaw, perhaps, is an argument that Riskin's greatest contribution was in overseas propaganda filmmaking during WWII.

Despite that it is enthralling.

Riskin was a Screenwriter's screenwriter, a real master of the craft. He is mostly forgotten, his claim to fame being married to Fay Wray, the damsel in distress in the original King Kong not the crappy Jack Black remake.

It seems a shame. Read it then watch some of his films and dispel any doubts of his ability as a screenwriter.

[Malcolm Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be an extremely disappointing book.It had to much about politics and events which were not directly connected with Riskin.The Capes v Ruskin dispute became wearysome.The description of films boring.There some appalling errors.For example" "Selznicks Twentieth Century Fox".In relation to the Toscanini film he states that an 8000 feet film will run 20 minutes.It will not.8000 feet at 35 mms will run 72 minutes.He then compounds the error,which must have been obvious to any editor of the book,by saying that a 12000 feet film will run half an hour,when such a length of film would run 108 minutes not 30 minutes.
I think I will buy Victoria Riskins book.

[Matthew Walls · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is less of a history of Robert Riskin's career from a typical biography standpoint than it is an argument for recognition of Robert Riskin contributing much to the success of Frank Capra's movies. There is also a fair amount of delving into the political philosophy of Riskin.

[Geert Verbanck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very well researched, but helas not very well written. After reading the book, I know what screenplays he wrote, what he did during and after the war, who he was married to, but I still have no clue what kind of person Robert Riskin really was.