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Wall Street Journal

‘Mary C. McCall Jr.' Review: The Screenwriters' Champion

Mary C. McCall Jr. was a vibrant feminist born to privilege who graduated from Vassar and became a successful screenwriter in Hollywood. As J.E. Smyth chronicles in her biography, McCall's credits include short stories in the New Yorker and screenplays for 'Craig's Wife' (1936) and the popular 'Maisie' films (1939-47), which starred Ann Sothern as a never-say-die showgirl. The quietly indomitable Maisie never makes the big time but always comes up smiling—a stand-in for millions of American women with personality and grit but without the leverage of money or position. More importantly, McCall was the first woman president of the Screen Writers Guild. She was crucial in the early years of the guild in the 1930s and '40s and getting certification from the National Labor Relations Board, which meant that producers would have to negotiate with the guild rather than the more docile Screen Playwrights company union. McCall's fellow screenwriter William Ludwig noted, 'Mary wasn't a radical of the Right or of the Left. She was a radical about writers . . . about their right to be treated with dignity and respect.' McCall's husband was the gifted artist and costume designer Dwight Franklin, who worked on Douglas Fairbanks's 'The Black Pirate' (1926) and Cecil B. DeMille's 'The Buccaneer' (1938). The couple had something of an open marriage and McCall slept with whom she pleased. Unfortunately, she divorced Franklin to marry David Bramson, a handsome but abusive publicist seven years her junior. He, along with changing times, gradually drained her of her money but never drained her drive and self-respect.