A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Alias:
Mary C. McCall, Jr.
Mary McCall
Birthplace:
New York City, New York, USA
Born:
April 4, 1904
Died:
April 3, 1986
Mary C. McCall, Jr. (April 4, 1904, New York, New York – April 3, 1986, Los Angeles, California) was a writer best known for her screenwriting. She was the first woman president of the Writers Guild of America, serving from 1942–44 and 1951-52. Born in 1904, McCall was a graduate of Vassar College and Trinity College, Dublin. She began writing advertising copy and fiction after graduation. McCall got into the film industry when Warner Bros. hired her to help with the screenplay of the film Scarlet Dawn (1932), based on her novel Revolt. Among her screen credits are the 1935 film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, starring James Cagney as Puck, The Fighting Sullivans, and Mr. Belvedere Goes to College. She also wrote or co-wrote eight of the ten films in the Maisie series. In the late 1930s, she was one of the founders of the Screen Writers Guild. In the 1950s and 1960s, she branched out into television, being credited with four episodes of The Millionaire and one each of Sea Hunt, I Dream of Jeannie, and Gilligan's Island, among others. A number of her stories were published in such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Collier's, and The Saturday Evening Post from the 1930s to the 1950s. McCall was one of many who clashed with the conservative Motion Picture Alliance. On July 27, 1954, she had to defend herself in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee against reports that she was a communist sympathizer. She was completely exonerated by the separate California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities of the General Research Committee in its report to the California Senate. Mary C. McCall, Jr. died of "complications of cancer" at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital, one day shy of her 82nd birthday. She was survived by two sons and two daughters. She was the first recipient of the Writers Guild's Valentine Davies Award in 1962. In 1985, she also received the Guild's Edmund J. North Award.
Adaptation:
1935 Dr. Socrates
Novel:
1932 Scarlet Dawn
1935 Dr. Socrates
Screenplay:
1932 Scarlet Dawn
1932 Street of Women
1934 Babbitt
1934 The Secret Bride
1935 A Midsummer Night's Dream
1935 Dr. Socrates
1936 Craig's Wife
1937 I Promise to Pay
1937 It's All Yours
1937 Women of Glamour
1938 Breaking the Ice
1938 Dramatic School
1939 Maisie
1940 Gold Rush Maisie
1941 Kathleen
1941 Maisie Was a Lady
1941 Ringside Maisie
1942 Maisie Gets Her Man
1944 Maisie Goes to Reno
1945 Keep Your Powder Dry
1949 Dancing in the Dark
1952 Ride the Man Down
1952 Thunderbirds
1959 Juke Box Rhythm
Story:
1932 Scarlet Dawn
1932 Street of Women
1934 Babbitt
1934 Desirable
1934 The Secret Bride
1935 A Midsummer Night's Dream
1935 Dr. Socrates
1936 Craig's Wife
1937 I Promise to Pay
1937 It's All Yours
1937 Women of Glamour
1938 Breaking the Ice
1938 Dramatic School
1939 Maisie
1940 Gold Rush Maisie
1941 Kathleen
1941 Maisie Was a Lady
1941 Ringside Maisie
1942 Maisie Gets Her Man
1942 On the Sunny Side
1942 Panama Hattie
1944 Maisie Goes to Reno
1945 Keep Your Powder Dry
1949 Dancing in the Dark
1952 Ride the Man Down
1952 Thunderbirds
1957 Slim Carter
1959 Juke Box Rhythm
Treatment:
1932 Scarlet Dawn
1932 Street of Women
1934 Babbitt
1934 Desirable
1934 The Secret Bride
1935 A Midsummer Night's Dream
1935 Dr. Socrates
1936 Craig's Wife
1937 I Promise to Pay
1937 It's All Yours
1937 Ready, Willing and Able
1937 Women of Glamour
1938 Breaking the Ice
1938 Dramatic School
1939 Maisie
1940 Gold Rush Maisie
1941 Kathleen
1941 Maisie Was a Lady
1941 Ringside Maisie
1942 Maisie Gets Her Man
1942 On the Sunny Side
1942 Panama Hattie
1944 Maisie Goes to Reno
1945 Keep Your Powder Dry
1949 Dancing in the Dark
1952 Ride the Man Down
1952 Thunderbirds
1957 Slim Carter
1959 Juke Box Rhythm
Writer:
1932 Scarlet Dawn
1932 Street of Women
1934 Babbitt
1934 Desirable
1934 The Secret Bride
1935 A Midsummer Night's Dream
1935 Dr. Socrates
1935 The Woman in Red
1936 Craig's Wife
1937 I Promise to Pay
1937 It's All Yours
1937 Ready, Willing and Able
1937 Women of Glamour
1938 Breaking the Ice
1938 Dramatic School
1939 Maisie
1940 Congo Maisie
1940 Gold Rush Maisie
1941 Kathleen
1941 Maisie Was a Lady
1941 Ringside Maisie
1942 Maisie Gets Her Man
1942 On the Sunny Side
1942 Panama Hattie
1943 Swing Shift Maisie
1944 Maisie Goes to Reno
1944 Reward Unlimited
1944 The Fighting Sullivans
1945 Keep Your Powder Dry
1949 Dancing in the Dark
1949 Mr. Belvedere Goes to College
1952 Ride the Man Down
1952 Thunderbirds
1957 Slim Carter
1959 Juke Box Rhythm
Writer:
1948 Ford Theatre
1955 The Millionaire
1958 Sea Hunt
1964 Gilligan's Island
1965 I Dream of Jeannie
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.