A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Birthplace:
Los Angeles, California, USA
Born:
July 27, 1899
Died:
February 14, 1977
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Joseph Moncure March (July 27, 1899 New York City - February 14, 1977 Los Angeles, California) was an American poet and essayist, best known for his long narrative poems The Wild Party and The Set-Up. After serving in World War I and graduating from Amherst College (where he was a protégé of Robert Frost), March was managing editor of The New Yorker in 1925, and helped create the magazine's "Talk of the Town" front section. He left the magazine, and wrote the first of his two important long Jazz Age narrative poems, The Wild Party. Due to its risqué content, this violent story of a vaudeville dancer who throws a booze and sex-filled party could not find a publisher until 1928. Once published, however, the poem was a great success despite being banned in Boston. March followed with The Set-Up, a poem about a black boxer who had just been released from prison. In 1929, March moved to Hollywood to provide additional dialogue for the film Journey's End and, more famously, to turn the silent version of Howard Hughes' classic Hell's Angels into a talkie — a rewrite that brought the phrase "Excuse me while I put on something more comfortable" into the American lexicon. March stayed with Hughes' Caddo Pictures studio for several years, temporarily running the office, overseeing the release of Hell's Angels, and getting into legal trouble after an attempt to steal the script for rival Warner Bros.' flying picture The Dawn Patrol. March worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood until 1940, under contract to MGM and Paramount and later as a freelancer for Republic Pictures and other studios; he wrote at least 19 produced scripts in his Hollywood career. His most prominent late script is probably the left-leaning John Wayne curio Three Faces West, a knockoff of The Grapes of Wrath that ends with a faceoff between Okies and Nazis. With his third wife, Peggy Prior (a Pathé screenwriter) and her two children, March returned to the East Coast in 1940. During World War II, he worked at a shipbuilding plant in Groton, Connecticut, and wrote features (mostly acid assessments of the movie business) for the New York Times Magazine. In later years, he wrote documentaries for the State Department and industrial films for Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Monsanto Company, American Airlines, and others. Several films starring industrial films icon Thelma "Tad" Tadlock, including Design for Dreaming (1956) and A Touch of Magic (1961) were made from Mar his rhyming scripts. March died in 1977.
Adaptation:
1932 Hot Saturday
Dialogue:
1930 Hell's Angels
1932 Hot Saturday
Novel:
1930 Hell's Angels
1932 Hot Saturday
1975 The Wild Party
Screenplay:
1930 Hell's Angels
1932 Hot Saturday
1932 Madame Butterfly
1933 Hoopla
1934 Jealousy
1934 Two Alone
1936 And Sudden Death
1938 Flirting with Fate
1938 Her Jungle Love
1940 Forgotten Girls
1940 Lone Star Raiders
1940 Three Faces West
1940 Wagons Westward
1975 The Wild Party
Story:
1930 A Man from Wyoming
1930 Hell's Angels
1932 Hot Saturday
1932 Madame Butterfly
1933 Hoopla
1934 Jealousy
1934 Two Alone
1936 And Sudden Death
1938 Flirting with Fate
1938 Her Jungle Love
1940 Forgotten Girls
1940 Lone Star Raiders
1940 Three Faces West
1940 Wagons Westward
1975 The Wild Party
Writer:
1930 A Man from Wyoming
1930 Hell's Angels
1930 Journey's End
1932 Hot Saturday
1932 Madame Butterfly
1933 Hoopla
1933 Jennie Gerhardt
1934 Jealousy
1934 Two Alone
1935 Let 'em Have It
1936 And Sudden Death
1936 Hideaway Girl
1938 Flirting with Fate
1938 Her Jungle Love
1939 Woman Doctor
1940 Forgotten Girls
1940 Lone Star Raiders
1940 Three Faces West
1940 Wagons Westward
1949 The Set-Up
1961 A Touch of Magic
1975 The Wild Party
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