Meet Ben Hecht, Wisecracking Jewish Hero

American Thinker ^ | February 28, 2013 | Stella Paul

[Trafalgar123]

February 28th marks the 119th birthday of Ben Hecht, the wisecracking genius who invented the screwball comedy and gangster movie, and who raucously upheld the honor of American Jews in WWII.

Blasted into history from a more colorful age, Hecht began his career as a circus acrobat and virtuoso violinist, then seamlessly morphed into Chicago's star crime reporter and the most successful screenwriter in Hollywood history.

I love Hecht for the feast of intelligent entertainment he seemed to effortlessly concoct, from Hitchcock masterpieces like Notorious and Spellbound to Scarface, The Front Page, and the uncredited script of Gone With the Wind.

But I adore Ben Hecht for the incorruptible courage with which he championed the dying Jews of Europe, appalling his fancy Hollywood and New York Jewish friends with his outré chutzpah.

Hecht throbbed with fury at the Germans' murder of "a whole continent" of Jews. His heart, he wrote, "has not wept at all. It has felt only outrage. I doubt if any man has ever felt more."

Passionately, Hecht applied his whirlwind mind to pleading for the rescue of Europe's last Jews, a task he likened to sticking his head into the mouth of a lion. The American Jewish establishment, personified by the self-satisfied Rabbi Stephen Wise, battled him at every turn.

[greene66]

He and Charles MacArthur made a very interesting and rather starkly ‘anti-New Deal’ movie for Paramount entitled “Soak the Rich” in 1936. I saw it on television back in the mid-1980s, but haven’t seen it anywhere since.

[Argus]

I like the story about Selznick hiring Hecht to adapt GWTW. He couldn’t be bothered to plow through the book himself so they had relays of secretaries read it to him while he took five on the couch.

[knarf]

Do It First
Do It Yourself
Keep On Doing It

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Trafalgar123.

http://www.globalpressinstitute.org/users/stella-paul

NYC Attorney Asks Judge To Ban Jews From Accused Terrorist’s Jury
CBS New York | March 11, 2013 7:56 PM
Posted on 03/12/2013 11:48:28 AM PDT by Olog-hai
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2996146/posts

[TheOldLady]

Bump.