W. R. Burnett


William Riley Burnett was an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for the crime novel Little Caesar, the film adaptation of which is considered the first of the classic American gangster movies.

Early life

Burnett was born in Springfield, Ohio, and attended Miami Military Institute in Germantown, Ohio. He left his civil service job in Springfield to move to Chicago when he was 28, by which time he had written over 100 short stories and five novels, all unpublished.

Writing career

In Chicago, Burnett found a job as a night clerk in the seedy Northmere Hotel. He found himself associating with prize fighters, hoodlums, hustlers and hobos. They inspired Little Caesar. The novel's overnight success landed him a job as a Hollywood screenwriter. Little Caesar became a classic movie, produced by First National Pictures and starring then little known Edward G. Robinson.
Burnett was hired by Howard Hughes to write a draft of Scarface although Howard Hawks disliked it and the script was rewritten by Ben Hecht.
He won the 1930 O. Henry Award for his short story "Dressing-Up", published in Harper's in November 1929.
Burnett published a novel or more a year and turned most into screenplays. Thematically Burnett was similar to Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, but contrasting the corruption and corrosion of the city with the better life his characters yearned for. He portrayed characters who, for one reason or another, fell into a life of crime and were unable to climb out. They typically get one last shot at salvation but the oppressive system closes in and denies redemption.

Film work

Burnett wrote for many of the great actors and directors, including Raoul Walsh, John Huston, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, and Michael Cimino, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Paul Muni, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood. He received an Oscar nomination for his script for Wake Island and a Writers Guild nomination for his script for The Great Escape. In addition to his film work, he also wrote scripts for television and radio.
In High Sierra, Humphrey Bogart plays Roy Earle, a hard-bitten criminal who rejects his life of crime to help a sexually appealing crippled girl. In The Asphalt Jungle, the most perfectly masterminded plot falls apart as each character reveals a weakness. In The Beast of the City starring Walter Huston, the police take the law into their own hands when the criminals walk free due to legal incompetence.
Burnett was called back by Howard Hughes to work on Vendetta.

Later years

In later years, with his vision declining, he stopped writing and turned to promoting his earlier work. On his death in 1982, in Santa Monica, California, Burnett was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Critical reception

Heywood Broun described Burnett's novel Goodbye to the Past as "written with all the excitement of Little Caesar, and ten times the skill".

Works

Novels

Little Caesar Iron Man Saint Johnson The Silver Eagle The Beast of the City The Giant Swing Dark Hazard Goodbye to the Past: Scenes from the Life of William Meadows The Goodhues of Sinking Creek Dr. Socrates King Cole The Dark Command: A Kansas Iliad High Sierra The Quick Brown Fox Nobody Lives Forever Tomorrow's Another Day Romelle The Asphalt Jungle Stretch Dawson. The film Yellow Sky was based on an early version of the novel.Little Men, Big World Adobe Walls: A Novel of the Last Apache Rising Vanity Row Big Stan - written under pseudonym "John Monahan"Captain Lightfoot It's Always Four O'Clock - written under pseudonym "James Updyke"Pale Moon Underdog Bitter Ground Mi Amigo: A Novel of the Southwest Conant Round the Clock at Volari's The Goldseekers The Widow Barony The Abilene Samson Sergeants 3 The Roar of the Crowd: Conversations with an Ex-Big-Leaguer The Winning of Mickey Free The Cool Man
  • ''Good-bye, Chicago: 1928: End of an Era''

Short stories

  • "Round Trip"
  • "Dressing-Up"
  • "Travelling Light"
  • "Vanishing Act"

Filmography