Tag Archives: John Lee Mahin

By Robert J. Avrech | May 10, 2012

The Wisdom of Hollywood Screenwriters

Tweet From where do we draw wisdom? First and foremost, Seraphic Secret relies on Torah, on the lessons of 3,000 years of Jewish history and the common sense advice of my wife Karen. And then there are the movies, a moral landscape of immeasurable power where searing images and razor-sharp dialogue deliver lessons in human [...]

Posted in Hollywood, Screenwriting, The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood | Also tagged Beast of the City, Greta Garbo, Jane Greer, Jean Harlow, Jean Peters, Lag BaOmer, Out of the Past, Pickup on South Street, Richard Widmark, Robert Mitchum, Sam Fuller, The Temptress, Wallace Ford | 20 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | January 26, 2012

The Wisdom of Hollywood Screenwriters

Tweet From where do we draw wisdom? First and foremost, Seraphic Secret relies on the Torah—written and oral—on the lessons of 3,000 years of Jewish history, and on the common sense advice of my wife Karen. And then there are the movies, a moral landscape of immeasurable power where searing images and razor-sharp dialogue deliver [...]

Posted in Hollywood, Screenwriting, Wisdom of Hollywood Screenwriters | Also tagged Ace in the Hole, Beast of the City, Ben Hecht, Billy Wilder, China Seas, Clark Gable, Dalton Trumbo, Gone With the Wind, Gun Crazy, James Kevin McGuiness, Jan Sterling, Jean Harlow, Jo Swerling, John Van Druten, Jules Furthman, Kirk Douglas, Lesser Samuels, MacKinlay Kantor, Oliver H.P. Garrett, Sidney Howard, Victor Desny, Vivien Leigh, W.R. Burnett, Walter Newman | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | January 12, 2012

Clark Gable: A Child… A Bull… No Filth

Tweet John Lee Mahin (1902-1984) was one of the greatest screenwriters. His credits include some of Hollywood’s most enduring classics: Scarface (1932), Red Dust (1932), Bombshell (1933), China Seas (1935), Wife Versus Secretary (1936), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) with uncredited contributions to, among others, A Star is Born (1937), Test Pilot (1938), Gone [...]

Posted in Clark Gable, Hollywood | Also tagged Classic Hollywood, Hollywood Glamour, MGM, Pat McGilligan, Screenwriting, Victor Fleming | 4 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | November 24, 2010

The Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s: ’30-’33

Tweet Clark Gable, the greatest male star of the 1930′s. Gable was glamorous yet rugged, a man’s man. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him. We continue our decade-by-decade survey of The Twenty Greatest Movies. Last week we examined the 1920′s, the era of silent movies where a particular American vitality found expression [...]

Posted in Great Movies, Greatest Movies of the 1930s, Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s | Also tagged Adrian, Bed of Roses, Ben Hecht, Bombshell, Charlie Chaplin, City Lights, Clara Bow, Clark Gable, Constance Bennett, Duck Soup, Ernst Lubitch, Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast, Herbert Marshall, Jackie Cooper, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Joel McCrea, John Barrymore, Josef von Sternberg, Jules Furthman, Kay Francis, Marlene Dietrich, Marx Brothers, Mary Astor, Miriam Hopkins, Myrna Loy, Paul Bern, Pert Kelton, Possessed, Red Dust, Samson Raphelson, Shanghai Express, The Champ, Topaze, Troble in Paradise, Victor Fleming, Wallace Beery | 17 Responses

How I Married Karen

The new book
by Robert J. Avrech

Available in All Major Book Stores

Adobe Digital Edition's version is available through the Lulu store!
About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California
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I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
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2012
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audio-only mp3 [15MB]: Ninth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

2011
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audio-only mp3 [18MB]: Eighth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

2010
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audio-only mp3 [80MB]: Seventh Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

2009
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audio-only mp3 [64MB]: Sixth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

2008
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audio-only mp3 [70MB]: Fifth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

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