Category: People

This from Variety.com:

Charles B. Griffith, known for melding black humor in his screenplays for Roger Corman including “Little Shop of Horrors,” died Sept. 28 in San Diego. He was 77.

Griffith, to whom Quentin Tarantino dedicated his recent film “Death Proof,” also wrote exploitation classics including “Death Race 2000,” directed by Paul Bartel“Eat My Dust,” starring Ron Howard, which Griffith also directed. and

“Little Shop of Horrors” later became a musical by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, which was then made into a feature directed by Frank Oz.

Griffith’s grandmother Myrtle Vail was a vaudevillian who created one of radio’s earliest soap operas, “Myrt & Marge.” Born in Chicago, he came to Hollywood to help Vail break into television. After an actor friend introduced him to Corman, he received his first feature writing credit on Corman’s “It Conquered the World.”

He went on to write screenplays for sci-fi, girlie and action pics including “Gunslinger,” “Naked Paradise,” “Attack of the Crab Monsters,” “Bucket of Blood,”“Forbidden Island” and “Beast from Haunted Cave,” directed by Monte Hellman. “Teenage Doll,” “Rock All Night,”

Griffith played a centrol role in 1960s and ’70s film and pop culture — his motorcycle pics “The Wild Angels,” starring Peter Fonda, and “The Devil’s Angels,” with John Cassavetes, served as forerunners to “Easy Rider,” and his original script for psychedelic fable “The Trip” was rejected by Corman rejected for glorifying drugs, leaving Jack Nicholson to write the final version. He also contributed uncredited scenes to Roger Vadim‘s “Barbarella.”

Griffith retired in the 1980s to write books, travel and cook.

He is survived by his wife Marmory, a daughter and four grandchildren.

If you wanted to be a rock superstar, you would know a great deal about a great many musicians who preceded you – and their work would profoundly influence yours. If you wanted to be a top athlete – same thing. But when it comes to wanting to be an A-list screenwriter, many emerging writers have very little knowledge of our own important tradition. We stand on the shoulders of giants and knowing the work of these giants, inside and out, is an enormous advantage. Understanding their approaches and techniques gives you tools you might otherwise never develop.

So who are these giants?

The WGA has a list of the top 101 screenplays. Look at the writers of these screenplays. Get to know them.

AskMen.com has a top ten list of legendary screenwriters. The author (whom I initially mis-identified as the scriboshpere’s own Craig Mazin, but see below) includes background on each writer. See how many of them you never heard of.

The book Framework: A History of Screenwriting In The American Film is an excellent resource for learning about the giants.

Many of the screenplays of these giants are freely downloadable online. Download them; read them. Learn and enjoy….

I received emails from a couple new bloggers recently letting me know they exist. Thought I’d pass it on to you….

Ken Levine, tv comedy writer/director with credits including M*A*S*H, Simpsons, Becker and Everybody Loves Raymond has a new blog called “by Ken Livine”.

Xander Bennett, a TV writer from Australia, also has an interesting new blog, Chained To The Keyboard.

Writing need not be vacuous. Example.