Andrew P. Solt
Solt is best known for writing the screenplay for In a Lonely Place (1950), a critically acclaimed film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.
Adapted from Anderson's hit Broadway show Joan of Lorraine (1946), the production starred Ingrid Bergman and was nominated for seven Oscars and won two.
[5] Solt's journey to Hollywood and a career as screenwriter was propelled by a fortuitous chance encounter with Cardinal George Mundelein, the influential Archbishop of Chicago, known in the United States for his outspoken support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
[8] They included Without Reservations (1946) starring John Wayne and Claudette Colbert; The Jolson Story (1946) with Larry Parks; Joan of Arc (1946); a remake of the 1933 classic Little Women (1949) with the four March sisters played by Elizabeth Taylor, June Allyson, Margaret O'Brien and Janet Leigh; Whirlpool (1949), a film noir with Gene Tierney and Richard Conte, co-written with Ben Hecht; In a Lonely Place (1950); mystery Thunder on the Hill (1951) with Claudette Colbert and Ann Blyth; and a Mario Lanza musical set in Capri, For the First Time (1959); it turned out to be the popular singer's final movie (he died two months after it opened).
Over that span, Solt worked on films guided by some of Hollywood's leading directors including Victor Fleming, Mervyn LeRoy, Otto Preminger, Rudolph Maté, Douglas Sirk, William Dieterle, Tay Garnett and Nicholas Ray.
But, somehow, the huge combination of pageantry, legend and pathos—of spectacle, color, court intrigues and the historic ordeal of a girl—while honestly intended, fails to come fully to life or to give a profound comprehension of the torment and triumph of Joan.
The film's producer, Walter Wanger, meanwhile received an honorary Academy Award for "distinguished service to the industry in adding to its moral stature in the world community by his production of the picture Joan of Arc.
When Time's chief film critic Richard Schickel updated the magazine's all-time 100-best movies list and added In a Lonely Place, he said he "loved every minute of this sardonic portrayal of life on Hollywood's fringes (the characters surrounding Steele are etched in acid).
"[15] "Part of the enduring fascination of In A Lonely Place is how Ray and screenwriter Andrew Solt make it work on so many seemingly contradictory levels", a reviewer wrote when a Blu-ray-DVD version was put out in 2016 by Criterion, known for its curated catalog of film classics.
And The Wall Street Journal review of the 2016 DVD re-release stated: "There is no noir more profoundly sad than Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place, which unfolds with dark lyricism against a backdrop of violence, cynicism, and suspicion.
One of Ray's most indelible stories involving characters who lash out in pointless fury—and one of his most personal films—it incorporates melodrama, echoes of Shakespeare, and heart-stopping performances by Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.
He wrote a number of teleplays for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (still seen in reruns), and also for General Electric Theater, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars and Ford Theatre.
[18] It starred Luise Rainer, who had the unique distinction of being the only person to win the Best Actress Oscar two years in a row, for The Great Ziegfeld (1937) and The Good Earth (1938).
In 1946 Judy O'Connor, a play he wrote with Hollywood producer Frank Ross, opened in Boston[19] and starred Don DeFore, but never made it to Broadway.
Solt did an early treatment of The Robe (1953), a tale of the Christ in Roman times, which became one of Ross's biggest hits, and is still remembered as the first movie released in widescreen CinemaScope.)
Solt's acquaintance Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), the international socialite and renowned decorator, convinced her friend Maugham that the young Hungarian writer would be the perfect person to turn his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, into a play.
When Solt arrived in Hollywood, he fit right in with the town's roster of actors, directors, and writers who were either born in Hungary or of Hungarian descent—among them George Cukor, Michael Curtiz, Leslie Howard, Zoltan Korda, and Andre de Toth.
[25] The film, tentatively titled A Western Affair and later Rubi Rides Again was in pre-production when the Immigration and Naturalization Service ruled that Rubirosa was not eligible to work on the movie.
