Drawing on the biography Mr. Justice Holmes by Francis Biddle, he wrote the play The Magnificent Yankee, which opened in 1946, and he adapted it for the 1950 film version.
In April–May 1949, Lavery had secured a contract from von Le Fort that granted him all rights to theatrical adaptations of her story, and formally had declared his own play to be 'the only authorized dramatic version of the novel'.
[2] In 1952, Lavery learned of stage productions of Dialogues des Carmélites by Georges Benanos, which Bernanos had written as a film screenplay and completed in 1948, just before his death.
Lavery contacted the literary agent for the Bernanos heirs, Albert Béguin, to inform the latter of the status of theatrical adaptation rights to the von Le Fort novel.
[2][3] In 1950, Lavery wrote Guilty of Treason; in 1953, Bright Road ; in 1955 The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, which was nominated for "Best Story and Screenplay" at the 28th Academy Awards.