[8] Starting in 1917, he worked in silent film in Brooklyn for the Vitagraph Studios where he was primarily a screenwriter and occasionally an actor.

[2] Between 1917 and 1918 he wrote, co-wrote or adapted the scenarios for The Cambric Mask, By the World Forgot, A Gentleman's Agreement, The Purple Dress, Lost on Dress Parade, The Song of the Soul, The Other Man, The Hiding of Black Bill,[10] A Night in New Arabia, The Last of the Troubadours and The Lovers' Knot.

[12] In 1922, Buckley won the O. Henry Award for his short story Gold-Mounted Guns published in Red Book Magazine, March 1922.

[14] and published in the 30 April 1923 issue of Adventure was adapted for the 18 July 1948 episode of the CBS radio program Escape.

[15] Buckley's fiction also appeared in Collier's, Liberty, McClure's, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post.

[4] For Adventure, Buckley wrote a series of stories set in the Italian Renaissance, revolving around the swashbuckling exploits of condottieri Captain Luigi Caradosso.

[17][16] Sometime between 1947 and 1951, Buckley is credited with bringing actor and comedian Stanley Unwin to the attention of BBC producers Peter Cairns and David Martin, who premiered Unwin's first broadcast on the radio programme Pat Dixon's Mirror of the Month[18] In the mid 1950s, Buckley worked as a portrait painter in Paris.