Michael Wilson (July 1, 1914 – April 9, 1978) was an American screenwriter known for his work on Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Planet of the Apes (1968), Friendly Persuasion (1956), A Place in the Sun (1951), and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).
[7] Zelma's older sister Sylvia was married to Paul Jarrico, who at the time was a fledgling Hollywood screenwriter, as well as being a leftist like Wilson.
"[8] Jarrico also told Wilson that if he found he didn't love screenwriting, he could view it merely as a remunerative craft to support his literary career.
He then got hired at $200 a week by independent producer Harry Sherman to write Hopalong Cassidy westerns featuring actor William Boyd.
After an arbitration by the Screen Writers Guild, the script was credited to Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and director Frank Capra, with "additional scenes" by Jo Swerling.
"[1] His wife Zelma recalled that Wilson thought It's a Wonderful Life was a good film, not great: "[Mike] was a disenchanted Catholic, and he was not wild about pictures with angels.
"[1] As his next assignment from Capra, Wilson was tasked with adapting Jessamyn West's The Friendly Persuasion, a short story collection about an Indiana Quaker family forced to examine its pacifist convictions during the American Civil War.
While praising Wilson for doing "a swell job" adapting West's book, Capra decided that given the Cold War atmosphere in the late 1940s, "it would be a bad time to produce a picture that might be construed as being antiwar.
Two months after the film was nominated for the Grand Prix du Festival at Cannes in April 1951, Wilson was subpoenaed by the HUAC as a suspected Communist.
[12] He also won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay and garnered another Oscar nomination for a script he had written for 5 Fingers (1952).
[3] In 1953, Wilson wrote the screenplay for Salt of the Earth (1954), a fictionalized account of a recent strike by zinc miners in Grant County, New Mexico.
The movie was made outside the Hollywood studio system by other blacklisted artists, including director Herbert Biberman, producer Paul Jarrico, and actor Will Geer.
[13] He would read his latest screenplay draft, solicit feedback, incorporate the miners' suggestions, and then repeat the process until all approved of the script.
[15] Decades later in 1992, after enjoying an underground "cult" status, Salt of the Earth was deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
[16] Wilson's comment reflected his long frustration with the studio approach to filmmaking, in which screenwriters didn't have control of the integrity of their work.
[1] Among Wilson's uncredited works that made it to the screen were Carnival Story (1954) for King Brothers Productions (who often used blacklisted writers like Dalton Trumbo); They Were So Young (1954); The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) for Otto Preminger; Friendly Persuasion (1956) for William Wyler; The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) for Sam Spiegel and David Lean; The Two-Headed Spy (1958); La Tempesta (1958) and Five Branded Women (1960) for Dino De Laurentiis; and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for Spiegel and Lean again.
His contributions to Lawrence of Arabia earned him, along with Robert Bolt, the Best British Dramatic Screenplay award from the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.
He employed multiple people – including author Jessamyn West, his brother Robert Wyler, and Harry Kleiner – to make revisions.
In accord with blacklist restrictions, Wyler planned to deny Wilson screen credit and only assign it to West and his brother Robert.
Instead, Friendly Persuasion was listed last in the Adapted Screenplay category with the wording, "Achievement nominated, but writer ineligible for Award under Academy By-Laws.
Producer Arthur Jacobs and director Franklin Schaffner were not fully satisfied with Serling's script, believing it needed more political satire.
For instance, he converted a scientific hearing into a trial about political heresy, where the apes' chief prosecutor declares: "There is a conspiracy afoot to undermine the very cornerstone of our faith.
In 1976, upon the recommendation of his friend Dalton Trumbo, Wilson received the Writers Guild of America's Laurel Award for lifetime achievement.
[5] In his acceptance speech, Wilson spoke about moral choices the audience members might have to face:I don't want to dwell on the past, but for a few moments to speak of the future.
But I see a day perhaps coming in your lifetime, if not in mine, when a new crisis of belief will grip this republic; when diversity of opinion will be labeled disloyalty; and when extraordinary pressures will be put on writers in the mass media to conform to administration policy on the key issues of the time, whatever they may be.
If this gloomy scenario should come to pass, I trust that you younger men and women will shelter the mavericks and dissenters in your ranks, and protect their right to work.
In December 1984, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unanimously resolved "that the names of Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman be added to that of Pierre Boulle on the credit for best screenplay based on material from another medium for the film Bridge on the River Kwai.
"[26] In a public ceremony held the following March, Zelma Wilson and Carl Foreman's widow accepted the Oscars on their husbands' behalf.
[5] When a restored version of Lawrence of Arabia was released theatrically in 1989, Wilson was still denied a screen co-credit due to lingering opposition from director David Lean.