Krasna wrote a number of successful Broadway plays, including Dear Ruth and John Loves Mary.
Krasna wanted to get into journalism and talked his way into a job as a copy boy for the Sunday feature department of the New York World in 1928.
While at that newspaper, he worked with Lewis Weitzenkorn who turned Krasna into a character in the play Five Star Final.
[8] The play had a short run starting November 1931, and Krasna was then offered a contract at Columbia Pictures as a junior staff writer.
[10] In April 1932 Krasna was assigned to his first film to work on as a screenwriter, Hollywood Speaks (1932), directed by Eddie Buzzell with Jo Swerling also credited as a writer.
[17] In June 1933 Eddie Buzzell arranged for Universal to borrow Krasna from MGM to work on the script for Love, Honor, and Oh Baby!
"[22] Part of this deal (negotiated by Krasna's agent Zeppo Marx) included adapting his own play Small Miracle which had been sold to the studio for $37,500.
[27] In August 1936 Paramount announced that Krasna would make his directorial debut in a movie he wrote for George Raft, Wonderful, co-starring Helen Burgess.
[30] He moved to Universal to do As Good as Married (1937) for his old collaborator Eddie Buzzell[31] In early 1937 he went to MGM for Big City (1937) with Spencer Tracy, which Krasna also produced.
[42] Instead he did two films for Universal: the René Clair-directed The Flame of New Orleans (1940)[43] and another Durbin vehicle for Joe Pasternak, It Started with Eve (1941).
However, his career momentum as director was interrupted when he went into the U.S. Army Air Corps in September 1942, serving with the First Motion Picture Unit.
He spent most of his time in the Air Corps at Camp Roach in Los Angeles, enabling him to live in his house in Beverly Hills.
[50] He also adapted The Man with Blond Hair into a movie: in October 1943 Warners announced they purchased an unproduced play by Krasna called Night Action as a vehicle for Helmut Dantine (which was The Man with Blond Hair); the film was not made.
This debuted on Broadway in November 1944, financed solely by Lew Wasserman, and was a massive hit, running for 680 performances; the film rights were sold for over $450,000.
[57][58] Less successful was the play Time for Elizabeth (1947), co-written with Krasna's friend Groucho Marx, originally called The Middle Ages which had been written years earlier.
[63] Later that month Howard Hughes announced he had bought out the remainder of Wald's contract with Warners for $150,000 so the duo could make 8-12 films a year at RKO.
[65] Among the films they were going to make were The Helen Morgan Story,[66] Stars and Stripes starring Al Jolson, Behave Yourself, Size 12, Mother Knows Best, Easy Going, Country Club, The Strong Arm, Call Out the Marines, The Harder They Fall based on the novel by Budd Schulberg with Robert Ryan, Present for Katie by George Beck, Galahad, Cowpoke with Robert Mitchum, Strike a Match, The Blue Veil, All the Beautiful Girls to be directed by Busby Berkeley, Clash by Night by Clifford Odets, A Story for Grown Ups (based on The Time for Elizabeth), All Through the Night, Pilate's Wife, I Married a Woman, Years Ago, a biopic of Eleanor Duse.
[72] However, in December Krasna and Wald announced they intended to pick up their option to stay at RKO.
[78] In July 1952 Krasna signed a contract with Paramount to write White Christmas (1954), originally meant to be a vehicle for Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.
He returned to Broadway with a play he had written years earlier: Kind Sir starring Charles Boyer and Mary Martin directed by Joshua Logan.
In February 1954 Krasna announced he would write and direct an original film for Wald, now at Columbia, Speak to Me of Love.
The film ended up not being made at Columbia – in February 1955 Krasna signed a two-picture deal to write and direct at Universal; the first was to be The Ambassador's Daughter and the second was Red Roses.
[83] Krasna wanted to reteam de Havilland and Forsythe in a film called Cabaret but it was never made.
[88] Krasna adapted Kind Sir as Indiscreet (1958), starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.
In July 1958 he signed to write a film for Jerry Wald, then at Fox, called High Dive.
[91] In August 1959 Wald announced Fox would make The Billionaire from a script by Krasna starring Gregory Peck.
In June 1960 Richard Quine announced Krasna would adapt Leslie Storm's play Roar Like a Dove for Doris Day.
[93] Krasna wrote Sunday in New York, which reached Broadway with Robert Redford in 1961, directed by Garson Kanin.
[94][95] In October 1962 Seven Arts announced they had bought the film rights to the Krasna play Watch the Birdie!
In 1964 Garson Kanin announced he would direct both the Broadway production and film of Krasna's script Naked Mary, Will You Come Out?