Writing – Page 110 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 17 in a series – “It” (1927) Starring Clara Bow, Wr: Elinor Glyn , Hope Loring , and, Louis D. Lighton , George Marion Jr.

To highlight the wonderful yet largely forgotten work of a collection of female screenwriters from the early years of Hollywood (and as a companion to the book, When Women Wrote Hollywood) we will be posting quick bits about the many films they wrote along with links to further information and clips from their works which are still accessible online. Take a few moments once or twice a week to become familiar with their names and their stories. I think you’ll be surprised at how much bold material these writers tackled at the birth of this new medium. — Rosanne Welch

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 17 in a series – “It” (1927) Starring Clara Bow, Wr: Elinor Glyn , Hope Loring , and, Louis D. Lighton , George Marion Jr.

“It” is a 1927 silent romantic comedy film that tells the story of a shop girl who sets her sights on the handsome, wealthy boss of the department store where she works. It is based on a novella by Elinor Glyn that was originally serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine.

This film turned actress Clara Bow into a major star, and led people to label her the It girl.

The film had its world premiere in Los Angeles on January 14, 1927, followed by a New York showing on February 5, 1927. “It” was released to the general public on February 19, 1927.

The picture was considered lost for many years, but a Nitrate-copy was found in Prague in the 1960s.[1] In 2001, “It” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. — Wikipedia

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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 16 in a series – Elinor Glyn

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 16 in a series – Elinor Glyn

Elinor Glyn (née Sutherland; 17 October 1864 – 23 September 1943) was a British novelist and scriptwriter who specialised in romantic fiction that was considered scandalous for its time. She popularized the concept of It. Although her works are relatively tame by modern standards, she had tremendous influence on early 20th-century popular culture and perhaps on the careers of notable Hollywood stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow in particular.

Glyn pioneered risqué, and sometimes erotic, romantic fiction aimed at a female readership, a radical idea for its time—though her writing is not scandalous by modern standards. She coined the use of the word it to mean a human characteristic that “…draws all others with magnetic force. With ‘IT’ you win all men if you are a woman–and all women if you are a man. ‘IT’ can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction.” [13] Her use of the word is often erroneously[citation needed]taken to be a euphemism for sexuality or sex appeal. — Wikipedia

Elinor Glyn (a/w/d/p/o), Beyond the Rocks (1922). PC

More about Elinor Glyn

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Quote from “America’s Forgotten Founding Father” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 22 in a series – America Arrival

In late November the Triumph docked at Trebell’s Landing & Burwell’s Ferry, on the James River about four miles from Williamsburg. Filippo and his party, which the Captain had dubbed Filippo’s ark as it included such a combination of people, animals and plants as to constitute the beginning of a new Eden, disembarked.

From America’s Forgotten Founding Father — Get Your Copy Today!

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22 More Strong Female Companions In The Past from Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse [Video] (0:51)

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

…and I also just jokingly have to say, from a strength standpoint Jean Marsh, the actress who played that character (Sara Kingdom) ended up writing the miniseries “Upstairs, Downstairs” which was the “Downton Abbey” of your parent’s generation. Huge PBS show about the maids and the rich people living in a house. So literally it was a copy — or the predecessor I should say — of “Downton Abbey.” So she moved her career, using this acting career into a writing career where she could write the kind of representations she felt that the world needed. So that is pretty cool. Liz Shaw came up in the John Pertwee era, The third Doctor Who and she was a scientist so she was the equal to any of the men she worked with and sometimes she was smarter than they were, because she had a Ph.D. and she could do science and these guys sometimes weren’t — sometimes just military dudes. So Liz Shaw is a pretty good example of a strong woman we’ve met along the way.

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Rosanne Welch, PhD

Rosanne Welch PhD teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

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Angelus Review of “America’s Forgotten Founding Father”

What a treat – reading the review of my book America’s Forgotten Founding Father in Angelus, the weekly Catholic magazine of Los Angeles. I enjoyed the way the magazine’s reviewer, Robert Brennan, compared Mazzei to Forest Gump in that he met so many other, far more well known Founding Fathers. Since it is a novel, Mr. Brennan had called me to ask about the historical accuracy of some of those meetings and I was happy to have been able to say that Mazzei led such an interesting life I didn’t need to make any of that up – even much of his dialogue comes from his own prolific correspondence with everyone from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams.

My favorite part of the review is the ending when Brennan shows how history teaches us how to handle our current lives.

“Although men like Jefferson, Washington and Adams represented a homogeneous group of white, English, Protestant, landed gentry, they all welcomed a new immigrant from a non-English speaking, predominantly Catholic country. And Filippo Mazzei showed that a Catholic could, in good conscience, be fully integrated into that great American experiment at its birth, and help christen it with a little holy water.”

Read the entire review – Not born of the 4th of July — but should have been by Robert Brennan

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More On Mazzei: America as a Model for the Radical French Reformers of 1789

This series will focus on material I found while researching my book, America’s Forgotten Founding Father: A Novel Based on the Life of Filippo Mazzei.

These next few items come from the Bibliography I submitted when proposing the original book. — Rosanne.

America as a Model for the Radical French Reformers of 1789

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Of Writing, Research, Verdi and Garibaldi – New Discoveries!

Here’s the fun of research – and poetic license.

I’m working on my novel on the life of Giuseppe Garibaldi (the General who united Italy in 1860) for The Mentoris Project and I discovered that Giuseppe Verdi was a supporter of the Risorgimento (Resurgence), the movement to unite Italy. Moreover, in his 1842 opera, Nabucco (which follows the plight of the Jews as they are conquered and exiled by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II (Nabucco in Italian) he wrote a song — Va Pensiero (to think/to recall) — which was popular among the men of the movement in the 1840s through 1860.

Public Domain, Link

By Giacomo Brogi – File:Brogi,_Giacomo_(1822-1881)_-_Giuseppe_Verdi.jpg Scan by G.dallorto, Public Domain, Link

Poetic license comes in when I see it wasn’t performed in South America (where Garibaldi could have access to it) until a year after he’d left that country. So, I created a scene where he hears it from a newly arrived Italian sailor on the local docks and then Garibaldi goes home to sing it as a lullaby with his wife, Anita, and their son.

Of course, I had to hear the song myself (being more a Dean Martin fan than an opera fan I had not seen Nabucco) so, naturally, I turned to YouTube where I found this beautiful rendition of it with Pavorotti singing in Italian and Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari, known mostly as Zucchero (but brand new to me!).

All in all a delightful discovery.

Click to view the video on YouTube

Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate;
va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli,
ove olezzano tepide e molli
l’aure dolci del suolo natal!

Del Giordano le rive saluta,
di Sionne le torri atterrate…
O, mia patria, sì bella e perduta!
O, membranza, sì cara e fatal!

Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati,
perché muta dal salice pendi?
Le memorie nel petto raccendi,
ci favella del tempo che fu!

O simile di Sòlima ai fati
traggi un suono di crudo lamento,
o t’ispiri il Signore un concento
che ne infonda al patire virtù.^[11]

Go, thought, on wings of gold;
go settle upon the slopes and the hills,
where, soft and mild, the sweet airs
of our native land smell fragrant!

Greet the banks of the Jordan
and Zion’s toppled towers…
Oh, my country, so beautiful and lost!
Oh, remembrance, so dear and so fatal!

Golden harp of the prophetic seers,
why dost thou hang mute upon the willow?
Rekindle our bosom’s memories,
and speak to us of times gone by!

Either, akin to the fate of Jerusalem,
give forth a sound of crude lamentation,
or let the Lord inspire you a harmony of voices
which may instill virtue to suffering.

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My First Mentoris Project Book

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Kirkus Review – America’s Forgotten Founding Father by Rosanne Welch

I’m happy to share this review for my book on Filippo Mazzei, America’s Forgotten Founding Father, from the Kirkus Review website.

I imagine all authors are nervous when hearing there is a professional review of their work available to view. But I fell in love with Filippo while researching this novel and figured other folks would, too.

I’m especially happy they noted all the “intriguing historical tidbits” as those were so much fun to include. It fuels my desire to get as many of those ‘intriguing historical tidbits’ into my new book on Garibaldi – but I admit that’s harder as these facts aren’t on the tip of my tongue the way American history is (after teaching it for the last 10 years) so the digging has taken me much longer.

Read the review yourself! And then (hopefully) order the book. Filippo did so much for our country, the least we can do is know his story.

Read the Kirkus Review – America’s Forgotten Founding Father

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From The Research Vault: Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction by Rosemarie Tong & Tina Fernandes Botts

†

A classic resource on feminist theory, Feminist Thought offers a clear, comprehensive, and incisive introduction to the major traditions of feminist theory, from liberal feminism, radical feminism, and Marxist and socialist feminism to care-focused feminism, psychoanalytic feminism, and ecofeminism. The fifth edition has been thoroughly revised, and now includes a new chapter on Third Wave and Third Space Feminism. Also added to this edition are significantly expanded discussions on women of color feminisms, psychoanalytic and care feminisms, as well as new examinations of queer theory, LGBTQ and trans feminism.Learning tools like end-of-chapter discussion questions and the bibliography make Feminist Thought an essential resource for students and thinkers who want to understand the theoretical origins and complexities of contemporary feminist debates. — Amazon

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Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 15 in a series – “The Ancient Mariner” (1925), Wr: Eve Unsell, Actor: Clara Bow, Dir: Henry Otto/Chester Bennett

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 15 in a series – “The Ancient ” (1925), Wr: Eve Unsell, Actor: Clara Bow, Dir: Henry Otto/Chester Bennett

The Ancient Mariner is a 1925 American fantasy-drama silent film based on the popular poem, The Rime of the Ancient by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798.[1] The film was directed by Henry Otto and Chester Bennett, and it was adapted for the screen by Eve Unsell. The film stars Clara Bow, Gladys Brockwell, Nigel De Brulier and was distributed by Fox Film Corporation. The film is presumed to be lost.[2][3]

The official plot synopsis, as provided by the Fox Film Corporation to the copyright registration office and then entered at the Library of Congress:[3][4]

Doris Matthews, a beautiful, innocent young girl, forsakes her sweetheart, Joel Barlowe, in favor of Victor Brant, a wealthy roué. On the night before they are to elope, an old sailor gives Brant a strange potion to drink and then unfolds before his eyes The Rime of the Ancient . Deeply touched by this story about the consequences of the wanton destruction of innocent beauty, Brant leaves without Doris. After some time, he returns and finds to his pained satisfaction that Doris, having overcome her infatuation for him, has again turned her tender attentions toward Joel.

— Fox Film Corporation — Wikipedia

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