Dorothy Parker’s story is such a classic it keeps being made and remade across the decades – first adapted by Moss Hart, then by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne – this time by Eric Roth (Oscar winner for Forest Gump), Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters. THAT is a successful piece of writing. The trailer already has me teared up- that’s how powerful the story still is.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
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
The Ten Commandments (1923), Wr: Jeanie Macpherson, Dirs: Cecil B. DeMille, USA 136 mins
Segments from The Ten Commandments (1923)
Original Poster Art
The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American silent religious, epic film and produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Written by Jeanie MacPherson, the film is divided into two parts: a prologue recreating the biblical story of the Exodus and a modern story concerning two brothers and their respective views of the Ten Commandments.
Lauded for its “immense and stupendous” scenes, use of Technicolor process 2, and parting of the Red Sea sequence,[3] the expensive film proved to be a box-office hit upon release.[4] It is the first in DeMille’s biblical trilogy, followed by The King of Kings (1927) and The Sign of the Cross (1932).
Despite its epic scale, the Moses story takes up only about the first third of the film. After that, the story changes to a modern setting involving living by the lessons of the commandments. Two brothers make opposite decisions, one, John, to follow his mother’s teaching of the Ten Commandments and become a poor carpenter, and the other, Danny, to break every one of them and rise to the top. The film shows his unchecked immorality to be momentarily gainful, but ultimately disastrous. — Wikipedia
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
Rosanne Welch, PhD, Author of Why The Monkees Matter, presents “How The Monkees Changed Television” at a Cal State Fullerton Lunch Lecture on May 8, 2018.
In this talk, she shows how The Monkees, and specifically their presence on television, set the stage for large changes to come in the late 1960s.
Transcript
Meeting all those folks was really interesting and I realized I had much more material than just for that article. So then I started looking around and I realized there were critical studies books explaining Gilligans Island and The Brady Bunch and Hogan’s Heros and there wasn’t a book about The Monkees, which shocked me and I also knew at that time that their 50th anniversary was coming up so that’s a great time to get some free publicity so I put the book together and was able to put it out that same year so that was really a lot of fun. So we’ll talk about how The Monkees Changed Television. First of all, you’ll notice in this picture — the show on 2 Emmys in its first year. So this isn’t some piece of fluff that’s just for little children. They won for Best New Comedy Series which ranks them right up there with Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory and all the major shows.
Rosanne Welch, PhD is a writer, producer and university professor with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, Touched by an Angel and ABC NEWS/Nightline. Other books include Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture (McFarland, 2017) and Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection (ABC-CLIO, 2017), named to the 2018 Outstanding References Sources List, by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association. Welch has also published chapters in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television (I.B.Tauris) and The American Civil War on Film and TV: Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color (Lexington Books, 2018) and essays in Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology and Outside In Makes it So, and Outside in Boldly Goes (both edited by Robert Smith). By day she teaches courses on the history of screenwriting and on television writing for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting programs. Her talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP is available on YouTube.
In the daytime Filippo worked on selling the products he had transported from Tuscany and with the help of Chamier, he made more money than he had hoped. At night, Filippo worked on learning the English language through a method he invented. He would take a book written in English on a subject he knew well, usually medicine or literature, and copy out one whole chapter over and over.
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 – 2 in a series – Adela Rogers St. Johns
Adela Nora Rogers St. Johns (May 20, 1894 – August 10, 1988) was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies but is best remembered for her groundbreaking exploits as “The World’s Greatest Girl Reporter” during the 1920s and 1930s and her celebrity interviews for Photoplay magazine.
She obtained her first job in 1912 working as a reporter for Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner. She reported on crime, politics, society, and sports news before transferring to the Los Angeles Herald in 1913.[1]
After seeing her work for that newspaper, James R. Quirk offered her a job writing for his new fan magazine Photoplay. St. Johns accepted the job so she could spend more time with her husband and children. Her celebrity interviews helped the magazine become a success through her numerous revealing interviews with Hollywood film stars.[3]
She also wrote short stories for Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post, and other magazines and finished nine of her thirteen screenplays before returning to reporting for Hearst newspapers. — Wikipedia
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
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:
He gave us Bill Potts who is Pearl Mackie over there in the corner who was the last companion we’ve seen with The Doctor. Also, and out lesbian at that time when she was introduced as that character. So these are big steps in a show that was meant, originally, for children. These are big cultural influential steps. So, I tend to like — I tend to like Steven Moffat. Also in the layout before the announcement of a female Doctor Who, he gave us a female Master. And this was a huge surprise to people. So they were laying in the groundworks so you wouldn’t be so shocked when The Doctor turned into a woman this year. In this case, Missy is what they called her. These are all the men in the past who had played the regenerations of The Master and they’re all from previous — most from old Who and then right up front we get a couple of the newer Who guys. So he planted that in the storyline and so we would have that character to deal with and Iove Missy. I think she’s like — she’s like Mary Poppins and bad steroids, but she’s quite a fun character.
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.
When the power of television met the power of love, magic happened. We were so happy to find that through animation Daniel Tiger lives again so new generations of children can learn the lessons of Fred Rogers. This documentary needs to be seen by anyone working in television.
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, 
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![14 From Master to Missy from Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse [Video] (1:02)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/gender-dw-14-master-missy.jpeg)
