Ben Maddow

Known for WritingBorn 1909-08-07Died 1992-10-09Passaic, New Jersey, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Benjamin D. Maddow (August 7, 1909 in Passaic, New Jersey – October 9, 1992 in Los Angeles, California) was a prolific screenwriter and documentarian from the 1930s through the 1970s. Educated at Columbia University, Maddow began his career working within the American documentary movement in the 1930s. In 1936 he co-founded the short-lived left-wing newsreel The World Today. Under the pseudonym of David Wolff, Maddow co-wrote the screenplay to the Paul Strand–Leo Hurwitz documentary landmark, Native Land (1942). He earned his first feature screenplay credit with Framed (1947). Other screenplays include Clarence Brown's Intruder in the Dust (1949, an adaptation of the William Faulkner novel), John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950, for which he received an Academy Award nomination), Johnny Guitar (1954, credited to Philip Yordan, God's Little Acre (1958, an adaptation of the Erskine Caldwell novel officially credited to Philip Yordan as a HUAC-era "front" for Maddow), and, again with Huston, an Edgar Award for Best Mystery Screenplay) and The Unforgiven (1960). As a documentarian he directed and wrote such films as Storm of Strangers, The Stairs, and The Savage Eye (1959), which won the BAFTA Flaherty Documentary Award. Maddow made his solo feature directorial debut with the striking, offbeat feature An Affair of the Skin (1963), a well-acted story of several loves and friendships gone sour and marked by the rich characterisations which had distinguished his best screenplays. In 1961, Maddow and Huston co-wrote the episode "The Professor" of the 1961 television series The Asphalt Jungle. In 1968 he wrote a screenplay based on Edmund Naughton's novel McCabe; while a film adaptation of the novel was ultimately produced as McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Maddow wasn't credited on the film. His final screenplay was for the horror melodrama The Mephisto Waltz (1970).Read more

Movies & web series

An Affair of the Skin

Slow Fires: On the Preservation of the Human Record

The Asphalt Jungle

Johnny Guitar

Valley Town: A Study of Machines and Men

Intruder in the Dust

Man on a String

Shadow in the Sky

The Secret of Santa Vittoria

Murder by Contract

The Man from Colorado

Men in War

The Wild One

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

Framed

No Down Payment

The Unforgiven

The Way West

Native Land

People of the Cumberland

The Mephisto Waltz

The World Today: The Black Legion - Shadow of Fascism Over America

The Savage Eye

The Chairman

The Steps of Age

Two Loves

The Balcony

W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult

United Action Means Victory

The Bridge