Known for Writing
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (November 7, 1897 – March 5, 1953; New York City) was an American screenwriter, who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Earlier, he was the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the drama critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott said that Herman Mankiewicz was the "funniest man in New York". Both Mankiewicz and Welles received Academy Awards for their screenplay. Mankiewicz's younger brother was Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993), an Oscar-winning Hollywood director, screenwriter, and producer. His nephew Tom Mankiewicz (1942 – 2010) was also a screenwriter and director. He was often asked to fix the screenplays of other writers, with much of his work uncredited. Occasional flashes of what came to be called the "Mankiewicz humor" and satire distinguished his films, and became valued in the films of the 1930s. The style of writing included a slick, satirical, and witty humor, which depended almost totally on dialogue to carry the film. It was a style that would become associated with the "typical American film" of that period. Among the screenplays he wrote or worked on, besides "Citizen Kane", were "The Wizard of Oz", "Man of the World", "Dinner at Eight", "Pride of the Yankees", and "The Pride of St. Louis". Film critic Pauline Kael credits Mankiewicz with having written, alone or with others, "about forty of the films I remember best from the twenties and thirties. ... he was a key linking figure in just the kind of movies my friends and I loved best.". Mankiewicz was an alcoholic. Ten years before his death, he wrote: “I seem to become more and more of a rat in a trap of my own construction, a trap that I regularly repair whenever there seems to be danger of some opening that will enable me to escape. I haven’t decided yet about making it bomb proof. It would seem to involve a lot of unnecessary labor and expense". A future Hollywood biographer went so far as to suggest that Mankiewicz’s behavior “made him seem erratic even by the standards of Hollywood drunks.” Herman Mankiewicz died March 5, 1953, of uremic poisoning, at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles.
Born
November 7, 1897
Died
March 5, 1953 (age 55)
Birthplace
New York City, New York, USA
Filmography
111 films, 1 show


The Pride of St. Louis
1952 · 1h 33m · US
The story of Jerome "Dizzy" Dean, a major-league baseball pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs in the 1930s and 1940s.


A Woman's Secret
1949 · 1h 24m · US
A popular singer, Marian Washburn, suddenly and unexplainably loses her voice, causing a shake-up at the club where she works. Her worried but loyal piano player, Luke Jordan, helps to promote a new, younger singer, Susan Caldwell, to temporarily replace Marian. Susan finds some early acclaim but decides to leave the club after a few performances. Soon after Susan quits, she is gunned down, and Marian quickly becomes a suspect.


The Spanish Main
1945 · 1h 40m · US
Laurent van Horn is the leader of a band of Dutch refugees on a ship seeking freedom in the Carolinas, when the ship is wrecked on the coast of Cartagene, governed by Don Juan Alvardo, a Spanish ruler. Alvarado has Laurent thrown in prison, but the latter escapes, and five-years later is a pirate leader. He poses as the navigator on a ship in which Contessa Francesca, daughter of a Mexican noble, is traveling on her way to marry Alvarado, whom she has never seen. Laurent's pirates capture the ship and Francesca, in order to save another ship, gives her hand-in-marriage to Laurent, who sails her to the pirate hideout. This irks his jealous pirate comrades Anne Bonney and Captain Benjamin Black. They overpower Laurent and send Francesca to Alvarado, and then Mario du Billar, a trusted right-hand man, makes a deal to deliver Laurent to Alvarado.


The Enchanted Cottage
1945 · 1h 31m · US
A homely maid and a scarred ex-GI meet at the cottage where she works and where he was to spend his honeymoon prior to his accident. The two develop a bond and agree to marry, more out of loneliness than love. The romantic spirit of the cottage, however, overtakes them. They soon begin to look beautiful to each other, but no one else.


Christmas Holiday
1944 · 1h 33m · US
A young femme fatale realizes that the man she married is an incorrigible wastrel.


The Good Fellows
1943 · 1h 10m · US
The title of Grand Caesar in the Ancient Order of Noblest Romans of Wakefield, Indiana keeps Jim "Pop" Helton so involved and distracted that he forgets to pay the family's bills, nearly makes a shambles of a real estate deal his oldest daughter, Ethel is working on, almost wrecks her romance with Captain Tom Drayson, and gets involved in a game with a pool shark in an effort to raise the remaining $75 of the $6,750 needed (that they didn't have) by the Wakefield Lodge to host the national convention of the Noblest Romans.


Stand by for Action
1942 · 1h 49m · US
U. S. Navy Lieutenant Gregg Masterman, of The Harvard and Boston Back Bay Mastermans, learned about the sea while winning silver cups sailing his yacht. He climbs swiftly in rank, and is now Junior Aide to Rear Admiral Stephen Thomas.


The Pride of the Yankees
1942 · 2h 8m · US
The story of the life and career of the baseball hall of famer, Lou Gehrig.


Rise and Shine
1941 · 1h 32m · US
The college president, the head cheerleader and a gambling gangster try to keep a flunking football star in the game


Citizen Kane
1941 · 1h 59m · US
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.


My Dear Miss Aldrich
1937 · 1h 14m · US
A young woman inherits a newspaper whose editor refuses to hire lady reporters.


Escapade
1935 · 1h 32m · US
A romantic comedy-drama-musical of mistaken identity, infidelity and farce, set in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century.


After Office Hours
1935 · 1h 12m · US
A managing editor sends a socialite reporter to spy on her boyfriend, mixed up in murder.


Stamboul Quest
1934 · 1h 26m · US
In 1915, German Counter-Intelligence Chief Von Sturm learns that someone is providing the British with critical strategic planning for the Turkish theater. He suspects Ali Bey, Turkish commander for the Dardanelles, and dispatches Annemarie to Constantinople to secure the proof. En route, she becomes involved with Douglas Beall, a footloose American. Complications ensue, requiring Annemarie to engage in some dangerous improvisations.


The Show-Off
1934 · 1h 17m · US
Aubrey cons Amy into thinking he's a railroad bigwig. When he loses his job he takes one wearing a sandwich board. After he helps Joe sell his patent for a good price and an old railroad deal comes through, he's back on top and ready to marry Amy again.


Dinner at Eight
1933 · 1h 51m · US
An ambitious New York socialite plans an extravagant dinner party as her businessman husband, Oliver, contends with financial woes, causing a lot of tension between the couple. Meanwhile, their high-society friends and associates, including the gruff Dan Packard and his sultry spouse, Kitty, contend with their own entanglements, leading to revelations at the much-anticipated dinner.


Fast Workers
1933 · 1h 6m · US
Buddies Gunner and Bucker work as riveters. Whenever Bucker gets the urge to marry, which is often, Gunner will hit on his girl to see if she is true or not. So far, Gunner hasn't failed. But one night, while Gunner is in jail, Bucker meets Mary, a tough dame with a line. He falls for her, and she falls for his money. But Mary is already a gal pal of Gunner, and no two know about the third. The trouble begins when the triangle is revealed too late.


Man of the World
1931 · 1h 11m · US
A young American girl visits Paris accompanied by her fiancee and her wealthy uncle. There she meets and is romanced by a worldly novelist; what she doesn't know is that he is a blackmailer who is using her to get to her uncle.


Ladies Love Brutes
1930 · 1h 20m · US
The movie stars George Bancroft, Mary Astor and Fredric March who are all excellent in their roles. The story begins as Joe Forziati (Bancroft), an Italian immigrant who has battled his way to success as a New York building contractor, decides to embark on a social career.


The Vagabond King
1930 · 1h 44m · US
In medieval France, poet-rogue Francois Villon, sentenced to hang by King Louis XI for writing derogatory verses about him, is offered a temporary reprieve. His hanging will be postponed for 24 hours, and in that time he must defeat the invading Burgundians and win the love of the beautiful Katherine.


The Man I Love
1929 · 1h 14m · US
Wellman’s first all-talkie, scripted by Herman Mankiewicz, with arrogant boxer Richard Arlen romancing Mary Brian, then falling for temptress Olga Baclanova (Freaks) on the eve of the big fight.


Avalanche
1928 · 1h · US
An otherwise honest gambler, played by Jack Holt, begins to cheat at cards in order to put his son John Darrow through mining school in this lavish Zane Grey adaptation produced by Paramount. The callow foster-son pays back the noble gesture by running off with Holt's mistress, Olga Baclanova.