Walter Bernstein
After years on the Hollywood blacklist, he rebounded to also write Fail-Safe, Semi-Tough and The Molly Maguires.
Walter Bernstein, the resilient screenwriter who drew upon his ignominious experience on the blacklist in 1950s Hollywood to pen the Oscar-nominated script for
The Front, has died. He was 101.
Bernstein died Friday night, screenwriter, former WGA West president and longtime family friend Howard Rodman reported on Twitter.
Bernstein also adapted Eugene Burdick s novel for Sidney Lumet s nuclear-disaster film
Fail-Safe (1964) and Dan Jenkins book for the Burt Reynolds football romp
Semi-Tough (1977), and he wrote the John Schlesinger war drama
Yanks (1979), starring Richard Gere. Another three films he worked on starred Sophia Loren.
Joan Micklin Silver, who died on Dec. 31 at age 85, proved that for American Jewish women, being a film director means facing challenges of assimilation not unlike those confronted by immigrant ancestors generations ago.
Like the “Bintel Brief” Yiddish advice column in The Forverts, “Yekl,” like “Hester Street,” seethed with passions of Russian Jews trying to adapt to a new world.
The low-budget informality and authenticity of “Hester Street,” much of it performed in Yiddish, was augmented by editing rhythms that recalled the silent movie era, as did the truly unearthly performance by Carol Kane as Gitl, a wife who initially experiences problems coping with American ways.