Herman Mankiewicz, at the time one of the highest-paid writers at Paramount, arranged for Joseph to take a junior writer's job at sixty dollars a week.
Mankiewicz's first job in Hollywood was as title writer for silent films (or sound films released with silent versions); he wrote nine sets of titles in 1929. He then became a dialogue writer, working mostly on pictures starring Jack Oakie, including Fast Company (1929), The Social Lion (1930), Only Saps Work (1930), The Gang Buster (1931), and June Moon (1931). His first screenplay was Slightly Scarlet (1930), the story of a gang of jewel thieves after a necklace worth half a million dollars. Skippy (1931), Mankiewicz's second screenplay, earned him an Academy Award nomination; the picture was also nominated for the best film of the year award. Based on a comic strip by Percy Crosby, it is the story of a health inspector's son (Jackie Cooper) and the friends he makes in the slums. Mankiewicz collaborated with Norman McLeod on the screenplay, and they also collaborated on his next two scripts, Newly Rich (1931) and Sooky (1931). Newly Rich, also known as Forbidden Adventure, was adapted from Sinclair Lewis's "Let's Play King," about a child actress (Mitzi Green) who meets a child king (Bruce Line).
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