Samuel (Badisch) Ornitz | Biography

Samuel Badisch Ornitz was born in New York City, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants. Raised on New York's Lower East Side, a setting that dominates two of his novels, he became committed to social causes at an early age. As a boy he attended a religious school and participated in programs at the Henry Street Settlement House. After a sporadic college education and a few odd jobs he chose a career in social work. As an employee of the Prison Association, which gave legal support and help to the poor, he had free access to New York's The Tombs prison, where he encountered firsthand the extreme results of social neglect and abuse. He later served the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children as assistant superintendent.

In 1914 Ornitz married Sadie Lesser; they had two sons. His first novel, Haunch, Paunch and Jowl, published anonymously in 1923, became a cause célèbre. A provocative story of political corruption and the excesses of capitalism, it follows the rise of a streetwise boy to his position on the Supreme Court. It was as enthusiastically damned as it was praised, and it remains to this day Ornitz's best-known work. After writing a children's book about the adventures of a monkey (Round the World with Jocko the Great, 1925), Ornitz wrote the novel A Yankee Passional (1927), a sprawling and extremely impressive work about the rise and fall of a New England mystic who founds a home for wayward boys in New York City; picaresque and panoramic, it is Ornitz's finest work and an unjustly neglected novel.

Ornitz would not write another novel for many years; encouraged by Herman Mankiewicz, he came to Hollywood in 1928 to work for Paramount Studios. His first film, The Case of Lena Smith (1929), was based loosely on someone Ornitz had met while working in The Tombs. Esther Ralston plays Lena Schmidt (whose name changes in the course of the film), a Hungarian peasant who marries a young lieutenant (James Hall); he and his father (Gustav von Seyffertitz) treat her as if she were a servant. Josef von Sternberg directed. Ornitz's next film, Sins of the Children (1930), is the story of a working-class man troubled by his grown children. He mortgages his barber shop so his oldest son can marry; later, his daughter begins an affair with a rich man's son and causes a scandal. Finally the youngest son comes to his father's aid with money made from his inventions. Ornitz's devotion to social justice caused him frequently to interrupt his early film career with trips to places where he felt justice needed a hand. He was outspoken about the Scottsboro boys' case and worked to help free them. Later, Ornitz, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, and others went to investigate labor conditions in Harlan County, Kentucky. This experience inspired Ornitz to write a short play, In New Kentucky (1934). When he returned to Hollywood he went to work at RKO studios. Ornitz's commitment to social causes never abated; during the 1930s and 1940s, he was a vocal and active protester against fascism, anti-Semitism, and the travesties of war worldwide. He traveled in the U. S. and abroad, speaking out against injustice wherever he saw it. When he could, he expressed some of his concerns in his scripts.

One of his first films for RKO reflects his social interests: Hell's Highway (1932) is about a highway chain gang that rebels against cruel treatment. Rowland Brown and Roland Tasker collaborated on the screenplay. Secrets of the French Police (1932) is a realistic and detailed look at the Parisian police force. One Man's Journey (1933) studies the problems of a country doctor (Lionel Barrymore).

In 1935 Ornitz moved to Universal studios, where he wrote The Man Who Reclaimed His Head (1935). A writer and political activist (Claude Rains) rebels against the publisher (Lionel At will) he feels has exploited him. Ornitz and Jean Bart adapted the screenplay from Bart's play. Three Kids and a Queen (1935) is about three orphans who are helped by a wealthy woman. Ornitz wrote Fatal Lady (1936), about a mysterious woman who kills seemingly at random. In A Doctor's Diary (1937), Dr. Dan Norris (John Trent) keeps a record of the improper behavior he observes in a hospital.

In 1936 Ornitz moved to Republic, a studio that specialized in cranking out inexpensive movies. He wrote six films in three years. Follow Your Heart (1936) is about an aspiring singer (Marion Talley) who leaves Kentucky to join her uncle's opera company and falls in love with another member (Michael Bartlett). Nathanael West, with whom Ornitz worked several times, and Lester Cole collaborated with Ornitz on the screenplay. In The Hit Parade (1937) radio-show producer Pete Garland (Phil Ragan) seeks a new singer for his show and finds one in ex-convict Ruth Allison (Frances Langford). Portia on Trial (1937) is the melodramatic tale of lawyer Portia Merriman (Frieda In escort) who defends Elizabeth Manners (Heather Angel) for the murder of Earle Kolb (Neil Hamilton), without revealing that she is Kolb's mother. An army captain (Preston Foster) falls in love with his colonel's daughter (Madge Evans) in Army Girl (1938). Ornitz's other Republic films were Two Wise Maids (1937) and, King of the Newsboys (1938), about a slum dweller (Lew Ayres) who finds romance despite his poverty.

It Could Happen to You (1937) is a sardonic look at office politics. Office worker MacKinley Winslow (Stu Erwin) finds a dead body after an office party; he and his wife (Gloria Stuart) use this information to blackmail Winslow's way to a vice-presidential position. Budd Schulberg and Ornitz coauthored Little Orphan Annie, for Paramount in 1938. Critics were somewhat dismayed by this film version of Harold Gray's popular comic strip, which centered more on the prizefighter Annie befriends than on Annie herself. A Miracle on Main Street (1940) is about a singer (Margo) who plans to adopt a baby, only to be stopped by her criminal husband (Walter Abel).

Ornitz returned to Republic Studios to write Three Faces West (1940), about a dust bowl community helping an Austrian doctor (Charles Coburn) escape from the Nazis. Ornitz's last screenplay, Circumstantial Evidence (1945), was written for 20th Century-Fox. It is the story of an innocent man accused of murder.

When the House Un-American Activities Committee began investigating the possible influence of the Communist party in Hollywood, Ornitz, an outspoken supporter of the party, was one of the first ten witnesses--known as the Hollywood Ten--called to testify. Although he had not written a screenplay for some time, his outrage at the threat of political repression in the film industry compelled him to take a stand. Like all the other witnesses, Ornitz refused to confirm or deny his status as a party member, or as a member of the Screen-writers Guild. Instead, he prepared a statement defending his right to silence an accusing the committee of racism and anti-Semitism, but he was not allowed to read it. He was found guilty of contempt of Congress and sentenced to one year in prison in Springfield, Missouri. He was also blacklisted in Hollywood, unable to get any more film work.

Unlike most of the other screenwriters who were put on the blacklist, Ornitz never took any sub-rosa screen writing assignments. While in prison, he learned he was dying of cancer and decided to devote his time to writing novels. His final work, Bride of the Sabbath (1951), is a historical novel recording the way in which the first two generations of Jewish people in America grappled with their identity. Ornitz died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1957.