Shirley Ulmer

Last updated

Shirley Kassler Ulmer (June 12, 1914 - July 6, 2000) was an American screenwriter. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life

Shirley Beatrice Kassler was born in New York in 1914. [1] After her banker father lost his saving in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the family moved to California. [1]

Career

While living in California, Kassler "met picture people" and began working as a script supervisor in Hollywood. [3] She married Max Alexander, nephew of Universal Studios' founder Carl Laemmle, in 1933. [1] [4]

While working on The Black Cat (1934) as a script supervisor, Kassler met Edgar G. Ulmer. [1] [3] The two began a relationship after work on the film finished, and Kassler started divorce proceedings while living with Ulmer in the Hotel Christie on Hollywood Boulevard. [3] The relationship angered Kassler's uncle-in-law, Laemmie. He blacklisted Kassler and Ulmer, preventing either from getting jobs in Hollywood. Kassler's final work on a Hollywood film was Thunder Over Texas (1934), which she wrote, Ulmer directed, and her then-husband, Alexander, produced. [1]

After leaving Hollywood, Kassler and Ulmer married in early 1935, a few months before Kassler's 21st birthday, [3] and moved to New York, where Shirley modeled hats and Edgar worked as a cameraman for Pathé News. [1] The couple went to Canada in 1936, when they were hired by producer William Steiner to film a thriller called From Nine To Nine. [1] The two were paid poorly, making essentially no money after Shirley developed appendicitis and required medical care. [1] Their next project, Natalka Poltavka, was more successful, [1] and Shirley played a small role in the film after an actress no-showed. [3]

While living in New York, the couple were encouraged to make films for the large Yiddish-speaking population there. [1] Their first film, Green Fields (1937), was a success, leading to subsequent films. Shirley Ulmer continue to worked on scripts for her husband's films, including The Light Ahead (1939), [5] American Matchmaker (1940), [2] Girls in Chains (1943), Jive Junction (1943), Strange Illusion (1945), and Detour (1945). [1]

Ulmer also worked as a script supervisor under the name Shirley Castle for directors such as Frank Borzage, Frank Lloyd, Douglas Sirk, and William Wyler. [1] [6] She also worked as a script supervisor for the TV series Batman, CHIPs, The Lone Ranger, and S.W.A.T . [1] [2] [6]

Ulmer co-wrote novels under the name Shirle Castle, [2] [6] and a 1986 book titled The Role Of Script Supervision In Film And Television. [1] [7]

Following Edgar Ulmer's death in 1972, Shirley Ulmer became director of the Edgar G Ulmer Preservation Corporation. [1]

Filmography

YearFilmRoleRef
1934 I Can't Escape [3]
The Black Cat Script supervisor [1]
Thunder Over Texas Story, Script supervisor [5]
1937Natalka PoltavkaScript supervisor
Green Fields
1939The Singing Blacksmith
Cossacks in Exile
Moon Over Harlem Script writer, supervisor
The Light AheadScript writer
1940 American Matchmaker Script writer, supervisor
1943 Girls in Chains [1]
Jive Junction
1945 Detour
Strange Illusion
1948 Ruthless Script supervisor [5]
1960 The Amazing Transparent Man
Beyond the Time Barrier
1973 Little Cigars
1975 Return to Macon County

Personal life

Ulmer had a daughter with her second husband, Edgar Ulmer. [1]

Ulmer died of natural causes in July 2000 in Los Angeles. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Towne</span> American screenwriter, producer, director and actor (1934–2024)

Robert Towne was an American screenwriter and director. He started writing films for Roger Corman, including The Tomb of Ligeia in 1964, and was later part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking.

<i>Detour</i> (1945 film) 1945 film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

Detour is a 1945 American independent film noir directed by Edgar G. Ulmer starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage. The screenplay was adapted by Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney (uncredited) from Goldsmith's 1939 novel of the same title, and released by the Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the so-called Poverty Row film studios in mid-20th-century Hollywood. The film, which today is in the public domain and freely available for viewing at various online sources, was restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2018. In April that year, the 4K restoration premiered in Los Angeles at the TCM Festival. A Blu-Ray and DVD was released in March 2019 from the Criterion Collection. In 1992, Detour was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edgar Wallace</span> British writer (1875–1932)

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was a British writer of sensational detective, gangster, adventure, and sci-fi novels, plays and stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Borzage</span> American film director and actor (1894–1962)

Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor. He was the first person to win the Academy Award for Best Director for his film 7th Heaven (1927) at the 1st Academy Awards.

Karyn Kiyoko Kusama is an American filmmaker. She made her feature directorial debut with the sports drama film Girlfight (2000), for which she won Best Director and the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Goodrich</span> American writer

Frances Goodrich was an American actress, dramatist, and screenwriter, best known for her collaborations with her partner and husband Albert Hackett. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with her husband in 1956 for The Diary of Anne Frank which had premiered the previous year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edgar G. Ulmer</span> American film director, set designer

Edgar Georg Ulmer was a Jewish-Moravian, Austrian-American film director who mainly worked on Hollywood B movies and other low-budget productions, eventually earning the epithet 'The King of PRC', due to his extremely prolific output for the Poverty Row studios. His stylish and eccentric works came to be appreciated by auteur theory-espousing film critics in the years following his retirement. Ulmer's most famous productions include the horror film The Black Cat (1934) and the film noir Detour (1945).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Marion</span> American screenwriter, director, journalist and author

Frances Marion was an American screenwriter, director, journalist and author often cited as one of the most renowned female screenwriters of the 20th century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos. During the course of her career, she wrote over 325 scripts. She was the first writer to win two Academy Awards. Marion began her film career working for filmmaker Lois Weber. She wrote numerous silent film scenarios for actress Mary Pickford, before transitioning to writing sound films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Kingsley</span> American screenwriter

Dorothy Kingsley was an American screenwriter, who worked extensively in film, radio, and television.

<i>Keeper of the Flame</i> (film) 1943 film by George Cukor

Keeper of the Flame is a 1942 American drama film directed by George Cukor, and starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). The screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart is adapted from the 1942 novel Keeper of the Flame by I. A. R. Wylie. Hepburn plays the widow of a famous civic leader who has died in an accident. Tracy portrays a former war correspondent who intends to write a flattering biography of the dead man, only to find that his death is shrouded in mystery. Screenwriter Stewart considered the script the finest moment of his career, feeling vindicated by the assignment as he believed that Hollywood had punished him for years for his political views. Principal filming began in the last week of August 1942, four months after the release of the novel, published by Random House. The picture was filmed on a sound stage, with no location shooting. Hepburn had already begun a relationship with Tracy, and his heavy drinking led her to become his vigilant guardian during the filming.

Amy Holden Jones is an American screenwriter and film director best known for directing The Slumber Party Massacre and for creating the FOX medical drama The Resident. She has edited various films and later began directing and writing. She currently works in television.

Bart Lytton ( was an American business executive, Democratic Party fundraiser, writer, public relations executive and philanthropist. He was a founder of Lytton Financial Corporation, one of the five largest savings and loans in the United States with $700 million in assets.

<i>Beyond the Time Barrier</i> 1960 film

Beyond the Time Barrier is a 1960 American science fiction film. It was released in September 1960 on a double bill with The Angry Red Planet. It starred Robert Clarke and directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Ulmer's wife Shirley acted as a script editor while their daughter Arianne Arden appeared as a Russian pilot. It was one of two low budget sci-fi films shot back-to-back in Dallas, Texas by Ulmer. The combined filming schedule for both films was only two weeks.

<i>Isle of Forgotten Sins</i> 1943 American adventure film by Edgar George Ulmer

Isle of Forgotten Sins is an American South Seas adventure film released on August 15, 1943 by PRC, with Leon Fromkess in charge of production, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and featuring top-billed John Carradine and Gale Sondergaard, whose performance in one of 1936's Academy Award for Best Picture nominees, Anthony Adverse, earned her the first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Leo Erdody was an American film composer. He studied music in Germany, and later went to Hollywood, scoring his first film in 1921. He later joined Producers Releasing Corporation and scored several films for them. For his work on Minstrel Man, he was a nominee for an Academy Award for Best Original Score.

<i>The Cavern</i> (1964 film) 1964 film

The Cavern is a 1964 Italian-German-American war-drama film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. This was his last film as a director. It was one of a number of war movies John Saxon made outside Hollywood.

<i>Thunder Over Texas</i> 1934 film by Edgar George Ulmer

Thunder Over Texas is a 1934 American populist contemporary Western film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer under the alias Joen Warner and produced by two nephews of Universal Pictures head Carl Laemmle, Arthur and Max Alexander's Poverty Row Beacon Productions. The film's story was written by Shirley Ulmer under the name of Sherle Castle. Shirley was then married to Max Alexander but would soon leave Max to marry Edgar with the result that Lammele blacklisted Ulmer from Hollywood. The film was shot in Kernville, California.

American Matchmaker, or אמעריקאנער שדכן is a 1940 Yiddish-language American comedy film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Leo Fuchs, Judith Abarbanel, Judel Dubinsky and Anna Guskin. The film's music was composed by Sam Morgenstern and its screenplay was written by Shirley Kassler Ulmer under the name Shirle Castle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noah Isenberg</span> American film scholar and historian

Noah William Isenberg is an American film scholar and historian. Isenberg is currently the Charles Sapp Centennial Professor and former Chair of the Department of Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin. He previously served as Professor of Culture and Media at Eugene Lang College, where he was also the founding director of the Screen Studies program. Isenberg received his BA in History from the University of Pennsylvania, his MA in German Literature from the University of Washington and his PhD in German Studies from the University of California at Berkeley.

Krysty Norma Lesley Wilson-Cairns is a Scottish screenwriter. Born and raised in Glasgow, she studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the National Film and Television School. During her teenage years, she was a runner on television series including the detective show Taggart. Her script for the unproduced science fiction thriller Aether made the 2014 Black List and led to a staff writer role on the television show Penny Dreadful. Her feature film debut was the screenplay for the Sam Mendes-directed 2019 war film 1917. She co-wrote it with Mendes and received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Bergan, Ronald (2000-09-04). "Shirley Ulmer". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-12-03.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Archives, L. A. Times (2000-08-14). "Shirley Kassler Ulmer; Screenwriter of 'American Matchmaker'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Weaver, Tom (2010-06-21). I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror Filmmakers. McFarland. pp. 227–236. ISBN   978-0-7864-6265-0.
  4. Isenberg, Noah William (2014-01-09). Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins. Univ of California Press. p. 76. ISBN   978-0-520-23577-9.
  5. 1 2 3 "SHIRLEY ULMER". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Wolf, Jonathan (2000-08-16). "Shirley Kassler Ulmer". Variety. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  7. Ulmer, Shirley; Sevilla, Carol R. (1986). The Role of Script Supervision in Film and Television: A Career Guide. Hastings House. ISBN   978-0-8038-6366-8.