FEEL IT.STREAM
Charles Brackett

Charles Brackett

Writing

Biography

Charles William Brackett (November 26, 1892 – March 9, 1969) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and film producer. He collaborated with Billy Wilder on sixteen films. Brackett was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, the son of Mary Emma Corliss and New York State Senator, lawyer, and banker Edgar Truman Brackett. The family's roots traced back to the arrival of Richard Brackett in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, near present-day Springfield, Massachusetts. His mother's uncle, George Henry Corliss, built the Centennial Engine that powered the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. A 1915 graduate of Williams College, he earned his law degree from Harvard University. He joined the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War I. He was awarded the French Medal of Honor. He was a frequent contributor to the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and Vanity Fair, and a drama critic for The New Yorker. He wrote five novels: The Counsel of the Ungodly (1920), Week-End (1925), That Last Infirmity (1926), and American Colony (1929). and Entirely Surrounded (1934). Brackett was a president of the Screen Writers Guild (1938–1939) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1949–1955). He either wrote and/or produced over forty films, including To Each His Own, Ninotchka, The Major and the Minor, The Mating Season (1951), Niagara, The King and I, Ten North Frederick, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, and Blue Denim. Beginning in August 1936, Brackett worked with Billy Wilder, writing the film classics The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard, both of which won Academy Awards for their respective screenplays. Brackett described their collaboration process as follows: "The thing to do was suggest an idea, have it torn apart and despised. In a few days, it would be apt to turn up, slightly changed, as Wilder's idea. Once I got adjusted to that way of working, our lives were simpler." His partnership with Wilder ended in 1950 and Brackett went to work at 20th Century-Fox as a screenwriter and producer. His script for Titanic (1953) won him another Academy Award. He received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1958. Charles Brackett died on March 9, 1969. His diaries covering his screenwriting and social life from 1932 to 1949 were edited by Anthony Slide into Slide's book It's the Pictures That Got Small: Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood's Golden Age.

Known For

The Oscars
7.0

An annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is better known by its nickname Oscar.

The Oscars

1953
Sunset Boulevard
8.3

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

Sunset Boulevard

1950
The King and I
7.1

Widowed Welsh mother Anna Leonowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many children of the stubborn King Mongkut of Siam. Anna and the King have a clash of personalities as she works to teach the royal family about the English language, customs and etiquette, and rushes to prepare a party for a group of European diplomats who must change their opinions about the King.

The King and I

1956
Niagara
6.8

Rose Loomis and her older, gloomier husband, George, are vacationing at a cabin in Niagara Falls, N.Y. The couple befriend Polly and Ray Cutler, who are honeymooning in the area. Polly begins to suspect that something is amiss between Rose and George, and her suspicions grow when she sees Rose in the arms of another man. While Ray initially thinks Polly is overreacting, things between George and Rose soon take a shockingly dark turn.

Niagara

1953
Ninotchka
7.5

A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.

Ninotchka

1939
Journey to the Center of the Earth
6.9

An Edinburgh professor and assorted colleagues follow an explorer's trail down an extinct Icelandic volcano to the earth's center.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

1959
Titanic
6.6

Unhappily married, Julia Sturges decides to go to America with her two children on the Titanic. Her husband, Richard also arranges passage on the luxury liner so as to have custody of their two children. All this fades to insignificance once the ship hits an iceberg.

Titanic

1953
The Lost Weekend
7.6

Longtime alcoholic Don Birnam has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last – one way or another.

The Lost Weekend

1945
The Bishop's Wife
7.1

An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.

The Bishop's Wife

1947
Little Women
6.8

Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Little Women

1933
Ball of Fire
7.4

A group of academics have spent years shut up in a house working on the definitive encyclopedia. When one of them discovers that his entry on slang is hopelessly outdated, he ventures into the wide world to learn about the evolving language. Here he meets Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer, who’s on top of all the slang—and, it just so happens, needs a place to stay.

Ball of Fire

1941
A Foreign Affair
7.1

In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.

A Foreign Affair

1948
A Song Is Born
6.4

The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub singer Honey Swanson. But Honey's gangster boyfriend doesn't want to give her up.

A Song Is Born

1948
The Uninvited
6.9

A pair of siblings from London [Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey] purchase a surprisingly affordable, lonely cliff-top house in Cornwall, England. Only to discover that it actually carries a ghostly price, and soon they’re caught up in a bizarre romantic triangle from beyond the grave. Rich in atmosphere, The Uninvited, directed by Lewis Allen, was groundbreaking for the seriousness with which it treated the supernatural, haunted house genre, and it remains an elegant and eerie experience, featuring a classic score by Victor Young. A tragic family past, a mysteriously locked room, cold chills, bumps in the night - this gothic Hollywood classic has it all.

The Uninvited

1944
The Virgin Queen
7.0

Sir Walter Raleigh overcomes court intrigue to win favor with the Queen in order to get financing for a proposed voyage to the New World.

The Virgin Queen

1955
Garden of Evil
6.2

A trio of American adventurers marooned in rural Mexico are recruited by a beautiful woman to rescue her husband from Apaches.

Garden of Evil

1954
Five Graves to Cairo
7.0

During the 1942 North African campaign, a British straggler passes as a waiter at the hotel commandeered as Erwin Rommel's headquarters. He has thoughts of assassinating Rommel but his cover may provide an even better use.

Five Graves to Cairo

1943
The Mating Season
6.6

Ellen McNulty leaves her New Jersey hamburger stand and heads west to pay a surprise visit to her son and his new bride. When Ellen arrives, her daughter-in-law mistakes her for the maid she has hired for a big party they are throwing. Rather than cause any embarrassment, Ellen goes along with the charade, which leads to many complications.

The Mating Season

1951
The Major and the Minor
7.1

Low on funds, working-class girl Susan Applegate disguises herself as a youngster in order to pay half fare home. But little 'Sue Sue' finds herself in a whole heap of grownup trouble when she hides out in a compartment with handsome Major Philip Kirby.

The Major and the Minor

1942
High Time
6.4

Despite the dissapproval of his grown son and daughter, 51-year-old widdower and wealthy restauranteur Harvey Howard decides it's 'high time' to he gets his college degree. And he's in for the full ride: living in the dorms, joing a fraternity, falling in love, and even getting some studying in.

High Time

1960