The following excerpt is taken from Sass Mouth Dames podcast episode 153: Claire Trevor in Born to Kill (1937). You can listen to it here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Deadlier than the Male, written by 21 year-old college student James Gunn, was a critical and commercial success when it was published in 1942. Critics raved about the novel, which gives a fresh take on the hardboiled genre. The novel riffs on the genre without succumbing to the stereotypical cliches.
Unlike novelist Cornell Woolrich, who struggled for years to ink a Hollywood deal, Gunn only wrote one novel, which received a red-carpet welcome by Hollywood. Gunn’s first screenwriting gig was adapting Gypsy Rose Lee’s novel for Barbara Stanwyck in what became Lady of Burlesque. Gunn wrote again for Stanwyck with the script for All I Desire and he wrote the script Harriet Craig for Joan Crawford.
Paramount optioned his book. Director Robert Wise recalled that the studio wanted change the title to Born to Kill, to take advantage of casting bad boy Lawrence Tierney. Wise was never happy about the change. Claire Trevor enjoyed working with Robert Wise, whom she considered to be one of the top directors. In an interview, Claire noted that he was articulate and everything he said was pure gold. The studio assigned Eve Greene and Richard Macaulay to adapt the novel.
I was curious about screenwriter Eve Greene, who had a long career, from 1932 to 1968. I couldn’t find her in the popular books about women writers from the studio era, so I turned to the newspaper archives for something to share. In an interview from 1938, which was printed in Alexander Kahn’s syndicated column, ‘Hollywood Film Shop,’ Greene discussed her origins in the film colony. After leaving Chicago for Hollywood, like thousands of other women in search of a meaningful career, she took a job as a secretary in MGM to get her foot in the door. Greene recalled:
‘I knew that people who wrote scenarios were not picked out of thin air and I made up my mind to learn the business of script writing from the ground up. Every moment I had to spare, I employed it in reading and studying screenplays until I felt I knew the form, at least.’ When a script girl position opened, she got a break and climbed another step on the studio ladder.
Eve learned a lot from working closely with directors on set. She told a reporter that ‘it brought the whole complicated procedure before my eyes. I learned about camera set ups, dolly shots, fades, dissolves, and the rest of the technical knowledge of filmmaking.’
The role as script girl soon led to her dream job writing scripts. She noted, ‘After a time, I began to help on dialogue on the set, and then Zelda Sears took me under her wing, and we worked on a story for Marie Dressler. Miss Sears knew drama and dramatic writing and taught me how to write.’
Zelda Sears mentored Eve Greene through the Dressler hit comedies Prosperity in 1932 and Tugboat Annie in 1933. Dressler was one of the biggest stars in MGM, an Oscar winner and champion at the box office. Eve left Metro in 1935 for a brief stint at Universal, before signing a long-term contract with Paramount studio in 1936. She had an auspicious start in Paramount as the lead writer for Yours For the Asking, starring George Raft, Dolores Costello and Ida Lupino. Eve ended her contract in Paramount with the script for Born to Kill and then switched to writing for television. Her first gig in television was writing four episodes of The Lone Ranger. She worked steadily in TV until 1968, when she wrote one last film script, The Strange Affair, before retiring.
