Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures by Adina Hoffman

He was, according to Pauline Kael, “the greatest American screenwriter.” Jean-Luc Godard called him “a genius” who “invented 80 percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today.” Besides tossing off dozens of now-classic scripts—including Scarface, Twentieth Century, and Notorious—Ben Hecht was known in his day as ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and the most quick-witted of provocateurs. During World War II, he also emerged as an outspoken crusader for the imperiled Jews of Europe, and later a fierce propagandist for pre-1948 Palestine’s Jewish terrorist underground. Hecht's fame has dimmed with the decades, but Adina Hoffman’s vivid biography brings this charismatic and contradictory figure back to life on the page.