The Mysterious, Talented, Romantic, Heroic Robert Meltzer.

[Glenn Anders]

I want to thank tony and call attention to the beautifully clear and informative Catherine Benamou interview he has republished on the Wellesnet Main Page. I was particularly intrigued, once again, by references to the influence of Robert Meltzer on the IT'S ALL TRUE project:

Catherine Benamou: ". . . The other significant relationship for Welles was with Robert Meltzer. Meltzer was a screenwriter (considered by many to be the uncredited writer of The Great Dictator), a jazz pianist, and an active part of the Hollywood Left. He traveled to Brazil with Welles to help with the writing and development of It’s All True. Welles sent him out to do urban ethnography and Meltzer became fascinated with the cultural figure of the Malandro. The Malandro was a dandy of mixed race, an Afro-urban male with street smarts and possibilities for upward mobility. The Malandro was a negative figure in the minds of many in the Vargas government but to many others in racially complicated and geoculturally isolated Brazil he was heroic. Meltzer introduced Welles to the Malandro (played by Grande Othelo in the film) and educated him about Samba. He showed Welles Samba as a generic category that takes on different rhythms and cadences in different social spaces. Together they came to conceive of the Malandro as a main character in the “Carnaval” episode. (The shooting of the film eventually became split into three parts – bullfighting in Mexico, Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, and life in a fishing community in Ceará, Northeastern Brazil.)"

After the collapse of the IT'S ALL TRUE operation in South America, Robert Meltzer, a close colleague and evident friend of Welles, returned to the United States, and joined the U.S. Army. He became part of that hardy group, the U.S. Army Rangers, counterpart to the British Commandos. He is listed as having died on D-Day, June 6, 1944 -- or if you believe the Rangers themselves -- August 14, 1944.

A testimonial and eulogy dedicated to Meltzer is listed among Welles' papers at the Lilly. As I think that I've noted here somewhere before, he had a yearly award for heroism dedicated in his name by the Hollywood Screen Writers Guild. It was suspended during the McCarthy Period because of Meltzer's leftist poltics, but I believe it has been reinstated.

He seems to have been one of those relatively rare romantics who backed up his principles with his life.

Indeed, Meltzer would make the perfect hero for a screenplay based on the saga of filming IT'S ALL TRUE, an alter ego of his fellow romantic, Orson Welles.

Does anyone know more about him? Details of his life and death? Are there any further influences he may have left behind?

Sounds like a subject for scholarship, if not Art, to me.

Glenn

[RayKelly]

From the WGA site:

The Writers Guild of America, West's Robert Meltzer Award honors one act of bravery by remembering another, recognizing an artist's singular act of courage in defense of freedom of expression and the rights of writers everywhere.
This Guild award is named after the late screenwriter Robert Meltzer, an uncredited writer on The Great Dictator, who had collaborated on a project with director Orson Welles before he left for Europe during WWII and died following the Normandy Invasion in the Battle for Brest.

Originally created after WWII to honor those writers killed during the war, the award was presented four times to recognize scripts which best depicted "problems of the American scene." Yet the prestigious award was soon shrouded in the looming shadow of the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings, when Meltzer was named and posthumously blacklisted, signaling the end of the award in 1951 for forty years.

1951 - Robert Buckner (Bright Victory)
1950 - Carl Foreman (The Men)
1949 - Robert Rossen (All the King's Men)
1948 - Frank Partos and Millen Brand (Snake Pit)

The Meltzer Award was re-established in 1991 "in recognition of a singular act of courage in defense of freedom of expression and the rights of the writer."

2004 - Mike Barker, Rob Cohen, David Goodman, Jonathan Groff, Cheryl Holliday, Vanessa McCarthy, Glasgow Phillips, John Pollack, Jon Ross, Ron Weiner, Matt Weitzman, Jean Yu (In recognition of extraordinary courage shown in their efforts to advance animation organizing.)

1999 - Paul Jarrico (In recognition of his tireless work to restore blacklisted writers' credits to the films on which they worked.)

1991 - Kirk Douglas (In recognition of his action in 1960 to ensure that Dalton Trumbo received screen credit for writing Spartacus.)

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, Ray, for doing the first spadework by posting the official Writers Guild of America, West Citation. [Thanks, too, for giving that organization's proper title.] The irony of Meltzer's life and accomplishments is extended by the fact that here was a writer honored who, though he had an acting citation as a "Ship's Steward in JOURNEY INTO FEAR, never had even one recognized screenwriting credit -- yet is thought to have had a hand in two significant films, THE GREAT DICTATOR and IT'S ALL TRUE -- and who, after having had this Award named after him for "an artist's singular act of courage in defense of freedom of expression and the rights of writers everywhere . . . was named and posthumously blacklisted" by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, tantamount to being charged with treason!

". . . named and posthumously blacklisted . . . ."

How bizarre! It is as if those old Congressional dinosaurs, most of whom sat out the War counting their "excess profits," had determined that the dead Robert Meltzer, an unknown soldier and writer, would never find employment again, never receive a writing credit, from a "subversive" or simply unaware Motion Picture Industry.

In its way, Robert Meltzer's story, in so far as we can fathom at this point, strangely resembles that of the disgracefully humiliated and maimed war hero, Isaac Woodward, whom Orson Welles championed in 1946.

And in fact, at the risk of being hyperbolic, it is Welles' story, too, but he was too big a talent, too great and useful an artist, had too much life in him, to be brought down, at least not all at once.

Is there anything more, I wonder, to be found out about the unknown Meltzer?

Glenn

[Tony]

Glenn:

Do you know if Meltzer is even mentioned in any book or article as a co-screen-writer on It's All True? I was surprised to read this too.

[Glenn Anders]

Hi, tony: Forgive me for being brief; I'm having trouble transferring material over here right now.

But, yes -- to make a quick grab -- your own Catherine Benamou, Simon Callow in several chapters from Hello Americans devoted to IT'S ALL TRUE, and Michael Denning in his book, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century, all make the point that Robert "Bob" Meltzer was involved in a collaborative effort with Welles and others to develop a scenario and script for IT'S ALL TRUE.

Because of his association with the progressive populist Chaplin, his friendship with Welles, and his background as jazz pianist in modern musical forms, Meltzer was early on given the task of establishing parallel story lines between the evolution of American Jazz, Mexican Mariachi/ Folklorico with the Samba and other South American dance movments.

In Rio, Meltzer seems to have taken on the tasks of factotum formerly the duty of John Houseman, Paul Stewart, and of course, Richard Wilson. Not only did he handle a lot of the Mercury Unit's PR, but he was put in charge of a group of scholars and journalists to produce a series of cultural studies concerning Brazillian folk dances and music. These led to the creation of the central Brazillian figures of the "Carnival" section, and as close to a conventional scenario and shooting script as IT'S ALL TRUE ever had.

Benamou, as you will know, makes this "auteural collaboration" a main thesis in her book. Callow gives evidence that, according to the enraged RKO Company Men, Lynn Shores and Tom Petty, Welles repeatedly left Meltzer in charge of shooting large portions of IT'S ALL TRUE, particularly those involving black residents of the favelas, which prompted repeated efforts to have him removed from the picture. And Denning discusses in some detail the parallels with American Jazz History, especially in connection to the art of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Mead Lux Lewis.

Shores and Petty thought, after a falling out between Welles and Meltzer, that they could turn the latter into a dedicated Company agent, but upon Welles' return from South America, Meltzer -- by then a producer in Radio -- gave him the Ceiling Unlimited series, with scripts by Arthur Miller and others.

As you know, we have been over some of this ground back in 2006:

http://www.wellesnet.com/phpbb/viewtopi ... sc&start=0

And for what it's worth, though I do not take up Meltzer, whom I had just discovered, here is my review of Hello Americans, which has some further detail on the history of IT'S ALL TRUE:

http://www1.epinions.com/content_270770867844

Glenn

[Jeff Wilson]

Tried to do some research on Meltzer, and with the aid of some genealogy websites, came up with the following: two Army records sources give his death date as 21 August 1944, and he's buried in the Brittany American Cemetery in St James, France, plot 1, row 5, grave 12. He was awarded the Purple Heart, and he was a 2nd lieutenant in the 2nd Rangers Battalion.

A look at the 1930 census records shows four potential locations and birth dates; there are two Meltzer families in California, one in Oakland and the other in Alameda. He would have been 15 at the time of the census in either case; one family came from Russia, the other from Pennsylvania. The PA Meltzer father was a pastor; the Oakland one I couldn't read the record. The other two come from Detroit and Brooklyn; the Detroit Bob Meltzer would have been born in 1909, and Brooklyn one in 1917, both families originally from Russia as well.

The Amry records included his service number, so I may try to request his records and get any further info, along with an FBI FOIA request. I remember coming across the eulogy Welles wrote in the Lilly files, but I don't seem to have had a copy made. Hopefully, when all this is gathered, we can put something together to put on the site about him.

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, Jeff, for all the new research and good efforts.

Since I last posted on this subject, I have come up with another significant connection:

After Meltzer entered the Armed Forces, he was indeed assigned as a 2nd Lieutenant to the 2nd Batallion of U.S. Rangers. He became the best friend of his superior, Captain James Reeves McCullers (husband of Carson McCullers). Reeves McCullers had a rather pathetic life, one blighted by alcohol, again like Carson McCullers, but she managed to create important work, whereas he could not. Meltzer described his adventures in dispatches to Collier's Magazine. Reeves was known in those writings as "Mac the Steady Drinker."

After D-Day, the 2nd Rangers were assigned to take Brest Harbor, vital to bringing in Allied supplies to keep the invasion going. It was defended by the crack 8th German Parachute Regiment. Lt. Meltzer was ordered to lead a reconnaissance patrol (I take it, by Captain McCullers) to test the strength of the enemy. Unfortunately, the platoon was provided with faulty intelligence, and as they emerged from a hedgerow, Meltzer's group was ambushed in the open by German machine gun nests, and he was cut down.

And so, this account confirms your information that he did not die on June 6, 1944, D-Day, as is usually listed, but several weeks later.

Another Wellesnetter has been in touch with Catherine Benamou, and she tells him that Meltzer has a living relative and also an old friend, who have information and stories about the man's life.

Let's keep at this quest.

Thanks again, Jeff.

[Jeff Wilson]

Thanks, Glenn. I'll have to check my local university library for those Collier's pieces, and maybe email Catherine about the contacts. Unfortunately, someone will actually have to go to the Lilly to get at the eulogy/tribute piece, as Beatrice won't allow anything Welles wrote to be copied any longer (at least that is my understanding).