Lamar Trotti — Good Writing Pays Off (1951) 🇺🇸
Lamar Trotti, once a newspaperman, has never forgotten the importance of getting a news punch into all his productions
by Paul Manning
If you would turn sharp left after entering the 20th Century-Fox Studio administration building, you would be directly in front of the office of one of its most important writer-producers, Lamar Trotti. Then, if you could, as I did, enter, and meet Trotti you’d would, no doubt, get the impression of a quiet, mild-mannered man, far from the popularly accepted concept of the high-powered and dynamic Hollywood producer.
The first moments of discussion with Trotti immediately start the imagination bubbling for you recognize in him a veritable fountain of common logic, without which no successful motion picture can be created. Now is as good a time as any to list a few of Lamar Trotti’s screen credits. These will illustrate more clearly than words the high quality of his film achievements. Before turning producer he did the following screen plays: In Old Chicago, Alexander Graham Bell, Drums Along the Mohawk, Brigham Young, Hudson’s Bay, Belle Starr, Wilson, The Razor’s Edge, and Guadalcanal Diary, among many others. A few of the top films both written and produced by Trotti are: The Ox-Bow Incident, A Bell for Adano, Mother Wore Tights, Captain from Castile, Yellow Sky, You’re My Everything, Cheaper by the Dozen (Exhibitor Laurel Awards Topliner of 1959), and American Guerilla in the Philippines.
Currently he is producing With a Song in My Heart, the story of songstress Jane Frohman, whose colorful life has provided motion pictures with a fine story of courage. Susan Hayward plays the Frohman role, supported by David Wayne and the fast rising Rory Calhoun. This chore has Trotti very excited for he feels that this is a story which will bring top quality entertainment to the public and top grosses to the exhibitor.
Trotti came to motion pictures from the ranks of the newspaper men, and he has never forgotten the importance of getting as much punch into the making of a film as goes into high calibre news reporting. A short glimpse into his early background shows how careers build and develop toward certain objectives. In Trotti’s case, his natural bent for writing made him a cinch to be snapped up by the Hollywood studios. Graduating from the University of Georgia, he soon landed a reporter’s berth on The Atlanta Georgian where, in three short but intense years, he became the youngest city editor on any Hearst paper. He then went to New York, where he worked as publicist for the MPPDA. His writing came to the attention of Dudley Nichols, who asked him to collaborate on some screen plays. They worked well together, and wrote many successful screen stories.
In 1942, he became a full-fledged producer at 20th-Fox, opening his new career with the celebrated The Ox-Bow Incident. This film has grown greater with the passing of time, and today is regarded by critics as a rare film treasure. Trotti was the first screen writer to receive the Award of Merit from The Christophers, a religious society which honors each year that piece of writing which best expresses the true spirit of America. His screen play of Cheaper by the Dozen, brought him the award which is always accompanied by a cheque for $5,000. With this money Trotti established a scholarship in memory of his son, killed in a motor accident. This scholarship was given to the qualifying student in the Tallulah Falls Mountain School, Tallulah Falls, Ga. Four years at the University of Georgia, Trotti’s alma mater, went to some lucky student. (We understand that it was a young girl who won this scholarship.)
Discussing topics far afield from motion pictures, I was struck by Trotti’s ability to get to the core of the subject. He came up with thoughts which made much better sense than most previous views I had on the same subjects. I realized that to this same agile mind which grasped complex situations so easily, the smooth continuity so vital to the screen story would be duck soup.
I asked him if he had any desire to do something entirely different from the type of pictures he was normally associated with. His answer was frank and appealing in its honesty. He has, he said, always wanted to do something extremely sophisticated and ultra glamorous, such as All About Eve. The closest he has ever came to this sort of fare was The Razor’s Edge. Even though he didn’t say so in as many words, I did get the impression that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with this picture, for he wound up with the sage saying, “Guess people should stick to their last.”
Speaking of last, I would like to report when I left Lamar Trotti it was with the firm impression that people of his last will last this industry for many, many more productive years, and well. — P. M.
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Una Merkel, David Wayne, and Thelma Ritter, shown with Miss Hayward in another bit from With a Song in My Heart, provide some light drama.
Leif Erickson, left, Rory Calhoun, and Susan Hayward happily convalesce together in scene from 20th-Fox’s forthcoming With a Song in My Heart.
Collection: Exhibitor Magazine (Studio Survey), October 1951