Title: Philip H. Reisman Jr. Papers

Dates: 1938-1987

Collection Number: WGF-MS-130

Creator/Collector: Reisman, Philip, Jr., 1916-1999.

Extent: 8.5 linear feet, 7 boxes

Repository: Writers Guild Foundation Archive

Abstract: The Philip H. Reisman Jr. Papers consist of scripts, outlines, notes, research and correspondence related to his body of work as a writer for TV and film over five decades.

Language of Material: English

Available by appointment only.

The responsibility to secure copyright and publication permission rests with the researcher.

[Identification of item]. Philip H. Reisman Jr. Papers. Collection Number: WGF-MS-130. Writers Guild Foundation Archive

Donated by the family of Philip H. Reisman Jr. on April 21, 2022

Born November 12, 1916, in St. Paul, Minn., Philip Reisman, Jr., grew up in New Rochelle, NY and attended Brown University. He worked at RKO-Pathé as script editor, head writer and editorial supervisor on its This is America newsreels and shorts before enlisting in the USMC in WWII, serving as a Tech. Sgt. in its 5th Marine Division Combat Photographic Section. He returned to RKO in 1945 and wrote the English narration for Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki (released 1951), and the feature film Tattooed Stranger (1949). In 1951 he moved into television as script editor on the TV shows Man Against Crime, I Spy and The Hunter. Reisman became a freelancer in 1955, writing the feature films Special Delivery (Columbia, 1955) and Assassins, Inc. (Espada Films, 1956). For television in the 1950s he wrote original scripts for Armstrong Circle Theatre, Studio One, NBC Project Twenty, CBS Twentieth Century series and Kaiser Aluminum Hour, and several adaptations for Kraft Theatre. Joining the picket line, he actively participated in the 1960 WGA’s successful 146-day strike for residuals. He resumed writing for television, adapting Sinclair Lewis’ Arrowsmith (1960) and Stephen Vincent Benét’s The Devil and Daniel Webster (1960); he wrote the documentary Big City (1960); Merrily We Roll Along: The Early Days of the Automobile narrated by Groucho Marx (1961); Cops and Robbers narrated by Edward G. Robinson (1962), receiving an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America; his adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (1962) was nominated for the 1962-64 TV-Radio Writers Annual Award and for the WGA award. Reisman wrote The Real West for NBC Project Twenty (1961) narrated by Gary Cooper, which won the Premio Italia (1961), the Cine Golden Eagle (1961), and was given awards by WGA, National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Berlin International Film Festival, Cork International Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, Victoria International Film Festival, African Film Festival, AM Film Festival (NY), Vancouver International Film Festival, and the Belgian National Center/Films for Children, and was nominated for a Television Academy award. Reisman’s All the Way Home screenplay of James Agee’s A Death in the Family and Tad Mosel’s Pulitizer Prize play, starring Robert Preston and Jean Simmons (Paramount/Talent Associates), opened in Lincoln Center in 1963 and was collected by the Library of Congress. His The Red, White, and Blue narrated by Walter Brennan Biographic sketch for Philip H. Reisman, Jr. (1964) won American Film Festival and Freedom Foundation awards. Reisman’s The End of the Trail (Project Twenty, 1964), also narrated by Brennan, was nominated for a Television Academy award, was given the Cine Golden Eagle, and received Western Heritage Wrangler, Ohio State University, Festival dei Popoli (Florence) and American Film Festival awards. Reisman was given the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Foundation Award in 1965. His feature P.J. starring George Peppard was released by Universal in 1968. In the 1970s in addition to numerous other produced TV projects Reisman wrote episodes for The Adams Chronicles (1975) and Sandberg’s Lincoln (1976). In the 1980s Reisman adapted for TV Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi (1980), The Private History of the Campaign That Failed (1981) and Pudd’nhead Wilson (1984), winning WGA and Cine nominations and a Peabody Award from the U. of Georgia School of Journalism. Reisman was a longtime member of WGAE; he served on its Council and on the NY chapter of the TV Academy Board of Governors; a panelist at the National Playwrights Conference of the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theater Foundation in 1966, he became a trustee of the Eugene O’Neill Theater (Waterford, CT). Reisman’s lifelong interest in supporting accurate and respectful recognition of Native Americans led to his writing numerous articles and presenting related programs to New York groups. In retirement he researched and wrote for publications of the Larchmont (NY) Historical Society. Reisman died June 1, 1999, in New Rochelle, NY, survived by his wife Anna and their five children and families. (Biography supplied by Reisman’s family)

The Philip H. Reisman Jr. Papers cover the bulk of Reisman’s writing career and are organized into two series. They reflect Reisman’s extensive documentary and American historical drama projects as well as his frequent work with producers David Susskind and Edward Montagne Jr. from the 1940s-1970s. Many project files contain outlines, multiple drafts, research, newspaper clippings and reviews, or correspondence. Series I: Produced Projects make up the bulk of the collection and represent Reisman’s work in episodic, anthology, documentary, and longform television, feature films and newsreels spanning 1938-1981. Episodic shows represented are Justice, The Hunter, Man Against Crime, East Side/West Side, Trials of O’Brien, and The Andros Targets. A format and guide for writers is included for Man Against Crime. Scripts for anthology TV series include three episodes of Armstrong Circle Theater, Article 94 Homicide (Kaiser Aluminum Hour), First Prize for Murder (Studio One), Arrowsmith (DuPont Show of the Month), Bits and Pieces (I Spy), The Devil and Daniel Webster (Sunday Showcase), three episodes of Way Out, Room 13 (Great Ghost Tales), The Two Faces of Treason (DuPont Show of the Week), The Outcasts of Poker Flat (Kraft Theatre), I Mike Kenny (Suspense), and four episodes of the 1971 revival of You Are There. Pitch documents for I Spy are included. Television movies and miniseries scripts include Ten Little Indians, the Ransom of Red Chief, Hedda Gabler, Hildegarde Withers: A Very Missing Person [intended pilot for Great Detectives for ABC], Short Walk to Daylight (with memo from Standards and Practices), The Adams Chronicles Chapter VII: Diplomat, The Last Days for Sandburg’s Lincoln miniseries, The Great Cash Giveaway Getaway aka The Magnificent Hustle, and adaptations of Mark Twain’s The Private History of a Campaign That Failed, Life on the Mississippi, and Puddn’head Wilson. Scripts for ABC Wide World of Mystery movies written by Reisman are The Suicide Club, Murder Works Overtime, and Death is a Bad Trip. A set design drawing for the mansion is included for Ten Little Indians. Documentary television project titles include episodes Mission Outer Space, Submarine and Hiroshima for CBS News program The Twentieth Century, Big City-1980 for Tomorrow, Sun Country for This Proud Land, seven episodes of Project Twenty, the Second Revolution for the American Parade, and The Incredible Auto Race for CBS News. Produced feature screenplays in the collection are P.J. aka Criss Cross aka New Face in Hell, All the Way Home, and The Tattooed Stranger. A script for the compilation film Frank Buck’s Jungle Cavalcade is included, for which Reisman wrote the narration. The collection contains 64 continuity scripts for documentary shorts and newsreels that Reisman wrote while at RKO Pathe. Film series’ represented are Pathe Parade, Sportscopes (1938-1943), Reelisms (1938-1940), and Picture People (1941-1942). Series II: Unproduced Projects consists of both television and film projects and spans 1957-1978. Projects include two stories for World in White [World of White], a medical series based on the play Men in White by Sidney Kingsely (CBS ,1957); The Fourth R (1957); pilot adaptation of Nancy Drew (1957); pilot titled The Silent Saber about Benjamin Tallmadge and the Revolutionary War (1958, with promotional sales booklet); pilot The Gamblers aka High Stakes (CBS, 1958); a pilot adaptation of Kipling’s story Kim (1958); pilot The Coming to Stay of Kum (1959); The House Next Door, for the Child Guidance Foundation (1960); an episode of a proposed TV series Crime of the Century (CBS, 1961), profiling the mutiny and executions on the Brig Somers; a pilot Big Sur (CBS, 1961); Deadly Trade (1973); a movie about the B-25 bomber that hit the Empire State Building in 1945 (ABC, 1976); The Smoking Gun: The Resignation of Richard Nixon (1975); an episode of a proposed TV series adaptation of The African Queen, titled The Trojan Horse (1976); a TV movie script titled Sitting on a Mushroom about the “A-bomb kid” John Aristotle Philips (1978, with correspondence between Philips and Reisman). Unproduced feature scripts are titled You Only Bounce Once (1967), The Black Box aka Green, Orange and Purple Box aka The Doomsday Affair (1960s), and War Party (1969), all for Universal. Black Box files also contain correspondence and a draft from Paul Jarrico from 1980s. Titles of treatments for unmade TV series and films are Run Man Run, Dead Heat, Blood and Miss Thunder (for Bing Crosby) and Our Man in the Caribbean.