Video: Adina Hoffman on the Fighting Words of Ben Hecht
Rebecca Keys
Ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and “the greatest of American screenwriters,” Ben Hecht wrote the Hollywood we know today. Join acclaimed author Adina Hoffman for a 60-minute exploration of Hecht’s life and work, his most notable screenplays, as well as his role as an outspoken crusader for Jewish communities around the world.
This program took place on May 20, 2021 in partnership with Park Avenue Synagogue and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
By Adina Hoffman
Published February 12, 2019
264 pages
“Electrifying” —Booklist, starred review
A vibrant portrait of one of the most accomplished and prolific American screenwriters, by an award-winning biographer and essayist
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 he became a fierce propagandist for pre-1948 Palestine’s Jewish terrorist underground. Whatever the outrage he stirred, this self-declared “child of the century” came to embody much that defined America—especially Jewish America—in his time.
Hecht's fame has dimmed with the decades, but Adina Hoffman’s vivid portrait brings this charismatic and contradictory figure back to life on the page. Hecht was a renaissance man of dazzling sorts, and Hoffman—critically acclaimed biographer, former film critic, and eloquent commentator on Middle Eastern culture and politics—is uniquely suited to capture him in all his modes.