Biography
Ben Hecht (February 28, 1894 – April 18, 1964) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A successful journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplays and plays in America. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some seventy films. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ben Hecht, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Complete Filmography

Kiss of Death
1995
Original Film Writer
Jimmy Kilmartin's an ex-con who's trying to go straight. But he can't say no to a quick driving job because his so-called friend's life is threatened....

Switching Channels
1988
Writer
A television news chief courts his anchorwoman ex-wife with an eleventh-hour story.

I Hate Actors
1986
Novel
A Hollywood studio is producing another spectacular when the top billed male stars suddenly show up as corpses, killed before the critics could ever p...

Scarface
1983
Original Film Writer
After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciousl...

The Front Page
1974
Theatre Play
A journalist suffering from burn-out wants to finally say goodbye to his office – but his boss doesn’t like the idea one bit.

Gaily, Gaily
1969
Novel
After runaway Ben Young is robbed and left on his own, he is taken in by Lil, the head of a Chicago brothel. Acting as a surrogate mother for Ben, who...

Circus World
1964
Screenplay
Circus owner Matt Masters is beset by disasters as he attempts a European tour of his circus. At the same time, he is caught in an emotional bind betw...

7 Faces of Dr. Lao
1964
Additional Writing
An old Chinese man rides into the town of Abalone, Arizona and changes it forever, as the citizens see themselves reflected in the mirror of Lao's mys...

Billy Rose's Jumbo
1962
Theatre Play
The daughter of a circus owner fights to save her father from a takeover spearheaded by the man she loves.

Walk on the Wild Side
1962
Writer
At a 1930s New Orleans bordello, Hallie is the main attraction for both clients and the shrewd madam. The arrival of Dove Linkhorn, her lovesick sweet...

North to Alaska
1960
Screenplay
After striking gold in Alaska, the romantic George sends his womanizing partner Sam to bring his fiancée up from Seattle. When Sam finds that she has ...

Queen of Outer Space
1958
Story
A mission to Venus discovers the planet inhabited only by women led by their evil Queen Yllana. Yllana had all the men of Venus killed, now that's she...

The Fiend Who Walked the West
1958
Adaptation
A convicted bank robber, serving his sentence and yearning for freedom, becomes entangled with a psychotic, homicidal inmate. This inmate turns on him...

Legend of the Lost
1957
Screenplay
American ne'er-do-well Joe January is hired to take Paul Bonnard on an expedition into the desert in search of treasure.

A Farewell to Arms
1957
Screenplay
An English nurse and an American soldier on the Italian front during World War I fall in love, but the horrors surrounding them test their romance to ...

The Iron Petticoat
1956
Screenplay
Captain Vinka Kovalenko defects from Russia, but not for political reasons. She defects because she feels discriminated against as a woman. Captain Ch...

Trapeze
1956
Writer
A pair of men try to perform the dangerous "triple" in their trapeze act. Problems arise when the duo is made into a trio following the addition of a ...

Miracle in the Rain
1956
Novel, Screenplay
Wartime romance about a lonely man and woman who meet one rainy afternoon in New York.

The Man with the Golden Arm
1955
Additional Writing
When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old d...

The Indian Fighter
1955
Screenplay
A scout leading a wagon train through hostile Indian country gets involved with a Sioux chief's daughter.

Ulysses
1954
Screenplay
A movie adaptation of Homer's second epic, that talks about Ulysses' efforts to return to his home after the end of ten years of war.

Living It Up
1954
Theatre Play
Homer Flagg (Lewis) is a railroad worker in the small town of Desert Hole, New Mexico. One day he finds an abandoned automobile at an old atomic provi...

Indiscretion of an American Wife
1953
Writer
While on vacation in Rome, married American Mary Forbes becomes entangled in an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni Doria. As she prepares to leave I...

Angel Face
1953
Screenplay
Ambulance driver Frank Jessup is ensnared in the schemes of the sensuous but dangerous Diane Tremayne.

Monkey Business
1952
Screenplay
Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixe...

Actors and Sin
1952
as Narrator (segment "Woman of Sin") (voice)
Two-part story--the first is about a washed-up Broadway actor and his tough daughter, who is a bigger star than he is; the second is about a literary ...

Actors and Sin
1952
Director, Producer, Writer
Two-part story--the first is about a washed-up Broadway actor and his tough daughter, who is a bigger star than he is; the second is about a literary ...

The Secret of Convict Lake
1951
Additional Writing
After a group of convicts escapes from prison, they take refuge in the wilderness. While most of the crew are ruthless sociopaths, Jim Canfield is an ...

Strangers on a Train
1951
Additional Writing
Having met on a train, a smooth-talking psychotic socialite shares his theory on how two complete strangers can get away with murder to an amateur ten...

The Murder Club
1950
Writer
Based on the short story by Ben Hecht.

September Affair
1950
Writer
An industrialist and a pianist meet on a trip and fall in love. Through a quirk of fate, they are reported dead in a crash though they weren't on the ...

Edge of Doom
1950
Writer
A priest sets out to catch the man who killed one of his colleagues.

Where the Sidewalk Ends
1950
Screenplay
A police detective's violent nature keeps him from being a good cop.
Miracle in the Rain
1950
Author
A lonely man and woman meet on rainy afternoon in New York. Studio One, Season 2, Episode 34

The Pink Hussar
1950
Director, Writer
A famed Hungarian playwright arrives in American and, in order to secure the success of his new play, his friends dope him up and take him to the hosp...

Perfect Strangers
1950
Theatre Play
Romance at a murder trial with a pair of sequestered jurors who are the only ones who think that the woman in the dock is innocent. Separated from the...

Whirlpool
1950
Screenplay
The wife of a psychoanalyst falls prey to a devious quack hypnotist when he discovers she is an habitual shoplifter. Then one of his previous patients...

The Inspector General
1949
Additional Writing
An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mist...

The Twentieth Century
1949
Writer
A flamboyant Broadway impresario who has fallen on hard times tries to get his former lover, now a Hollywood diva, to return and resurrect his failing...

Love Happy
1949
Additional Writing
The Marx Brothers help young Broadway hopefuls when they get mixed up with gangsters due to a tin of sardines containing Romanoff diamonds.

Roseanna McCoy
1949
Writer
It's the Hatfields vs. the McCoys in this 1949 film, with Farley Granger and Joan Evans as the hillbilly Romeo and Juliet whose forbidden romance reki...

We Were Strangers
1949
Additional Writing
China Valdes joins the Cuban underground after her brother is killed by the chief of the secret police, Ariete. She meets and falls in love with Ameri...

Big Jack
1949
Writer
Wallace Beery, in his final film, plays a bandit in this period drama set in Colonial America.

Concerning a Woman of Sin
1949
Director, Writer
An unscrupulous agent is able to sell a story by an unknown authoress to a Hollywood studio chief for big money. But he has to conceal the fact that t...

Miracle in the Rain
1949
Director, Writer
A lonely man and woman meet on rainy afternoon in New York. Season 1, Episode 21 of the The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre

Portrait of Jennie
1948
Writer
A mysterious girl inspires a struggling artist.

The Front Page
1948
Director, Writer
Earl Williams is due to be hanged tomorrow, and he's innocent. When Earl escapes from his cell, journalist Hildy Johnson seems likely to land the scoo...

The Miracle of the Bells
1948
Screenplay
The body of a young actress is brought to her home town by the man who loved her. He knows that she wanted all the church bells to ring for three days...

Rope
1948
Additional Writing
Two young men attempt to prove they committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party for the family of a classmate they just strangled to death.

Her Husband's Affairs
1947
Writer
Bill Weldon is an Ad man who craves his wife Margaret's approval of his work, instead he gets constructive (and on-target) feedback, which he hates. T...

Ride the Pink Horse
1947
Screenplay
A con man tries to blackmail a Mexican gangster.

Kiss of Death
1947
Screenplay
An ex-con trying to go straight must face a crazed criminal out for revenge.

Duel in the Sun
1946
Writer
Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad...

Notorious
1946
Writer
In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin recruits Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted German war c...

Specter of the Rose
1946
Director, Producer, Writer
Ballet dancer Sanine may have murdered his first wife. A detective thinks so, and he's not the only one.

Gilda
1946
Additional Writing
A gambler discovers an old flame while in Argentina, but she's married to his new boss.

Cornered
1945
Writer
A World War II veteran hunts down the Nazi collaborators who killed his wife.

The Front Page
1945
Writer
Earl Williams is set to hang tomorrow. When he escapes from his cell, reporter Hildy Johnson finds him, and thus seems likely to land the scoop of his...

Spellbound
1945
Screenplay
When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, dis...

Watchtower Over Tomorrow
1945
Screenplay
Short documentary film about the Dumbarton Oaks plan and the proposed formation of the United Nations.

Lifeboat
1944
Writer
During World War II, a small group of survivors is stranded in a lifeboat together after the ship they were traveling on is destroyed by a German U-bo...

China Girl
1942
Producer, Screenplay
Two-fisted newsreel photographer Johnny Williams is stationed in Burma and China in the early stage of WW II. Captured by the Japanese, he escapes fro...

The Black Swan
1942
Screenplay
When notorious pirate Henry Morgan is made governor of Jamaica, he enlists the help of some of his former partners in ridding the Caribbean of buccane...

Tales of Manhattan
1942
Writer
Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video relea...

Ten Gentlemen from West Point
1942
Writer
This historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the early 19th Century, Congress...

Lydia
1941
Screenplay
Lydia MacMillan, a wealthy woman who has never married, invites several men her own age to her home to reminisce about the times when they were young ...

Second Chorus
1941
Writer
Danny O'Neill and Hank Taylor are rival trumpeters with the Perennials, a college band, and both men are still attending college by failing their exam...

Comrade X
1940
Screenplay
An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.

Angels Over Broadway
1940
as Man in Night Court (uncredited)
Small-time businessman Charles Engle is threatened with exposure for embezzling $3,000 for his free-spending wife. Deciding on suicide, he scribbles a...

Angels Over Broadway
1940
Writer, Producer, Director
Small-time businessman Charles Engle is threatened with exposure for embezzling $3,000 for his free-spending wife. Deciding on suicide, he scribbles a...

Foreign Correspondent
1940
Additional Writing
American crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover the imminent war. When he walks into the middle of an a...

I Take This Woman
1940
Writer
On return from Europe Dr. Decker foils glamour girl Georgi from jumping overboard. At Decker's suggestion to keep busy, she assists at his clinic i...

His Girl Friday
1940
Theatre Play, Screenplay
Walter Burns is an irresistibly conniving newspaper publisher desperate to woo back his paper’s star reporter, who also happens to be his estranged wi...

The Shop Around the Corner
1940
Additional Writing
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous ...

Eternally Yours
1939
Writer
Anita, engaged to solid Don Barnes, is swept off her feet by magician Arturo. Before you can say presto, she's his wife and stage assistant on a lengt...

Lady of the Tropics
1939
Screenplay
Playboy Bill Carey woos a half-caste beauty in French Indochina, but her second-class legal status makes a formidable barrier.

It's a Wonderful World
1939
Screenplay, Story
Detective Guy Johnson's client, Willie Heywood, is framed for murder. While Guy hides him so he can catch the real killer, both of them are nabbed by ...

Some Like It Hot
1939
Theatre Play, Writer
Nicky Nelson is a fast-talking sideshow barker with a wax-and-alive concession on Atlantic City's boardwalk. Even with the band of his friend, struggl...

Wuthering Heights
1939
Screenplay
The Earnshaws are Yorkshire farmers during the early 19th Century. One day, Mr. Earnshaw returns from a trip to the city, bringing with him a ragged l...

Stagecoach
1939
Additional Writing
A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo, and learn something about each other in the proc...

Let Freedom Ring
1939
Screenplay, Story
A Harvard man fights a railroad baron with a disguise and the power of the press.

Gunga Din
1939
Story
British army sergeants Ballantine, Cutter and MacChesney serve in India during the 1880s, along with their native water-bearer, Gunga Din. While compl...

Angels with Dirty Faces
1938
Writer
Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes...

The Goldwyn Follies
1938
Screenplay, Story
Movie producer chooses a simple girl to be "Miss Humanity" and to critically evalute his movies from the point of view of the ordinary person.

Nothing Sacred
1937
Screenplay
When a small-town girl is incorrectly diagnosed with a rare, deadly disease, an unknowing newspaper columnist turns her into a national heroine.

The Hurricane
1937
Additional Writing
A Polynesian sailor is separated from his wife when he's unjustly imprisoned for defending himself against a colonial bully. Members of the community ...

The Prisoner of Zenda
1937
Writer
A kingdom's ascending heir, marked for assassination, switches identities with a lookalike, who takes his place at the coronation. When the real king ...

Woman Chases Man
1937
Writer
A pretty architect devises a wild scheme to convince a handsome millionaire to fund a new housing development project.

A Star Is Born
1937
Writer
Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her ido...

King of Gamblers
1937
Writer
Working for a slick restaurateur who has fallen for her, a down-on-life songstress falls instead for a crusading crime reporter, unaware that her empl...

Soak the Rich
1936
Producer, Writer, Director
Tycoon Humphrey Craig is fearful that a "soak the rich" bill will pass in the United States Senate.

Barbary Coast
1935
Writer
Mary Rutledge arrives from the east, finds her fiancé dead, and goes to work at the roulette wheel of Luis Chamalis' Bella Donna, a rowdy gambling hou...

Spring Tonic
1935
Theatre Play
Betty Ingals walks out on her fiancé in search of adventure. She gets more than she bargained for when she stumbles upon a gang of bootleggers.

Once in a Blue Moon
1935
Writer, Producer, Director
A group of Russian nobles fleeing the Bolshevik revolution meet up with a traveling circus. To escape their pursuers, they disguise themselves as memb...

The Scoundrel
1935
as Flop House Bum
A ruthless, cynical, hated publisher is killed in a plane crash, doomed to be a "restless" spirit for being unloved. A heavenly power gives him a mont...

The Scoundrel
1935
Director, Producer, Story
A ruthless, cynical, hated publisher is killed in a plane crash, doomed to be a "restless" spirit for being unloved. A heavenly power gives him a mont...

The Florentine Dagger
1935
Writer
A playwright descended from the Borgia family becomes a murder suspect.

The President Vanishes
1934
Writer
The President Vanishes, released in the United Kingdom as Strange Conspiracy, is a 1934 American political drama film directed by William A. Wellman a...

Crime Without Passion
1934
as Court Interviewer with Pipe (uncredited)
Caddish lawyer Lee Gentry is going out with Katy Costello, but carrying on an affair with dancer Carmen Brown. When he wants to end the dalliance with...

Crime Without Passion
1934
Screenplay, Director, Producer
Caddish lawyer Lee Gentry is going out with Katy Costello, but carrying on an affair with dancer Carmen Brown. When he wants to end the dalliance with...

Shoot the Works
1934
Theatre Play, Writer
The story of seedy sideshow barker Nicky, who uses everyone he meets to get ahead. Nicky isn't even above exploiting his singing sweetheart Lily to su...

Twentieth Century
1934
Screenplay
A temperamental Broadway producer trains an untutored actress, but when she becomes a star, she proves a match for him.

Upperworld
1934
Story
A railroad tycoon, disillusioned with his marriage, starts seeing a showgirl. Things go agreeably until the woman's manager decides to blackmail the m...

Viva Villa!
1934
Screenplay
In this fictionalized biography, young Pancho Villa takes to the hills after killing an overseer in revenge for his father's death.

Riptide
1934
Writer
Mary is an impetuous romantic who marries British aristocrat Lord Philip Rexford on a whim. Their marriage is successful, though, and they grow closer...

Design for Living
1933
Screenplay
An independent woman can't choose between the two men she loves.

Queen Christina
1933
Additional Writing, Writer
Popular monarch Queen Christina of Sweden must choose between love and loyalty to her nation when she unexpectedly falls for a Spanish envoy.

Turn Back the Clock
1933
Screenplay
While recuperating in a hospital after he's hit by an automobile, a struggling shopowner dreams what his life might have been like if he'd made differ...

Topaze
1933
Screenplay
An honest and naive schoolteacher gets a lesson in how the world works outside the classroom, when a rich Baron and his mistress use the teacher's nam...

Hallelujah, I'm a Bum
1933
Story
A New York tramp falls in love with the mayor's amnesiac girlfriend after rescuing her from a suicide attempt.

Rasputin and the Empress
1932
Writer
The story of corrupt, power-hungry, manipulative Grigori Rasputin's influence on members of the Russian Imperial family and others, and what resulted.

Back Street
1932
Writer
A woman's love for and devotion to a married man results in her being relegated to the "back streets" of his life.

Million Dollar Legs
1932
Writer
A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.

Scarface
1932
Screenplay
In 1920s Chicago, Italian immigrant and notorious thug, Antonio 'Tony' Camonte, aka Scarface, shoots his way to the top of the mobs while trying to pr...

The Beast of the City
1932
Writer
Police Chief Jim Fitzpatrick is after gangster Sam Belmonte. He uses his own corrupt brother Ed to watch over Daisy who was associated with Belmonte.

The Sin of Madelon Claudet
1931
Writer
Out of jail for a crime she did not commit, Madelon turns to prostitution and thievery to send her illegitimate son to medical school.

The Unholy Garden
1931
Story, Dialogue
At a hotel in the middle of the Sahara, an old man and his daughter try to keep the location of a hidden treasure from a collection of thieves and cri...

Homicide Squad
1931
Writer
The police use a gangster's son to get to him.

Quick Millions
1931
Writer
A truck driver "too lazy to work and too nervous to steal" gets mixed up in racketeering. Naturally his underhanded business practices make him a pill...

The Front Page
1931
Writer
Hildy Johnson is an investigative reporter looking for a bigger paycheck. When an accused murderer escapes from custody, Hildy sees an opportunity for...

Si l'empereur savait ça
1930
Original Story
A princess in the old Austro-Hungarian empire rejects her arranged marriage and falls, instead, for a dashing cavalry captain.

The Green Specter
1930
Story
A group of people who knew each other years before discover that members of the group are being killed off one by one by someone who calls himself (or...

Roadhouse Nights
1930
Story
Based on the Hammett novel, this ultra-rare film—is nominally taken from the author's classic gang-war novel Red Harvest, which proved too brutal and ...

Street of Chance
1930
Writer
'Natural' Davis (William Powell) is a respected gambler who follows a ruthless code of honor with those who cheat against him. His wife, Alma (Kay Fra...

The Unholy Night
1929
Story
When a rash of murders depletes their number, a billionaire's employees are brought together at an Englishman's estate.

The Great Gabbo
1929
Story
For the ventriloquist Gabbo his wooden dummy Otto is the only means of expression. When he starts relying more and more on Otto, he starts going mad.

The Big Noise
1928
Story
John Stoval, a guard in a New York subway, thinks that Philip Hurd, who owns a concession at Coney Island, would make a good husband for his daughter ...

Underworld
1927
Story
Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfr...

The New Klondike
1926
Writer
Tom Kelly, a small-town baseball pitcher, is sent to a minor-league team in Florida, and fails to make the team. He starts dabbling in real estate, in...