Oscar Profile #313: Robert Riskin

Born March 30, 1897 in New York New York, Robert Riskin was one of five children born to Russian Jewish parents. As a teenager, he worked for a shirt-manufacturing firm which sent him to Florida at the age of 17 to run a film production company for them. He turned out one and two reel films until he joined the Army during World War I.

After the war, Riskin became a playwright. Two of his plays, Bless You, Sister and Many a Slip were Broadway stage in 1927 and 1930, respectively. Relocating to Hollywood in 1931, he quickly established himself as one of the town’s premier writers beginning with an adaptation of his Many a Slip. He then adapted Bless You, Sister as The Miracle Woman for Barbara Stanwyck, the first of his numerous collaborations with director Frank Capra.

Riskin and Capra both received Oscar nominations for 1933’s Lady for a Day starring May Robson and 1934’s It Happened One Night starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, both winning for the latter. Their love affair with the Academy continued with nominations for 1936’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur and 1938’s You Can’t Take It With You starring Arthur and James Stewart, both of which would win Capra subsequent Oscars.

During this period, Riskin also wrote the screenplays for Capra’s Platinum Blonde, American Madness, Broadway Bill and Lost Horizon as well as Shopworn, The Whole Town’s Talking and The Cowboy and the Lady for other directors. It was also during this period that Riskin directed his only film, the 1937 flop, When You’re in Love starring Grace Moore and Cary Grant.

By the end of the decade, Riskin and Capra formed Frank Capra Productions which was divided 65% for Capra and 35% for Riskin. The only collaboration to come out of the new company was 1941’s Meet John Doe, which caused a major rift in their relationship. Concerned that Capra was taking too much credit for the success of their collaborations, Riskin allegedly shoved 120 blank pages in Capra’s face, shouting “put the famous Capra touch on that!” They never worked together again, although Riskin did receive a further Oscar nomination for the original motion picture story for 1951’s Here Comes the Groom based on a story he had written years earlier.

Riskin also received screenplay credit for Capra’s 1950 film, Riding High, the remake of Broadway Bill and posthumously for 1961’sPocketful of Miracles, the remake of Lady for a Day.

Married to actress Fay Wray from 1942 on, with whom he had three children, Riskin continued to write screenplays throughout the 1940s including 1944’s The Thin Man Goes Home which was produced by his older brother, producer Everett Riskin. In ill health in his later years, Riskin resided at the Motion Picture Home from 1950 to 1955 where he died at the age of 58 on September 20, 1955. His funeral was attended by many Hollywood luminaries, but famously not by Capra.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LADY FOR A DAY, directed by Frank Capra (1933)

Riskin’s fourth collaboration with Capra resulted in Oscar nominations for his screenplay as well as nominations for Best Picture, Actress May Robson as Apple Annie and Capra for his direction. The depression era comedy based on a story by Damon Runyon was a great success both with the critics and the public. Also starring Warren William as Dave the Dude, the film featured Glenda Farrell and Guy Kibbee in key roles. Capra’s 1961 remake, Pocketful of Miracles starring Bette Davis as Apple Annie and Glenn Ford as Dave the Dude along with Hope Lange, Peter Falk and Ann-Margret was generally dismissed by the critics.

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, directed by Frank Capra (1934)

This surprise box-office hit was the first film to win Oscars in all top five categories, Best Picture, Actor (Clark Gable), Actress (Claudette Colbert), Direction (Capra) and Screenplay (Riskin). Gable was the reporter traveling incognito who helps the spoiled heiress (Colbert) on the lam from her father (Walter Connolly) who had kept her sequestered on his yacht and away from her aviator husband. Along the way, Colbert falls in love with Gable and vice versa, leaving the groom in the dust. This is the film that earned Gable the title of “king” in Ed Sullivan’s poll that also named Myrna Loy “queen”.

MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, directed by Frank Capra (1936)

Riskin’s screenplay and Capra’s direction combined to make this the first of four Capraesque comedy-dramas in which an unlikely protagonist emerges as a hero for the masses. Gary Cooper was the hero in two of them, this opposite Jean Arthur and Meet John Doe opposite Barbara Stanwyck. James Stewart was the hero in the other two, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington opposite Arthur and It’s a Wonderful Life opposite Donna Reed. Cooper is the rube who inherits $20 million from an uncle and is forced into an insanity hearing by his greedy handlers for wanting to give it all away.

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU, directed by Frank Capra (1938)

Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play put the emphasis on the eccentric Vanderhof-Sycamore family and the ever-growing co-inhabitants of their unruly home. Riskin’s warm screenplay put the emphasis on the sane daughter (Jean Arthur) and he romance with the scion (James Stewart) of a wealthy New York family. Lionel Barrymore and Spring Byington replaced Broadway’s Henry Travers and Josephine Hull as Arthur’s character’s grandfather and mother, respectively. It was the second Riskin-Capra Best Picture Oscar winner and the third winner for Capra. Riskin would have to be content with his fourth nomination.

MEET JOHN DOE, directed by Frank Capra (1941)

The darkest of the Riskin-Capra collaborationsis the only one that was not universally loved, although the characters played by Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, James Gleason, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan and Spring Byington are clearly in the mold of the characters in their previous works. Stanwyck’s reporter is a more cynical version of the one played by Jean Arthur in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Cooper’s suicidal everyman is the flip side of his optimistic hero in that film. The tension between Riskin and Capra on the film caused a permanent rift in their relationship.