A Movie Studio Grows In The South Bronx

On December 27, 2012, I posted on this blog an unpublished letter-to-the-editor that I wrote in July 1977 in which I suggested that the abandoned buildings in the South Bronx be torn down and replaced by "a huge television and motion picture sound stage."

Forty years later, that sound stage in the South Bronx has come into existence and is called Silvercup Studios North.

My suggestion was way ahead of its time.

Hollywood In The South Bronx

Voice of the People
New York Daily News
220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
July 5, 1977

Dear Editor:

If the city had torn down some of the abandoned buildings in the South Bronx and replaced them with a huge television and motion picture sound stage, it would have helped the city's financial situation enormously. New jobs would have been created, companies providing goods and services would have benefited, and it would have given Hollywood some tough competition.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

The above letter was not published.

Note: There are today film studios in Brooklyn and Queens.

Hooray For Hollywood and Its Screenwriters

In Hollywood, movies are considered a director's medium and so screenwriters are given second-class treatment. Newspapers and magazines, taking their cue from the suits at movie studios, have followed their example, ignoring the contributions of the writer and lionizing the director. It is refreshing to see that Entertainment Weekly in its Fall Movie Preview Special Double Issue (August 21-28, 2009) gives credit that's long overdue by including the names of those who have written the scripts for movies slated to be released in September, October, November, and December (including movies written and directed by the same person). Unfortunately, the movie reviews by Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum in the same issue neglect to give the writing credits of the movies under discussion.
While going over the fall movies, one story came to mind: a screenwriter, tired of being treated like the low man on a totem pole and knowing that without a script there is no movie, throws a handful of blank pages at a director, telling him: "Now let's see you try to direct that."