Legacy of Female Writers

Kristine McKenna’s article on female screenwriters of an earlier era (featured in a UCLA film archive series this month) is almost devoid of praise (Calendar, March 1). The period she wrote about was governed by conditions far removed from those that obtain today: Censorship guarded morals now quite extinct, rock ‘n’ roll was only on the horizon, and the social drug was aspirin.

One of the writers scorned by McKenna was my beloved wife, Marguerite Roberts (1905-1989), but not for her alone do I resent the article. It also dismisses a corps of women who, within the restrictions of their time, wrote most admirably. Among these were Sonya Levien, Virginia Van Upp, Dorothy Kingsley and Helen Deutsch, all of whom I knew and esteemed.

It will not do to dismiss their work, as McKenna does, by saying, “If this extravaganza of unenlightened cliches is the best the gals can do, they should be permanently banished to wardrobe duties.” My wife was on the MGM payroll for 20 years and unless McKenna can match that feat, I suggest that it’s she who belongs in Wardrobe.

JOHN SANFORD

Santa Barbara