Guy Endore - Hollywood

Hollywood

After graduating, Guy married Henrietta Portugal and in the 1930s they moved to Hollywood. Despite his eventual blacklisting, Endore had a fairly successful career in Hollywood, working on scripts or story ideas for big name pictures of the time. He made his name in the supernatural arena, with such movies as Mark of the Vampire and The Curse of the Werewolf (based on his novel The Werewolf of Paris). Although many of his films were at the time derided by critics, they have acquired a cult following in recent years.

Throughout his career Endore showed himself to be fascinated with hypnotism and the inability of characters to control their own actions, centering his stories on supernatural maladies such as lycanthropy and hypnosis. Mad Love, Peter Lorre’s American debut, involves a man who, after an accident, is fitted with the hands of a murderer which try to continue in their gruesome career. His novel Methinks The Lady..., which was made into a movie with Gene Tierney, centered around a woman affected by a quack hypnotist. Even his Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers comedy, Carefree, still includes Rogers being put under hypnosis.

Endore began his movie writing career in 1935, when he wrote the story for Rumba, an insipid star vehicle for George Raft and Carole Lombard, which was given a scathing review in the New York Times. From there he began working in film. He worked on the screenplay for Mark of the Vampire with Bela Lugosi. He also wrote the 19-page treatment that eventually became The Raven, for which he was never credited. A number of other horror films followed, interspersed with more mainstream films including the Oscar-nominated (G.I. Joe), a John Wayne movie (Lady from Louisiana), and a Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire picture (Carefree). His Hollywood career ended in 1969 with a made for TV movie entitled Fear No Evil, for which he wrote the story. It was the first US Television “Movie of the Week” and a success in the ratings, spawning a sequel in later years.