Talk:Ring Lardner Jr.

Roman Holiday
Cut from article:
 * According to Hungarian writer Miklos Vamos—who visited Lardner several times before his death—Lardner won an Academy Award for a movie he wrote under a pseudonym. Lardner refused to tell which movie it was, saying that it would be unfair to reveal it because the writer who allowed Lardner, Jr. to use his name as a front (as Lardner's pseudonym) was doing him a big favor at the time. It later was revealed the film was Roman Holiday and the writer was Ian McLellan Hunter, who with Lardner co-wrote the book for Bert Lahr's short-lived 1964 Broadway vehicle Foxy.


 * NB Wikipedia entries for Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter and, Roman Holiday all state that it was for Dalton Trumbo that Ian McLellan Hunter was "fronting" on the Roman Holiday screenplay. It is known that Hunter fronted for both of them before being blacklisted himself.  However, it was Trumbo who was posthumously awarded an Oscar for the screenplay and whose name was digitally added to the credits.

I assume that the other articles are correct - imdb.com entry on the film also shows that Trumbo, not Lardner, wrote the story for said film. Ellsworth 18:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Readded reference to unknown Lardner film. The Roman Holiday speculation was attached by somebody else to this info, so this being incorrect doesn't make the whole paragraph incorrect, so the part which has a source reference shouldn't be removed as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.18.18 (talk) 15:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Does anybody speak Hungarian? If we could translate the Vamos article, that would shed some light on this. What exactly does the article say, and what the heck does "It was later revealed" mean?? Softlavender (talk) 23:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The "later revealed" part is not in the article. It was added by someone else. The Hungarian article states only what's in the first two sentences of the paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.21.222.159 (talk) 07:12, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Add this address to External Links?
I found a mug shot of Ring Lardner, Jr. and explanation of circumstance at http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/lardnermug1.html. Would this link be helpful?Photog143 (talk) 23:42, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

New source needed
It's mentioned that Lardner wrote an Oscar-winning film under a pseudonym but never said which one. The link to cite this is dead - it's http://www.vamosmiklos.hu/index.php/publicisztika/hogy-volt/263-a-legfontosabb-mondat-elet-es-irodalom-48-evfolyam-22-szam which probably would have been disqualified as a non-English language link anyway. I've added a citation request in hopes another source can be found. 68.146.72.113 (talk) 16:23, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

A couple of notes
The date on his mugshot is dated just after the Korean War started, the very thing that would eventually bring him his Oscar.

During the production of MASH, and after it was released, Lardner loudly denounced Altman's film. This is not surprising, as Altman would have taken anybody's script and turned it on its head (like all auteurs do). What's interesting is that he kept up his complaints until he was nominated for an Oscar, at which point he suddenly quieted down. And he accepted the Oscar when he won. Talk about a man of integrity. Maybe somebody can find a source for this somewhere and add it to the article?

Also this article (as all articles that cover the blacklisting) glosses over what the blacklisting was about. It's always made to sound like the Hollywood Ten were imprisoned for their political beliefs. This issue was really about their failure to provide information that might have uncovered spies, and with their refusal to cooperate, led to the charge of contempt of Congress, just like someone who refuses to testify before a Grand Jury.

__173.235.84.234 (talk) 19:56, 25 August 2018 (UTC)


 * What exactly does this have to do with improving the article? Lardner was in fact imprisoned for his beliefs. The article correctly states that it was a 1st amendment issue and wasn't "about their failure to provide information" -- that would be your POV and sources do not support it. Please see WP:FORUM and also WP:TALK for talk page guidelines.  freshacconci  (✉) 20:09, 25 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello .  “What exactly does this have to do with improving the article?”  I freely admit the first point is purely trivial and doesn’t belong in the article. I only included it as an aside before I got to the other two points I wanted to make about it.
 * I think Lardner’s hypocrisy over the Oscar is worth noting. I don’t remember where I read that (it was many years ago), which is why I encouraged someone to look for it.
 * “Lardner was in fact imprisoned for his beliefs. The article correctly states that it was a 1st [A]mendment issue and wasn't "about their failure to provide information" -- that would be your POV and sources do not support it.”   On this you are completely wrong and are in fact guilty of POV yourself. It is simply impossible to be “imprisoned for his beliefs” as that would violate the Constitution.
 * Think of it like this: assume for a moment you’re an American and you were subpoenaed to testify about the members of some group you belonged to. Now on the assumption you have done nothing wrong, but several people in that group that you are a member of have engaged in some kind of criminal activity, the authorities would like you to provide information on some of their suspects. You may honestly believe that the suspects haven’t done anything wrong and refuse to cooperate with “naming names”. Presumably you could be charged with impeding an investigation or something (I’m not a lawyer). And you might spend time in jail not because of your beliefs (you think the suspects are innocent) but because you interfered with a lawful investigation.
 * That is essentially what happened to the Hollywood Ten and all of the other blacklisted people. Remember, people (which apparently includes you) assume that the government was simply out to find Communists and shut them up like political prisoners. The actual fact is that the Communist Party was a network to recruit and use agents for the Soviet Union here in the United States. By “naming names” Lardner and others could have helped uncover possible Soviet agents engaged in espionage. Lardner may have been innocent of actually knowing anyone so engaged, but it’s not his right to decide whom the government can investigate. He may have been as surprised as anyone that so-and-so was in fact an agent, but because he refused to cooperate, who knows how many agents got away.
 * That’s not POV, unlike what you wrote, which is purely POV. By the way, as someone who’s been contributing to Wikipedia for almost 15 years, I do know Talk Page policy. I wasn’t making idle comments (well, except for the mugshot comment). I was providing points that could make something clearer to readers, sense this material is often written to mislead the reader.
 * I honestly didn’t mean to write so much. But it has to be presented in some detail to make the point clear that he WAS NOT imprisoned for his political beliefs, but was because he failed to cooperate with a legal investigation. And that is an absolute fact, not POV. Thanks for reading (assuming you're still reading). __173.235.84.234 (talk) 20:50, 27 August 2018 (UTC)