Born April 6, 1895 in Wapakoneta, Ohio, Dudley Nichols was educated at the University of Michigan. A star reporter and feature writer for the New York World in 1928, the year he married wife Esther Varez, he moved to Hollywood in 1929.
He was under contract to Fox from 1929-1935 and RKO from 1935-1938 and again from 1943-1947. Throughout his long career in Hollywood, Nichols worked on thirteen scripts for John Ford beginning with 1930’s Men Without Women quickly followed by the same year’s Born Reckless. He also worked with such other legendary directors as George Cukor, Howard Hawks, Fritz Lang, and Jean Renoir.
Nichols’ output in the early 1930s included The Black Camel, The Sign of the Cross, Pilgrimage, The Lost Patrol, and The Informer for which he won an Oscar that he initially refused because of the antagonism between several industry guilds and the academy over union matters. Among the films for which he wrote the scripts over the remaining years of first RKO contract were She, The Crusades, Mary of Scotland, The Hurricane, Bringing Up Baby, and Carefree, and Gunga Din.
He served as president of the Screen Writers Guild in 1937 and 1938, accepting his Oscar for The Informer at the 1938 Oscar ceremony.
Between contracts with RKO, Nichols independently wrote the scripts for such films as Stagecoach, The Westerner, The Long Voyage Home for which he received his second Oscar nomination, and Air Force for which he received his third.
He also co-wrote the documentary, The Battle of Midway, which won the 1942 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
Back at RKO in 1943, Nichols supplied the scripts for This Land Is Mine, Bataan, Mr. Lucky, For Whom the Bell Tolls as well as Government Girl which he also directed.
Between 1944 and 1947, Nichols wrote the scripts for It Happened Tomorrow, And Then There Were None, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Scarlet Street, Sister Kenny, The Fugitive, and Mourning Becomes Electra. He also directed Sister Kenny and Mourning Becomes Electra, both of which earned Best Actress Oscar nominations for Rosalind Russell. He left RKO for good after the box-office failure of Mourning Becomes Electra.
Between 1949 and 1957, Nichols’ output decreased but he was still responsible for the scripts for such high-profile films as Pinky, Rawhide, The Big Sky, Prince Valiant, Run for the Sun, and The Tin Star for which he received his fourth and final Oscar nomination.
1959’s The Hangman was Nichols’ last scripted film to be released during his lifetime. 1960’s Heller in Pink Tights was released posthumously.
Dudley Nichols died January 4, 1960 at 64.
ESSENTIAL FILMS
THE INFORMER (1935), directed by John Ford
Nichols’ Oscar-winning screenplay from Liam O’Flaherty’s 1925 novel previously filmed in Hungary in 1929, is set-in poverty-stricken Dublin during “the troubles” in which a dimwitted pug (Oscar winner Victor McLaglen) has been ousted from the IRA by its leader (Preston Foster). Hungry, he turns in his friend (Wallace Ford) to the authorities for the reward money. Filmed on a soundstage with a limited budget, director Ford works wonders with smoke and mirrors in bringing Nichols’ script to the screen featuring outstanding supporting turns from Margot Grahame, Heather Angel, and Una O’Connor as the mother of the betrayed man.
BRINGING UP BABY (1938), directed by Howard Hawks
A disappointing flop when first released, this classic screwball comedy has endured as one of the finest of its genre thanks to the unremittingly hilarious screenplay by Nichols and Hagar Wilde from Wilde’s story, Hawks’ typical rapid-fire direction, and the performances of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in the leads and the likes of May Robson, Charlie Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald, and Walter Catlett in support. This was Hepburn’s first comedy, and she was more than up to the task, working with as fine a group of farceurs as ever appeared in front of a camera. Hepburn and Grant followed this with George Cukor’s equally fine Holiday.
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (1945), directed by René Clair
The first and still the best of the numerous film versions of Agatha Christie’s novel and play, Nichols’ witty script based on the theatrical version keeps things light despite being surrounded by constant death as the guests and staff members of a house on an isolated island are murdered one by one. Louis Hayward and June Duprez are fine as the nominal leads, but it’s the supporting cast featuring some of Hollywood’s finest that gives the film its bite. They include Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Roland Young, Mischa Auer, C. Aubrey Smith, Judith Anderson, and Richard Haydn.
THE BELLS OF ST. MARY’S (1945), directed by Leo McCarey
It’s rare that a sequel is an improvement over the original, but this is one that was thanks to Nichols’ screenplay from a story by director McCarey that tops the one he came up for Going My Way. That one benefitted heavily from Barry Fitzgerlad as Bing Crosby’s co-star, an older, set-in-his-ways priest to Crosby’s younger, more pliable one. There’s no Fitgerald in this one, but there is Ingrid Bergman at her most luminous as a no-nonsense nun. The supporting cast is headed by Henry Travers as an old curmudgeon, Joan Carroll as a troubled girl, William Gargan as her father, Ruth Donnelly as another nun, and Una O’Connor as a persnickety housekeeper.
THE TIN STAR (1957), directed by Anthony Mann
The only Anthony Mann western to receive an Oscar nomination for its screenplay and the only western screenplay by Nichols to be so nominated, this is no Stagecoach, Red River, or The Searchers, but it does stand up there with other greats about the bad guys who come to town with guns blazing such as My Darling Clementine, High Noon, and The Fastest Gun Alive. Henry Fonda stars as a former sheriff who helps new sheriff Anthony Perkins stand up to the bad guys with Betsy Palmer as a widowed mother and Michel Ray as her young son who join Fonda and Perkins over the title on the film but were listed in support in print ads and the trailer.
DUDLEY NICHOLS AND OSCAR
The Informer (1935) – Oscar – Best Screenplay
The Long Voyage Home (1940) – nominated – Best Screenplay
Air Force (1943) – nominated – Best Original Screenplay
The Tin Star (1957) – nominated – Best Original Screenplay
