The following essay focuses on the literary collaboration of Robert Benton and David Newman.

The screenplays of Robert Benton and David Newman offer some support for the screenwriter-as-auteur theory as they display a consistent concern with a handful of themes. Their characters are usually outsiders to some degree, whether they are the actual outlaws of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), There Was a Crooked Man (1970), and Bad Company (1972), the aging detective with an anachronistic set of values of The Late Show (1977), or the most perfect person on Earth, who is isolated by his perfection, in Superman (1978). These characters are always seeking comradeship or love (sometimes finding them) and often making a journey of discovery. They usually move away from respectability rather than toward it, as in the case of lawman-turned-outlaw Woodward Lopeman in There Was a Crooked Man. Other characters assume roles: Bonnie and Clyde become glamorous criminals, and the...