Once described as the world's highest-paid writer and one of its greatest humorists, Nunnally Johnson was the perfect example of a talented Hollywood contract writer able to put his pen to almost any subject. In addition, he was an astute studio executive who produced many of his screenplays, and toward the end of his active career he turned his talents to directing. Primarily remembered for his screenplay for The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Johnson authored some fifty screenplays over a thirty-year career that began with early sound films and ended in the 1960s. As a result of his acclaimed work on The Grapes of Wrath, Johnson gained a certain critical respect that he was unable to sustain with later efforts. However, his great commercial success as a writer, producer, and occasional director was due primarily to his working on a variety of films, most of which were geared toward...