SOURCE: "Family Plots: Writing and the Mankiewicz Clan," in Film Comment, Vol. 20, No. 4, July-August, 1984, pp. 68-77.

In the following excerpt, Farber and Green trace the history of the Mankiewicz family in the film industry.

For people who have never learned to communicate to each other, it's curious that we love communication so much. Other families who are far more taciturn and less verbal succeed in communicating love and more basic emotions better than we ever did.

—Christopher Mankiewicz

A fixture in Hollywood since the silent days, the Mankiewicz clan has been a family of wits and intellectuals in an industry overrun with dunces and boors. Herman Mankiewicz won a screenwriting Oscar for coauthoring Citizen Kane. His brother, Joseph, has the unprecedented distinction of winning four Academy Awards in the space of two years—for writing and directing A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve. Joseph's son...