Introduction
Emmet Lavery (1902-1986) was an American playwright and screenwriter.
He was born November 8, 1902, in Poughkeepsie.
He wrote the English libretto for Ernst Krenek's 1940 chamber opera Tarquin.
1943 saw him writing for three films:
- He was one of the team of 22 writers collaborating on the film Forever and a Day.
- He adapted Gregor Ziemer's book Education For Death for Edward Dmytryk's film Hitler's Children.
- He wrote the American war film Behind the Rising Sun, based on the 1941 book by James R. Young.
In 1946, he was one of six Hollywood figures listed by William Wilkerson in a Hollywood Reporter editorial under the headline "Hywd's Red Commissars!"
Drawing on the biography Mr. Justice Holmes by Francis Biddle, he wrote the play "The Magnificent Yankee", which opened in 1946, and he adapted it for the 1950 film version.
Also in 1950, he wrote Guilty of Treason; in 1953, Bright Road ; in 1955 The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, which was nominated for "Best Story and Screenplay" at the 28th Academy Awards.
He wrote Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot, a landmark 1957 orientation film for Colonial Williamsburg; as of 2004 it was approaching its 50th year of continuous exhibition, and undergoing restoration via conversion to current technology.
He died in Los Angeles on New Year's Day, 1986.
Selected filmography
- Guilty of Treason (1950)