Seton I. Miller

Biography

Seton I. Miller was one of Hollywood's most accomplished writers of action and adventure films in the 1930's and 40's. A graduate of Yale University, he initially entered the film industry with MGM as an actor and 'technical advisor' on Brown of Harvard (1926), a collegiate romance first filmed at Essanay in 1917. Miller did not see himself as an actor, though, and turned to screenwriting instead -- a move prompted and encouraged by a new-found friend, the budding director Howard Hawks. Often charged with script continuity and dialogue, Miller began a fruitful collaboration with Hawks from 1927. Three years and four pictures later, he followed Hawks from Fox to Warner Brothers, where he became involved as part of a larger writing team on two massive box office hits: the World War I aerial drama The Dawn Patrol (1930) and the classic gangster film Scarface (1932). Having gained a reputation for devising witty and realistic dialogue, Miller was rewarded with a long-term Warner Brothers contract in 1934. During the next few years, Miller continued to specialise in hard-hitting, action-packed subjects, like 'G' Men (1935) and Bullets or Ballots (1936). He contributed not only well-developed characters, but also the gritty, staccato-delivered dialogue typical for Warners crime melodramas of the period. Economically made and tautly directed, these popular films further enhanced Miller's reputation. Predictably, therefore, he advanced to an even more prestigious assignment: the ambitious Errol Flynn epic The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Because the 1922 silent version with Douglas Fairbanks was still subject to copyright, an entirely new story format was required, ultimately based on a combination of traditional English lore and ballads, and given additional life by an infusion of elements from Walter Scott's novel "Ivanhoe". Miller collaborated on the original screenplay with Norman Reilly Raine who had done the initial draft. The resulting script, full of irreverent humour and wit, set the benchmark not only for other subsequent screen incarnations of "Robin Hood", but for the swashbuckler genre in general for years to come. Miller's next venture proved a considerably less happy one. In early 1938, he was approached by associate producer Henry Blanke to submit a screenplay for a novel by Rafael Sabatini, "The Sea Hawk". The idea was to capitalise on the popularity of Errol Flynn, following his previous triumph in Captain Blood (1935). Miller presented a 25-page draft entitled "Beggars of the Sea" (with an entirely new plot, roughly based on the exploits of Sir Francis Drake), handing in the completed script by the end of the year. Warners, however, brought in another writer, Howard Koch, to undertake extensive rewrites, particularly in regard to characterisation, dialogue and title. Unhappy, Miller left the studio to continue as a free-lance writer. He enjoyed further success with the intricately-plotted comedy Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), co-written with another dialogue specialist, Sidney Buchman. Further excellent scripts included a colourful swashbuckling pirate yarn -- utilising previously tried and tested ingredients -- The Black Swan (1942) (again, devised in conjunction with another outstanding American writer, Ben Hecht); and a somewhat romanticised screenplay based on a harrowing true story set in the 1830's, Two Years Before the Mast (1946). Miller was also briefly active as a producer for Paramount, but with less distinguished results. One of his last efforts, Istanbul (1957), a likeable, though cheap and cheerful studio-bound cloak-and-dagger tale about diamond smugglers, reunited him with Errol Flynn. Rather akin to Casablanca (1942) on a shoestring-budget, it caught both star and writer well past their prime. Miller retired two years later, though a co-written unpublished short story of his was used for the live action/animated Disney production Pete's Dragon (1977), three years after his death in May 1974.