Budd Schulberg

OSS officer in charge of compilation & editing The Nazi Plan, also writer of English inter-titles.

Budd Schulberg’s first novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, was published in 1941 when he was 27 years old.  A daring expose of Hollywood, it became an instant classic. ‘He’s a Sammy Glick’ has entered the lexicon as a descriptor for a man of ruthless ambition.

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Budd Schulberg put down his pen and enlisted in the Navy. He was assigned to the Field Photographic Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Washington. There, under the command of Navy Commodore John Ford, he made secret training films.

In 1945, Ford charged Budd and his fellow officer Ray Kellogg with responsibility for locating incriminating film evidence that could be used at the Nuremberg trial. Budd’s young brother Stuart, also attached to Budd and Ray’s team, was sent ahead to begin scouting for material.

With Kellogg handling logistics, Budd wound up supervising the editing of The Nazi Plan, for which he wrote the explanatory inter-titles, and is sometimes credited as ‘director.’  The film is a compilation of footage that had been shot and directed by German filmmakers, including Leni Riefenstahl. During the editing process, Budd apprehended Riefenstahl as a material witness, and used her to identify Nazi officers in the thousands of feet of German footage, including her own.

Budd also supervised the editing of Nazi Concentration Camps, which shocked the courtroom when it was presented one week into the trial.

At the end of 1945, Budd returned to the U.S.,was discharged, and went to work on his second novel, The Harder They Fall. It was published to great acclaim. The movie adaptation starred Humphrey Bogart, and it turned out to be Bogart’s last movie.

Budd then created the Oscar-winning screenplay On The Waterfront. It won 8 Academy Awards in all, and made a huge star of Marlon Brando.

He followed that movie with A Face in the Crowd, which made stars of Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal.

His play The Disenchanted, inspired by his collaboration with F. Scott Fitzgerald on an ill-fated Hollywood movie, also became a literary classic.

His nonfiction works include Loser and Champion: Mohammad Ali, The Four Seasons of Success; Ringside: A Treasury of Boxing Reportage; Sparring with Hemingway; and his autobiography Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince.

Budd Schulberg died in 2009, aged 95.  He was the lone survivor of the OSS Field Photographic Branch that located the Nazi films. At the time of his death, he was collaborating with his niece, Sandra Schulberg, on a book about the Schulberg brothers’ work for the Nuremberg trial, entitled The Celluloid Noose. He was also working on a screenplay with Spike Lee about the Max Schmeling-Joe Louis fight, and trying to complete the second volume of his memoirs.