Plagiarists Beware !

In 1957 an Arbitration Board in Hollywood heard a case where two screenwriters were claiming to have written what was basically the same script. On one side was Daniel Mainwaring, and on the other Irving Schulman, each of whom insisted that the script, based on the exploits of the notorious gangster Baby Faced Nelson, was his own work. Schulman’s script appeared to pre-date that of Mainwaring, and the latter was almost resigned to losing out to ‘this scurrilous plagiarist’. That was until the evidence given by Don Siegel, who had worked on the script with Mainwaring. The telling point related to a part of the film in which John Dillinger is set up by the so-called Woman in Red, Anna Sage, and gunned down outside a cinema.

Head Arbitrator: Do you have information that we don’t possess?

Siegel: You possess it, but are unaware of it. Take the Schulman script and the Mainwaring script and turn to the passage where Dillinger is betrayed by the Woman in Red. You will see that the woman’s name is Ann Saper. The correct name is Anna Sage. She was under pressure from the FBI because of criminal activities.

Schulman: So what?

Head Arbitrator: Mr Schulman please be quiet. Mr Siegel, we are confused about the importance of Ann Saper.

Siegel: Danny wrote the script in two weeks. When we got to the Woman in Red we didn’t have time to check whether she was still alive, or whether there was another woman named Anna Sage who might sue. I said ‘Let’s not waste time. Let’s use another name.’ Danny agreed, ‘Give me a name,’ he said. ‘How about using Ann Saper, my mother’s maiden name?’ I said.

Confusion erupted.

Head Arbitrator: Thank you, Mr Siegel, for your astounding information.

After proving that his mother’s maiden name was indeed Saper, the Head Arbitrator moved in favour of Mainwaring and the film, Baby Faced Nelson, was made.