![\"David](\"http:\/\/www.marcbilgrey.com\/marcbilgreyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Steve-and-Dave-May-16-2015.jpg\")
<\/a>Stephen with his former boss, May 2015<\/p><\/div>\n
You may not know Stephen Winer\u2019s name but you definitely know some of the people (and shows) he\u2019s written for. Winer was a writer for David Letterman, Dick Van Dyke, The New Mickey Mouse Club, and stand-up comedian, Robert Klein, among others.<\/p>\n
Winer (along with Karl Tiedemann) co-wrote and directed the cult classic short film, King of The Zs<\/em>, which is a hilarious look at a fictional movie studio of the 1930s and 1940s that made the worst B pictures in history. This film has been a favorite at film festivals for years (particularly the Telluride festival). If you haven\u2019t seen this comedy gem I urge you to seek it out. It can be seen on YouTube. King of The Zs<\/em>, is the film that led to Winer getting the job writing for Letterman.<\/p>\n If you go to the Criterion Collection website be sure to read the piece Winer wrote about his late father, playwright and television writer, Elihu Winer. This is a wonderful and touching essay about Elihu\u2019s friendship, (mostly through letters) with fellow writer, John D.Voelker. Voelker was an author whose most well-known novel became the basis for the film, Anatomy of a Murder. <\/em>Subsequent to the film, Elihu collaborated with Voekler to write the script for the play. Winer\u2019s essay is about the friendship of these two excellent writers. In one of the letters, Elihu mentions a TV play he wrote that featured an amiable actor named Ronald Reagan. Elihu liked this actor and found him easy to work with, though Elihu had some difficulty adjusting, some years later, when the man got into a different line of work. A smart publisher ought to collect all these articles by Winer (and others he has no doubt yet to post) and publish them in a book. As the kids today put it, \u201cI\u2019m just saying.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section bb_built=”1″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text] You may not know Stephen Winer\u2019s name but you definitely know some of the people (and shows) he\u2019s written for. Winer was a writer for David Letterman, Dick Van Dyke, The New Mickey Mouse Club, and stand-up … Continue reading <\/a><\/span>Lately, Winer has been involved with a variety of projects, but the one that caught my attention was his serious writing for the Criterion Collection website. (Criterion releases classic films on DVD.) It turns out that Winer\u2019s serious writing is as good as his comedy work. Not only does Winer have an encyclopedic (or Wikipedic) knowledge of film, but he also has plenty of behind the scenes stories and great insights. I was particularly taken with his article on Charlie Chaplin\u2019s metamorphosis from a slapstick clown to a fully realized comedic and dramatic actor. In another piece, Winer makes some excellent observations on another silent comedian, the legendary Harold Lloyd. At one time Lloyd was as popular and successful as Chaplin, yet today is largely forgotten. Never the less, Lloyd\u2019s great silent films, such as Speedy and The Freshman<\/em>, still have the power to thrill, entertain and yes, make audiences laugh almost a hundred years after their completion. I\u2019ve watched these wonderful films with contemporary audiences, many of whom had never seen any silent films, and heard the very real laughter that they engendered. Winer\u2019s analysis of Llyod\u2019s work is nothing short of scholarly, yet written in a very a breezy, accessible style. Also check out the article he wrote on the classic Frank Capra film that created and defined the screwball comedy, It Happened One Night<\/em>; and his love letter to another comedy classic of a later era, It\u2019s A Mad, Mad, Mad World<\/em>. (Did I leave out a \u201cMad?\u201d Or put in one too many?)<\/p>\n