Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine

Articles from Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine

Leon Trotsky Speaks About FDR and the Great Depression (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1938)

Two and a half years were left on the clock for the exiled Leon Trotsky (né Lev Davidovich Bronstein: 1879 – 1940) until he would have to keep his rendezvous with an icepick in Mexico – and while living it up on this borrowed time he granted an interview to this one correspondent from a Beverly Hills literary magazine in which he ranted on in that highly-dated and terribly awkward Bolsheviki language about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his social programs.


Click here to read an article about the NKVD agent who murdered Trotsky.

Leon Trotsky Speaks About FDR and the Great Depression (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1938) Read More »

Henri Landru, Monsieur Verdux and Charlie Chaplin (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1947)

Attached is an article about the Charlie Chaplin film, Monsieur Verdux (1947) and the monstrous beast Henri Landru -the French murderer on whom the story is loosely based. This article was written by Gordon Kahn, remembered chiefly in our own time as one of the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriters of the post-World War II period. Not too long after this article was written he went into self-exile in Mexico.

Henri Landru, Monsieur Verdux and Charlie Chaplin (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1947) Read More »

Charlie Chaplin W.W. II Radio Address (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942)

Within the toasty-warm confines of the attached PDF lie the text of a speech that Chaplin delivered over the war-torn airwaves in 1942. Wishing only to encourage the citizenry of London and Washington, D.C. to be of stout heart in their battle against the Fascist powers, Chaplin’s address was titled, Give Us More Bombs Over Berlin.

Charlie Chaplin W.W. II Radio Address (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942) Read More »

Third Symphony’ by Aaron Copland (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1948)

A review of Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony written in 1948 by the respected Los Angeles music critic and historian Lawrence Morton (1908 – 1987):

…there can be no mistake about the Third. It is a solid structure, exceedingly rich and varied in expressiveness, large in concept, masterful in execution, completely unabashed and outspoken.

No wonder that Sergi Koussevitsky called it ‘the greatest American symphony.’

Third Symphony’ by Aaron Copland (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1948) Read More »

A Profile of George Lansbury (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1945)

The attached article is disguised as a Hollywood fluff piece about actress Angela Lansbury (b. 1925), who at that time was about to earn her first and only Academy Award, but journalist Peter Churchill devoted the majority of column space to the life and career of her socialist grandfather George Lansbury (1859 – 1940), one time Member of Parliament and star of the British Labor Party:

Old George was born, bred, lived and died among the poor of London, and never had any money, and yes, that goes for the time he was a member of His Britanic Majesty’s Cabinet, too. But the folks down at the less desirable parts (we don’t talk of slums) of the Bow and Bromley district of London where he lived could tell you what a difference it made to have a Cabinet Minister for a neighbor.


Click here to read George Lansbury’s account of time he met Lenin…


You Might Also Want to Read an Article About Lady Nancy Astor, M.P.


Click here to read about an American woman who grew heartily sick of the socialists who loitered on every street corner during the Great Depression…

A Profile of George Lansbury (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1945) Read More »

A Profile of George Lansbury (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1945)

The attached article is disguised as a Hollywood fluff piece about actress Angela Lansbury (b. 1925), who at that time was about to earn her first and only Academy Award, but journalist Peter Churchill devoted the majority of column space to the life and career of her socialist grandfather George Lansbury (1859 – 1940), one time Member of Parliament and star of the British Labor Party:

Old George was born, bred, lived and died among the poor of London, and never had any money, and yes, that goes for the time he was a member of His Britanic Majesty’s Cabinet, too. But the folks down at the less desirable parts (we don’t talk of slums) of the Bow and Bromley district of London where he lived could tell you what a difference it made to have a Cabinet Minister for a neighbor.


Click here to read George Lansbury’s account of time he met Lenin…


You Might Also Want to Read an Article About Lady Nancy Astor, M.P.


Click here to read about an American woman who grew heartily sick of the socialists who loitered on every street corner during the Great Depression…

A Profile of George Lansbury (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1945) Read More »

Frank Lloyd Wright Hated the U.N. Building (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1947)

When architects and builders howled in protest when the firm of Wallace Harrison (1895 – 1981)was commissioned in 1947 to design the United Nations Center in New York City, the editors of SCRIPT MAGAZINE dashed off asking Frank Lloyd Wright to pick up his quill and ink-up his arguments against the project – and here it is.

Frank Lloyd Wright Hated the U.N. Building (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1947) Read More »

Hollywood and the Game of Bogus Plagiarism Law Suits (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1935)

A bitter article written by a Hollywood veteran concerning what was at the time recognized as a growing cottage industry: recreational law suits that lay claim to falsified violations of movie plagiarism.
Robert Lord (b. 1902, Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1932) penned this two page article and outlined it all quite clearly as to how the plagiarism game was played in 1930s Hollywood.

Hollywood and the Game of Bogus Plagiarism Law Suits (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1935) Read More »

An Interview with Leon Trotsky (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1938)

This magazine interview with Leon Trotsky (né Lev Davidovich Bronstein: 1879 – 1940) was conducted by Gladys Lloyd Robinson: Beverly Hills doyenne, matron of the arts and wife of actor Edgar G. Robinson – in the parlance of the dearly departed Soviet Union, she was what would have been labeled a useful idiot. Easily impressed by the goings-on at the worker’s paradise, she avoided such uncomfortable topics as the Soviet famine, the class privileges extended to Party Members or his own war on private property, but regardless of that, and much to her credit, she was able to get the most famous of Soviet refugees to speak about the 1938 world stage while conducting this interview.


Click here to read an article about the NKVD agent who murdered Trotsky.


Read an article explaining how the Soviets used early radio…

An Interview with Leon Trotsky (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1938) Read More »