Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1938. Final script for the 1939 film. Copy belonging to director Mort Blumenstock, with his ownership name on the front wrapper, and brief annotations throughout in holograph pencil. Blumenstock (1900-1956) was a director of short films like "Morals for Women" (1931) and "Office Blues" (1930), and was Warner Bros. Eastern advertising and publicity representative (through "House...

Beverly Hills, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [MGM], 1940. Draft script for the 1940 film. Nominated for an Academy Award. A young hotshot pilot joins an elite flying squadron and has to prove himself to his commanding officer and fellow pilots by taking on a dangerous mission. Made with the cooperation of the US Navy, who lent a real life squadron to the...

Beverly Hills, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [MGM], 1953. Draft British script for the 1954 UK film, released in the US as "Crest of the Wave." Copy belonging to sound recordist Peter Handford, with his name in holograph pencil on the front wrapper. At a top secret naval base is located on an island near the coast of Scotland, a small group of...

N.p. N.p., 1943. Typescript treatment script for an unproduced film called "The Sailor and the Girl," written by Martha Chapin, whose notable film credits include "Gambling with Souls" (1936), "Slaves in Bondage" (1937), and "Lightning Strikes West" (1940). Typeovers on a few pages. Set in New York during World War II, with a touch of hard-boiled attitude, the story follows...

Culver City, CA: Columbia Pictures, 1954. Collection of 3 vintage black-and-white still photographs from the 1954 film. Mimeograph snipes unattached (but present) from the versos of two of the stills. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk, about a WWII ship captain who is removed from his command, something the US Navy has never experienced, and the consequences...

Culver City, CA: Columbia Pictures, 1942. Final Draft script for the 1942 film, here under the working title "Missing Submarine." Copy belonging to Marguerite Chapman, who played Sue Curry in the film, with a few annotations in holograph pencil at the inclusion of her character's lines. Laid in is a singing telegram birthday greeting for Chapman, from Evelyn Keys, in...

Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, 1957. Revised First Draft script for the 1958 film. Brief notation in holograph pencil on the front wrapper verso. Based on the novel, and written for the screen, by Ernest K. Gann, about a disgraced former Navy captain (Hudson) piloting a disparate group of passengers through a storm on a rundown schooner. Green titled wrappers...

Los Angeles: Bischoff-Diamond Corp. 1956. Draft script for an unproduced film. A story set aboard the USS. Missouri, "The Mighty Mo," during WWII. Presnell would also write screenplays for "Screaming Eagles" (1956, also produced by Bischoff-Diamond), "Legend of the Lost" (1957), "Conspiracy of Hearts" (1960), and "The Third Day" (1965). Light blue titled wrappers, noted as copy No. 47, dated...

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1972. Draft script for the 1973 film.A sailor wins a one-night-stand shooting pool with a luckless sex worker, but cannot leave her behind once he sees the poverty in which she lives with her prickly young son. As time passes, the sailor grows closer to the woman and her son, and wants to leave the Navy...

Hollywood: Allied Artists Productions, 1954. Draft script for the 1955 film, here under the working title "The Annapolis Story." With small holograph ink annotations throughout, mostly noting the scene entrances of different characters throughout the script. Two sibling cadets at the Annapolis Naval Academy fall for the same girl, creating a love triangle that can only be resolved by one...

Beverly Hills, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [MGM], 1944. Draft script for the 1945 film. Ned Trumpet (Wallace Beery), the chief pilot of a Navy blimp, is given to weaving accounts of the fighting prowess of his non-existent son. His friendship with widow Maude Weaver (Selena Royle) and her son Jess (Tom Drake) in effect sets him up with a real family. Jess...