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Samson Raphaelson is a Director, Scriptwriter and Additional Dialogue American born on 30 march 1894 at New York City (USA)

Samson Raphaelson

Samson Raphaelson
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Birth name Samson Raphaelson
Nationality USA
Birth 30 march 1894 at New York City (USA)
Death 16 july 1983 (at 89 years) at New York City (USA)
Awards Writers Guild of America Award

Samson Raphaelson (b. New York City; 1894–1983) was a leading American playwright, screenwriter and short story author in the first half of the 20th century. Over a single weekend he transformed his short story “Day of Atonement” into his first play, The Jazz Singer. Following its successful run on Broadway, Warner Brothers studios made it into the first successful talking picture in 1927, starring Al Jolson. Although Raphaelson’s immense admiration of Jolson as a stage performer had inspired his short story “Day of Atonement,” he did not write the screenplay of The Jazz Singer, preferring to concentrate on writing for the stage.

In the 1930s, however, he became active in Hollywood as well as on Broadway. His screenplays for Ernst Lubitsch, perhaps that era’s most admired director of sophisticated comedies, included “Trouble in Paradise,” The Shop Around the Corner, and Heaven Can Wait. They prompted this accolade from Pauline Kael, the eminent film critic of The New Yorker:


Raphaelson took the giddiest inspirations and then polished his dialogue until it had the gleam of appliquéd butterfly wings on a Ziegfield girl’s toque, but the skeletal strength of his screenplays was what made it possible for the ideas and the words to take flight.
One of Raphaelson’s best known screenplays is Suspicion (1941), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In 1977, Raphaelson received the Laurel Award for lifetime achievement in screenwriting from the Writers Guild of America.

Best films

You've Got Mail (1998)
(Original Film Writer)
Green Dolphin Street (1947)
(Scriptwriter)
The Harvey Girls (1946)
(Scriptwriter)
Suspicion (1941)
(Scriptwriter)
The Jazz Singer (1928)
(Author)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937)
(Scriptwriter)

Usually with

Hans Dreier
Hans Dreier
(8 films)
Bess Flowers
Bess Flowers
(6 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Samson Raphaelson (35 films)

Display filmography as list

Director

Scriptwriter

You've Got Mail, 1h59
Directed by Nora Ephron
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Romantic comedy, Romance
Themes Films about computing, Films based on plays
Actors Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Katie Sagona, Parker Posey, Dave Chappelle
Roles Original Film Writer
Rating66% 3.3498553.3498553.3498553.3498553.349855
Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) is involved with Frank Navasky (Greg Kinnear), a leftist postmodernist newspaper writer for The New York Observer who's always in search of an opportunity to root for the underdog. While Frank is devoted to his typewriter, Kathleen prefers her laptop and logging into her AOL email account. There, using the screen name 'Shopgirl', she reads an email from "NY152", the screen name of Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) whom she first met in an "over-30s" chatroom. As her voice narrates her reading of the email, she reveals the boundaries of the online relationship; no specifics, including no names, career or class information, or family connections. Joe belongs to the Fox family which runs Fox Books — a chain of "mega" bookstores similar to Borders or Barnes & Noble. Kathleen, on the other hand, runs the independent bookstore The Shop Around The Corner that her mother ran before her. The two are shown passing each other on their respective ways to work, revealing that they frequent the same neighborhoods in upper west Manhattan. Joe arrives at work, overseeing the opening of a new Fox Books in New York with the help of his best friend, branch manager Kevin (Dave Chappelle). Meanwhile, Kathleen and her three store assistants, George (Steve Zahn), Aunt Birdie (Jean Stapleton), and Christina (Heather Burns) open up her small shop that morning.
The Jazz Singer, 1h55
Directed by Richard Fleischer, Sidney J. Furie
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Films about religion, Théâtre, Musical films, Films about Jews and Judaism, Films based on plays
Actors Laurence Olivier, Neil Diamond, Lucie Arnaz, Catlin Adams, Franklyn Ajaye, Paul Nicholas
Roles Theatre Play
Rating58% 2.900512.900512.900512.900512.90051
In New York City, Jess Robin (Neil Diamond), whose real name is Yussel Rabinovitch, is an Orthodox Jewish cantor performing at the synagogue of his imperious father Cantor Rabinovitch (Laurence Olivier). Yussel is married to his childhood sweetheart Rivka (Catlin Adams) and has settled down to a life of religious devotion to the teaching of his faith; as a sideline, he writes songs for a black vocal quartet, "The Four Brothers". One night after Maariv, Yussel is recruited by the group to cover for one of the members who is in trouble with the law and must wear blackface and an Afro wig as it is a strictly all-black venue. The group performs "You Baby" and the engagement is a success, but an audience member (Ernie Hudson) notices that Yussel's hands are white, sparking a riot in which the band is arrested. Cantor Rabinovitch goes to the jail to bail them out but finds there is not a Yussel Rabinovitch there, only a Jess Robin. Yussel explains his use of a stage name, but his father informs him that his singing voice is to be used for God's purposes, not his own. Yussel/Jess decides to relent and do whatever his father wants, at least for now.
But Not for Me, 1h44
Directed by Walter Lang
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Romance
Themes Théâtre, Films based on plays
Actors Clark Gable, Carroll Baker, Lilli Palmer, Lee J. Cobb, Barry Coe, Thomas Gomez
Roles Theatre Play
Rating62% 3.1465753.1465753.1465753.1465753.146575
Russ Ward is a Broadway producer with a 30-year record of success who has been out of town. On returning to New York, everybody wants a piece of him: ex-wife Kathryn Ward, hard-drinking playwright Jeremiah "Mac" MacDonald, magazine reporter Roy Morton, business manager Miles Atwood and lawyer Charles Montgomery, one after another.
Hilda Crane, 1h27
Directed by Philip Dunne
Origin USA
Genres Drama
Themes Théâtre, Films based on plays, Children's films
Actors Jean Simmons, Guy Madison, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Judith Evelyn, Evelyn Varden, Peggy Knudsen
Roles Theatre Play
Rating62% 3.1499653.1499653.1499653.1499653.149965
In the five years since she left Winona, her hometown, Hilda Crane has been divorced twice and acquired quite a dubious reputation. She returns from New York to a scolding mother, who hopes Hilda will have the good sense to marry successful builder Russell Burns and finally settle down.
The Jazz Singer, 1h47
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Films about religion, Musical films, Films about Jews and Judaism, Films based on plays
Actors Danny Thomas, Peggy Lee, Eduard Franz, Mildred Dunnock, Alex Gerry, Allyn Joslyn
Roles Theatre Play
Rating57% 2.855562.855562.855562.855562.85556
As Jerry Golding (a young Korean War veteran) scales the heights of show business, he breaks the heart of his father, who had hoped that Jerry would instead follow in the footsteps of six consecutive generations of cantors in their family. Sorrowfully, Cantor David Golding reads the Kaddish service, indicating that, so far as he is concerned, his son is dead. A tearful reconciliation occurs when Jerry dutifully returns to sing the "Kol Nidre" in his ailing father's absence.
Mr. Music
Mr. Music (1950)
, 1h50
Directed by Richard Haydn
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Musical theatre, Romance
Themes Théâtre, Films based on plays
Actors Bing Crosby, Nancy Olson, Groucho Marx, Charles Coburn, Ruth Hussey, Robert Stack
Roles Theatre Play
Rating60% 3.048963.048963.048963.048963.04896
New York theater producer Alex Conway (Charles Coburn) travels with composer Paul Merrick (Bing Crosby) to Lawford College, Paul's alma mater, where one of his musicals is being revived by the students. The current campus hero is handsome athlete Jefferson Blake (Robert Stack) so Katherine Holbrook (Nancy Olson), class valedictorian and chairman of the welcoming committee for returning alumni, asks Paul to work in a phrase about Jeff in one of his songs. Paul balks at the suggestion, but Kate's matter-of-fact manner leaves no room for discussion.
In the Good Old Summertime, 1h42
Directed by Buster Keaton, Robert Z. Leonard
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Romantic comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Musical films, Films based on plays
Actors Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington, Clinton Sundberg, Buster Keaton
Roles Original Film Writer
Rating70% 3.5459953.5459953.5459953.5459953.545995
Veronica Fisher (Judy Garland) enters Oberkugen's music shop, looking for work. Although Otto Oberkugen (S. Z. Sakall) is reluctant to take on more staff, she wins a job by persuading a wealthy matron, through her singing and musical expertise, to buy a harp at almost $25 over Oberkugen's list price. Neither she nor Andrew Larkin (Van Johnson), the shop's senior salesman, suspects that they are each other's anonymous pen pal. They bicker constantly at work although becoming increasingly attracted to each other.
That Lady in Ermine, 1h29
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Otto Preminger
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Musical theatre, Fantasy, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Musical films, Children's films
Actors Betty Grable, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Cesar Romero, Walter Abel, Reginald Gardiner, Harry Davenport
Roles Writer
Rating58% 2.9023852.9023852.9023852.9023852.902385
In 1861, Countess Angelina, ruler of Bergamo in southeastern Europe, marries Mario, a baron she has known since childhood. When the castle is threatened by Hungarian hussars led by Colonel Teglash on their wedding night, Mario flees.
Green Dolphin Street, 2h21
Directed by Victor Saville
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Adventure, Historical, Romance
Themes La fin du monde, Seafaring films, Transport films, Disaster films, American disaster films
Actors Lana Turner, Van Heflin, Donna Reed, Richard Hart, Frank Morgan, Edmund Gwenn
Rating67% 3.3945353.3945353.3945353.3945353.394535
In the 1840s, on an island in the English Channel, two sisters, Marguerite (Donna Reed) and Marianne Patourel (Lana Turner), daughters of the wealthy Octavius Patourel (Edmund Gwenn), fall in love with the same man, William Ozanne (Richard Hart).
The Perfect Marriage, 1h28
Directed by Lewis Allen
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Comedy-drama
Themes Théâtre, Films based on plays
Actors Loretta Young, David Niven, Eddie Albert, Charles Ruggles, Virginia Field, Rita Johnson
Roles Theatre Play
Rating60% 3.001843.001843.001843.001843.00184
Lors de leur dixième anniversaire de mariage, Maggie et Dale Williams, dont le mariage est considéré par tous leurs amis comme l'exemple du mariage parfait, confessent qu'ils sont plus concernés par leur carrière respective que par leur conjoint. Le lendemain, leur fille Cookie dit d'ailleurs à ses grand-mères que Dale a dormi dans son bureau. Ils vont envisager le divorce, mais finalement se rendre compte qu'ils s'aiment encore.
The Harvey Girls, 1h42
Directed by George Sidney, Robert Alton
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Romantic comedy, Musical, Romance, Western
Themes Films about music and musicians, Transport films, Rail transport films, Musical films
Actors Judy Garland, John Hodiak, Ray Bolger, Angela Lansbury, Preston Foster, Virginia O'Brien
Rating69% 3.4967353.4967353.4967353.4967353.496735
In the 1890s, a group of "Harvey Girls" - new waitresses for Fred Harvey's pioneering chain of Harvey House restaurants - travels on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) to the western town of Sandrock, Arizona. On the trip they meet Susan Bradley (Judy Garland), who travels to the same town to marry the man whose beautiful letters she received when she answered a "lonely-hearts" ad. Unfortunately, when she arrives, the man turns out to be an "old coot" who does not at all meet her expectations – and he also wants not to get married as much as she wants not to marry him, so they agree to call it off. When she learns that someone else, the owner of the local saloon, Ned Trent (John Hodiak), wrote the letters as a joke, she confronts him and tells him off, in the process endearing herself to him.