Making Melodrama Work: Robert Blees on Robert Aldrich’s Autumn Leaves
Hollywood screenwriter Robert Blees (1918-2015) recounts how he started in the business as a contract writer first at Warner Bros., and then at Universal (where he wrote two melodramas for producer Ross Hunter and director Douglas Sirk). In 1956, Blees was hired by Columbia producer William Goetz to work on another melodrama, AUTUMN LEAVES, starring Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson and directed by Robert Aldrich. The interview was filmed in Menlo Park, California, in 2009.