William Wyler by Gabriel Miller

stating that West and Wyler had essentially written the entire second half of the film, as well as many scenes in the first half. 20
    Wyler has been accused of appeasing the blacklisters by keeping Wilson's name off the screen, and his initial decision to do so is indeed puzzling. An examination of Wilson's scripts clearly shows that he contributed substantially to the finished film. 21 Numerous incidents and the lighthearted tone that dominates the first half of the film are derived from his script. Wyler is correct in asserting that significant changes were made, especially in the war sequences, but his refusal to acknowledge Wilson's contributions does not seem justified.
    Wyler may have simply felt intimidated by the government's monitoring of his affairs and the attendant pressure to be more selective about the organizations he supported and the people he worked with. His correspondence with Y. Frank Freeman at Paramount (discussed in chapter 14 ) shows Wyler's more conciliatory mood and indicates a willingness to consider the consequences of his political actions. A note in Wyler's file on Friendly Persuasion indicates that he spoke with Freeman about the Wilson matter on April 8, 1954, and that the studio chief assured him that “no screen credit need be given Michael Wilson, even if his script is used.” 22 In that same file is an article clipped from Variety detailing how the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals had criticized Samuel Goldwyn, Wyler's former boss, for purchasing the rights to Guys and Dolls . That hit musical had been coauthored by Abe Burrows, who was named in the alliance's publication the Vigil for his “vague testimony and for being identified as a Communist by two admitted former Communists.” This episode may have emboldened Wyler to deny credit to Wilson.
    When Wilson died in 1978, his obituary in the Los Angeles Times mentioned the dispute, and Wyler wrote a letter, published in the paper, in which he recounted his revised opinion of the screen credit controversy:
    The fact is that I only objected that Wilson be acknowledged as the film's only screenwriter. Wilson's screenplay…was written for another producer-director years before I undertook to make the film. Subsequently, two other writers, namely Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler together rewrote parts of Wilson's screenplay contributing significantly to the final picture and I felt their work should be acknowledged as well as Wilson's. So I proposed that all three names receive credit for the screenplay with Wilson's name in first place, thereby recognizing him as the “principal” screenwriter. When the Writers’ Guild awarded Wilson exclusive solo credit, then the film's financiers and distributors—Allied Artists Corp—decided to release the film with no screenplay credit whatsoever, a decision I regretted but had no control over. 23
    Friendly Persuasion opened at Radio City Music Hall on November 1, 1956, and like Roman Holiday , it received respectable but not glowing reviews. The film did well at the box office but was not the unqualified hit Allied Artists had expected. In 1957 Wyler took the picture to the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palm d'Or as the festival's best film.
    The film had a curious afterlife. At the request of the Soviet Union, and with the blessing of the U.S. State Department, Wyler took Friendly Persuasion to Moscow in 1960, where it was presented as a symbolic remedy to the Cold War. Then, almost thirty years later—at the advent of glasnost—President Ronald Reagan (whose politics Wyler detested) gave a videocassette of Friendly Persuasion to Mikhail Gorbachev. In a toast, Reagan lauded the film for showing not only the horrors and tragedy of war but also “the problems of pacifism, the nobility of patriotism, as well as the love of peace.” 24 When the New York Times printed the text of Reagan's remarks, it occasioned some