Lo, the irony

"Casablanca" has been named the greatest movie script of all time by the Writers Guild of America. What's ironic is that if you know about the making of the movie, you know that the writers were literally making it up as they went along, during filming.

If memory serves they didn't even have the ending until the night before it was to be shot-and possibly not even until that morning(!)

It was the kind of filmmaking, in other words, that many writers (including myself) decry. We look at all the sequels and formula romatic comedies that are moved into production without finished or adequate scripts to be "fixed on the fly." And we say, "Why can't they take the time to get the script right first? The movies would be so much better then."

And then, "Casablanca," a movie that moved into production without a finished or adequate script, is named the best screenplay of all time. By writers, yet. It's times like this I wish I drank more.

"Tootsie," number 17 on the list, is an example of the writer gang-bang class of screenwriting, according to one of the credited writers, my hero Larry Gelbart. Same for "Jaws" (#63)

For the record here's the full list. My favorite film in the top 10 is "Some Like It Hot," by Wilder and Diamond. And I still think "Pulp Fiction" is way, way overrated. Kinda glad to see Ramis & Rubin's "Groundhog Day" get in there-that's a movie that really holds up. My man James L. Brooks gets in with "Broadcast News."

Then again, any list of supposedly great screenplays that includes "Star Wars" is not a list I can take wholly lying down.