Following his journalistic beginnings, he worked under contract as a script doctor for 20th Century Fox. After leaving Fox, he became a freelance journalist and columnist for magazines like "Colliers", "Saturday Evening Post" and "Good Housekeeping". In addition to his subsequent work for John Ford (of whom he had been an ardent admirer from his time as a key reviewer for "The New York Times"), he was a contract writer for Columbia from 1957-60.
[reviewing 'Show Boat' (1936)]: Universal's excellent screen transcription, preserving the Jerome Kern score and accepting Oscar Hammerstein's book and lyrics, is the pleasantest kind of proof that it was not merely one of the best musical shows of the century but that it contained the gossamer stuff for one of the finest musical films we have seen.
