17 Facts About Maurice Rapf

Maurice Harry Rapf was an American screenwriter and professor of film studies.

Maurice Rapf's work includes the screenplays for early Disney live-action features Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart, uncredited work on the screenplay for the animated feature Cinderella, and several films of the late 1930s.

Maurice Rapf was a co-founder of the Screen Writers Guild.

Maurice Rapf was blacklisted in 1947 due to his association with the Communist Party USA.

Maurice Rapf had a brother Matthew Rapf, known for producing the TV series Kojak and other television and film work.

In 1934, while majoring in English at Dartmouth, Maurice Rapf visited the Soviet Union as an exchange student, where he was impressed by the presentation of Communism he was shown.

Maurice Rapf became an advocate for the rights of creative professionals, and helped found the Screen Writers Guild.

Maurice Rapf entered the "family business" of film-making, and co-wrote screenplays for We Went to College, They Gave Him a Gun, and The Bad Man of Brimstone.

Maurice Rapf went on to work on action films such as Sharpshooters and North of Shanghai.

When F Scott Fitzgerald became incapacitated by drinking, Rapf replaced him co-scripting Winter Carnival, a film about the Dartmouth traditional event, which Rapf later described as a "clinker".

In 1944 Maurice Rapf was recruited by Walt Disney to work on the screenplay for Song of the South, from a treatment by screenwriting newcomer Dalton Reymond.

Maurice Rapf was a minority, a Jew, and an outspoken left-winger, and he himself feared that the film would inevitably be Uncle Tomish.

Maurice Rapf initially hesitated to work on an animated film, but when he found out that most of the film would be live-action and was told that he could make extensive changes, he accepted the offer.

Maurice Rapf worked on the project for about seven weeks, but when he got into a personal dispute with Reymond, he was taken off it, and assigned to work on the script for Cinderella.

In July 1946, Maurice Rapf was one of several people listed in a column by The Hollywood Reporter publisher William Wilkerson, identifying them as Communists and sympathizers.

Maurice Rapf did some further writing for film and television using "fronts" and pseudonyms, including Father Brown starring Alec Guinness.

Maurice Rapf had one additional screenwriting credit in 1980: the 45-minute made-for-television animated film Gnomes which was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program.