American Movie Classics Looks Between the Lines in ‘Blocked: The Novelist’s Experience In Hollywood’

Documentary Examines the Hollywood Experiences of Noted Novelists

BETHPAGE, NY, August 16, 2000 – Can a well respected and noted author make it in Hollywood as a screenwriter? William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, Ayn Rand and countless hopeful writers thought so, but ultimately faced an uphill battle. BLOCKED: THE NOVELIST’S EXPERIENCE IN HOLLYWOOD, a one-hour documentary premiering on AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS this November, explores what has been called “the most volatile, contentious relationship in Hollywood” and the experiences of some of history’s best known novelists turned screenwriters.


Hosted by actress/novelist/screenwriter Carrie Fisher, the documentary illustrates the difficulties screenwriters encountered as they attempted to migrate their art from the small page to the big screen. In a historical exploration of how the screenwriter has been treated in Hollywood, BLOCKED features insightful interviews with screenwriters/novelists
Ray Bradbury, Bud Schulberg, Michael Tolkin, Joseph Wambaugh, Richard Price and others.


Fisher, best known for her role as Princess Leia in STAR WARS, has segued from one of film’s leading ladies to one of Hollywood’s most sought after screenwriters. Says “screen doctor” Fisher in her narration, “When you take a lonely, solitary figure, a writer who creates entire worlds through imagination and real life experience