Included in this lot are 231 issues of Robert Wagner’s Script Magazine from 1929-1935. This set does not contain any issues that include submissions from the author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The issues range in grade from Good to Fine, with the bulk being high-grade.
Number of issues by year:
1929 (10)
1930 (41)
1931 (42)
1932 (50)
1933 (43)
1934 (38)
1935 (7)
Features:
September 5, 1931
Exclusive Al Capone interview by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. for Script
Robert Leicester Wagner (August 2, 1872 - July 20, 1942) was the editor and publisher of Script, a weekly literary film magazine published in Beverly Hills, California, between 1929 and 1949. Rob Wagner was a magazine writer, screenwriter, director, and artist before founding the liberal magazine that focused its coverage on the film industry, California, and national politics. Its leftist leanings attracted many of the best artists and writers during the Depression.
The Wagner's founded Script in February 1929 and enlisted noted writers and film people to contribute articles without pay. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Walt Disney, William Saroyan, Ogden Nash, Dalton Trumbo, Chaplin, Hughes, William DeMille, Ray Bradbury, Leo Politi, and Stanton MacDonald-Wright among others, wrote for the magazine. Bradbury was a regular contributor with a series of short stories from about 1940 through 1947. MacDonald-Write provided art reviews. Gladys Robinson, the wife of actor Edward G. Robinson, wrote a Hollywood gossip column. Script was liberal, witty, and fond of tweaking the noses of the country’s movers and shakers.
During the 1934 California gubernatorial campaign, Script gave considerable editorial space to Upton Sinclair’s candidacy while the rest of the film community waged a smear campaign against him by claiming his radical economic policies would bankrupt the movie studios. During Sinclair’s campaign for governor, his balanced coverage nearly sank the magazine as advertisers and subscribers began to pull out. Keeping a low profile, Wagner also worked on Sinclair’s EPIC (End Poverty in California) campaign writing the text for pamphlets and designing the organization’s logo.
The magazine’s free-thinking attitudes appealed to most of its readers. The magazine, with a circulation that never rose about 50,000, was illustrated with cartoons from various contributors. The art often unrelated to the articles and only occasional photographs beyond the covers were used.
