Allen Rivkin

Allen Rivkin (20 November 1903 – 17 February 1990) was an American screenwriter.

Rivkin was an advertising copy writer, who went to Hollywood and joined the RKO Pictures publicity department. He formed a film writing team with P. J. Wolfson, who got a writer’s contract on the strength of "Bodies Are Dust".^[1] They started at Universal Pictures the same day.^[1] Through a luncheon conversation that day, they decided to collaborate on a story.^[1] In less than two years the pair wrote ten screen plays.^[1] They later wrote for the B. P. Schulberg company at Paramount Pictures.^[1]

He was one of the co-founders of the Screenwriters Guild, later the Writers Guild of America.^[2] He wrote several of his scripts with his wife, Laura Kerr.

Select credits

• Picture Snatcher (1933)
• Headline Shooter (1933)
• Dancing Lady (1933)
• Highway West (1941)
• Joe Smith, American (1942)
• Kid Glove Killer (1942)
• Till the End of Time (1946)
• The Farmer's Daughter (1947)
• Tension (1950)
• Prisoner of War (1954)