This book continues the series’ examination of films from the perspective of the writer or screenwriter—a method I have termed reverse auteurism . Unlike Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, and James M. Cain, who were or thought of themselves foremost as writers, W. R. Burnett had a career as screenwriter almost as successful as as fiction writer. If Little Caesa r and Asphalt Jungle had never been written, the previous sentence wouldn't need the "almost”. His work was filmed or adapted to the screen by Tod Browning, Michael Curtiz, John Farrow, Howard Hawks, John Ford, Douglas Sirk, Raoul Walsh and William Wyler; step down a notch and you have Robert Aldrich, John Huston, John Sturges and William Wellman. There is no other writer whose prose was put to film by such a constellation. As Andrew Sarris put it. Morr good films were made based on Burnettʹs fiction than Dostoyevskyʹs… 33 films were based on fiction written by W. R Burnett, 11 based on his adaptation of fiction from other writers to the screen and six on original scripts written by him. Writing dating from 1929 to 1963 was filmed between 1930 and 1972, 50 films in all.