There’s more to Ernest Lehman’s name than his riveting script in The Sound Of Music or King & I, which was made over fifty+ years ago [1956]. Lehman was a legend; a versatile screenwriter, and one of the best ever in movie history.

There’s more to Ernest Lehman’s genius than his superb craftsmanship.

His cinematic chemistry was based on his own intrinsic, charming ability to entertain multiple pairs of seemingly opposite ideas simultaneously -- of seeing the whole picture by integrating the larger elements, and the details.

To pick two examples. Lehman wrote Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? [1966] soon after he had worked on The Sound Of Music [1965]. And, if anybody watched these two films back-to-back, it’s awfully difficult to imagine a greater contrast between any two films.

This not all. Lehman, with as much fervour, felicity, and snappy finesse, wrote North By Northwest [1959] -- a quintessential Alfred Hitchcock film. Yes, the film has Hitchcockian stamp, through-and-through, all right; but it is also, in essence, a Lehman film. In other words, it’s a simile as complex and engaging as the body of work, or works, Lehman scripted.

Agreed that Lehman worked in much greater detail, and rapport, with Hitchcock than any other movie director. As he once put it: “Absolutely. There were very seldom any differences between the screenplay, and finished film. Take this example. In North By Northwest, I wanted the opening of the crop duster sequence to be shot from a helicopter. Instead, art director Robert Boyle constructed a tower for the camera to show Cary Grant standing all by himself, with nothing in sight for 360 degrees. But, that whole sequence, almost shot-for-shot, is in the script.” A point proved!

Lehman made his Hollywood debut, as a screenwriter, in Executive Suite [1954]. His first work was commendable.

Yet, he was disappointed, for the simple reason there was no mention of the word, screenplay, in the film. Worse, his by-line did not appear in the credits. And, so, from the word go he took up the cudgels, with the press, and elsewhere -- to influence, and somehow bring into recognition the importance of the screenwriter in every cinegoer’s mind. The rest, as they say, is history.

Lehman’s screenplays were adapted from different sources: novels, plays, and musicals. He never called himself the author. He’s, by himself, only the author of the screenplay, he’d often say: no more, no less. In his own words, again: “If I’m adapting a novel, I think I am the one who decides where you find the movie in it, what you put in, what you leave out. [Also] what the screenwriter doesn’t put in the movie is sometimes as important as what he does put in.”

Lehman completely reconfigured novels for movies, at times. And, he knew both the good and bad of such an excursion: “It is so difficult to write a good movie, whether it’s based on something good, and something not-so-good, your own material or someone else’s, that you never think in terms of, well, I didn’t really do very much; I didn’t change it all so much, or I’ve changed it so much they’ll lynch me for doing so.” His raison d'être: “My feeling is I’m the one who decides not to improve something that doesn’t need improving.” Words of wisdom for screenwriters, both big and small, wherever they are: Hollywood, or our own Bollywood.

It’s said that Lehman had one constant habit of agonising over each scene, frame-by-frame. He admitted to his idiosyncrasy candidly, and thought that it was vital. Maybe, he did not want to be ordinary, and also thought of some better way of saying the same thing, and revealing what he wanted the audience to know, or feel, or get inside the character’s feelings and mind -- all at the same time. He also may not have wanted to lose the audience. Not even for a second. His bottom line: always keep the viewers involved.

Lehman admired many movie-makers and directors. He said that directing was unbelievably difficult and back-breaking work. Like his own profession. Lehman often "lived" the story before he "wrote" it. He’s delighted being a screenwriter, not a full-time director, albeit he had had his successful forays in direction too. He said: “Today, everybody wants to be a director. But, directing is too difficult. You’ve to get into fights with actors. It’s confrontational; it’s antagonistic. It’s too tough. A writer becomes a writer because he wants to withdraw from the world, and be in a room all by himself. He need not have to face a lot of people.”

Lehman often thought that screenwriters’ writing courses are no great shakes: a little artificial. He didn’t believe in "acts.’" He truly believed in dramatic structure. The art of making consummately structured films: intuitive, instinctive, or even unconscious. He could afford to think on these lines, because he’s Lehman.

All the same, he saw the change from the Hollywood of yore, to the 1990s, and beyond 2000. Lehman thought it’s nasty -- the script getting rewritten when the director stepped in, or a superstar, walked into the project. Not that Lehman did not have to rewrite for some directors. He did, but “not too much.”

Needless to say, Lehman was convinced that he had had a charmed life: a lucky one, at that. He worked alone, unlike films today, where you hear and see about too many writers, on almost every project.

Lehman, it’s also said, was obstinate: with his speech, the right sounds, even his script. No small wonder, because he always wrote something very silky, smooth and suave, never the rough or violent lines, even for villains… in tune with what maybe called the Hitchcockian element: “I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you.” Or, holding the audience to a patient journey -- as in very lengthy movies such as West Side Story [1961], and The Sound Of Music.

As he himself once explained: “Keeping them that way is vital. It’s important too to conceal exposition and make it seem like the characters have to say what they’re saying, rather than saying it just to give information. One of my rules is: the audience already knows a lot. Don’t repeat anything that the audience already knows so the character can just catch up with the audience.”

What’s Lehman’s counsel to aspiring screenwriters, or even old hands, in the business? “My advice for anybody who wants to be a writer, or who is a writer, is not to be a screenwriter. You won’t be able to express exactly what you want to express. It’ll go through committees: it’ll be changed. You will have no control over it. [But] you need to do your best, though -- because it’s your job and/or you love doing it.”

His conclusion: “Never let the audience get up, and go to get popcorn. Keep them in their seats, wondering what is going to happen next.”

It sums up Lehman -- for whom success in writing meant a firm avoidance of failure.