Balderston, John L
Entry updated 30 June 2025. Tagged: Author, Theatre.
(1889-1954) US playwright and screenwriter who wrote, always in collaboration, some dramas of genre interest. Berkeley Square (performed 1926; 1928 chap) with J C Squire is a Timeslip fantasy based on The Sense of the Past (1917) by Henry James (1843-1916); Red Planet (first performed late 1932; 1933 chap) with J E Hoare is a Near Future moral melodrama in which a hoax message from Jesus is received from Mars.
Films whose scripts he worked on, sometimes as adaptor, usually in collaboration, though he wrote some scripts solo, include Dracula (1931) directed by George Melford, Frankenstein (1931) directed by James Whale, The Mummy (1932) directed by Karl Freund, The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) directed by James Whale, The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936) directed by Robert Stevenson, Red Planet Mars (1952) based on Red Planet as cited above and directed by Harry Horner, and others. [JC]
John Lloyd Balderston
born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 22 October 1889
died Beverley Hills, California: 8 March 1954
works
plays
- Berkeley Square (London: Samuel French, 1928) with J C Squire [play: first performed 6 October 1926 St Martin's Theatre, London: Squire is acknowledged only in later editions: pb/]
- Red Planet (New York: Samuel French, 1933) with J E Hoare [play: first performed late 1932 New York: pb/]
- Dracula: The Vampire Play in Three Acts (New York: Samuel French, 1933) with Hamilton Deane [play: pb/]
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