# Daniel Mainwaring
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{{short description|American novelist and screenwriter (1902–1977)}}
{{infobox writer
|name=Daniel Mainwaring
|birth_date={{birth date|1902|2|27}}
|birth_place=[Oakland, California](/source/Oakland%2C_California), U.S.
|death_date={{death date and age|1977|1|31|1902|2|27}}
|death_place=[Los Angeles](/source/Los_Angeles), [California](/source/California), U.S.
|resting_place=Clovis Cemetery, [Clovis, California](/source/Clovis%2C_California), U.S.
|pseudonym=Geoffrey Homes
|occupation={{flatlist|
*Novelist
*screenwriter
}}
|genre=[Mystery fiction](/source/Mystery_fiction)
}}
'''Daniel Mainwaring''' (February 27, 1902 – January 31, 1977) was an American novelist and [screenwriter](/source/screenwriter). His novel ''Build My Gallows High'' (1946) was adapted to film by himself as ''[Out of the Past](/source/Out_of_the_Past)'' (1947).
==Biography==
A native of [Oakland](/source/Oakland%2C_California), California, Mainwaring began his professional career as a journalist for the ''[San Francisco Chronicle](/source/San_Francisco_Chronicle)'' and enjoyed a successful career as a mystery novelist (under the name '''Geoffrey Homes''').[{{Cite web |last=Handler |first=David |title=The Unsung Godfather of Film Noir |url=https://crimereads.com/the-unsung-godfather-of-film-noir/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220803123611/https://crimereads.com/the-unsung-godfather-of-film-noir/ |archive-date=3 August 2022 |access-date=4 March 2020 |website=CrimeReads |date=13 August 2019 |publisher=Literary Hub}}] He worked as a film publicist and eventually abandoned fiction for a successful career as a screenwriter.
His first novel (and the only one he ever published under his own name), ''One Against the Earth'' (1932), is a [proletarian novel](/source/proletarian_novel) about a young man born on a California ranch who becomes a drifter and is eventually unjustly accused of attacking a child. He made his real mark, however, with a string of hard-boiled mystery novels (mostly with small-town California settings), the first of which was ''The Man Who Murdered Himself'' (1936).
His final published novel, ''Build My Gallows High'' (William Morrow & Co., 1946), is generally regarded as his best—and its adaptation (by "Homes" himself) into the 1947 [film noir](/source/film_noir) classic ''[Out of the Past](/source/Out_of_the_Past)'' assured his place in film history.With ''Build My Gallows High'', I wanted to get away from straight [mystery](/source/Mystery_fiction) novels. Those detective stories are a bore to write. You've got to figure out "whodunit". I'd get to the end and have to say whodunit and be so mixed up I couldn't decide myself.[{{Cite web |date=2002-07-05 |title=RARA-AVIS Archives: Re: RARA-AVIS: Geoffrey Homes/Daniel Mainwa |url=http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/archives/200207/0078.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161119182241/https://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/archives/200207/0078.html |archive-date=2016-11-19 |access-date=2016-11-18 |website=Miskatonic.org}}]
By the time ''Out of the Past'' appeared Mainwaring had already begun to devote himself exclusively to screenwriting, first under the Homes pseudonym and later under his real name.This is one of the things that makes me very close to Dan Mainwaring—his experience of Americana, the nostalgia of the good things about small towns. I remember the smell of burning leaves at night in the autumn too. And I remember the smell of Christmas, the sparkle in the air at football games, and the sound of distant trains. And Dan remembers them all. He's a much underrated writer and he's a really quite noble man. He damaged himself with drink and he was very badly hurt by the [blacklist](/source/Hollywood_blacklist).[{{Cite book |last=Ciment |first=Michel |title=Conversations with Losey |publisher=Methuen & Company |year=1985 |isbn=978-0416404708 |location=London}}]
According to Frank Krutnik's book ''"Un-American" Hollywood'',[{{Cite book |last=Krutnik |first=Frank |title='Un-American' Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0813541983}}] Losey's memory seems to serve him wrong here. Mainwaring's widow claims her husband actually acted as a front for blacklisted author [Paul Jarrico](/source/Paul_Jarrico). Also, Mainwaring's name appears on several movie credits in the 1950s which would have been impossible for a blacklisted author. The first film to break the blacklisting rule by naming a "banned" screenwriter ([Dalton Trumbo](/source/Dalton_Trumbo)) in the credits was [Otto Preminger](/source/Otto_Preminger)'s 1960 film, ''[Exodus](/source/Exodus_(1960_film))''.
In 1960, Mainwaring was hired by fantasy-film producer-director [George Pal](/source/George_Pal) to write the screenplay for the [MGM Studios](/source/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) film ''[Atlantis, the Lost Continent](/source/Atlantis%2C_the_Lost_Continent)'', released in 1961. He based his script on a play written by Gerald Hargreaves in 1945. Toward the end of his career, in the 1960s, he wrote for TV shows like ''[The Wild Wild West](/source/The_Wild_Wild_West)'' and ''[Mannix](/source/Mannix)''. He did not live long enough to see ''Out of the Past'' remade as ''[Against All Odds](/source/Against_All_Odds_(1984_film))'' (1984).