Aeneas MacKenzie

Career[edit]

Maackenzie came from England to work on a film of East Lynne.^[1]


In January 1938, he was under contract to Warner Bros. to write what would become Juarez.^[2] In February 1939, he was working on a biopic of John Paul Jones for James Cagney.^[3] He also wrote a biopic of Disraeli for Claude Rains.^[4] Neither were made, but by July 1940, he was working on a biopic of George Custer which became They Died with Their Boots On.^[5] MacKenzie wrote The Widow of Devil's Island for Bette Davis.^[6] In March 1942, he was working on a movie about "Sing Sing" prison.^[7]


In October 1943, RKO announced they would make a film from his original story, The Spanish Main.^[8]


In July 1946, he wrote a script of Ivanhoe for Paramount.^[9] The project was postponed due to the Palestine Cris and instead MacKenzie was assigned to do a biopic on Ludwig II for producer Robert Fellows.^[10] A year later, his Ivanhoe script was sold to RKO.^[11] They sold it to MGM who filmed it several years later.


He worked on the script for The Black Book (1949).


In January 1950, he sold a script to Douglas Fairbanks Jr which became Against All Flags.^[12] Several months later, MacKenzie sold this story to Universal, who hired him to write the script.^[13] Also at Universal, he did The Prince Who Was a Thief.^[14]


MacKenzie later headed the script team on The Ten Commandments.^[15]


In July 1957, he was writing Peter and Catherine about Russia in the 18th century for Ross Hunter at Universal.^[16]


In late 1958, MacKenzie was reported to be working on a biopic of William the Conqueror for Evyan Perfumes.^[17][18]