Introducing The SS Ben Hecht

Welcome one and all to my new newsletter. A few notes on what you can expect here.

Welcome to The SS Ben Hecht, a brand-new Substack newsletter on film, film criticism, and popular culture. I'm your host, Stephen Silver, and in this newsletter, I am going to be sharing film reviews, essays, historical retrospectives, film festival coverage, and the occasional interview. I’ll also be telling stories from throughout my years of writing, and pulling back the curtain a bit on the film criticism profession and my experiences in it.

I know you have questions, and here are my answers to some of them: 

Who are you? 

I have been a journalist and film critic for nearly a quarter of a century. You may know me as a current or recent contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 19FortyFive, Broad Street Review, Splice Today, Living Life Fearless, AppleInsider, The Smart Set, Backstage Magazine, Dealerscope, The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, and the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. 

I also cohost the Film Scribes podcast, I've been a Rotten Tomatoes-listed film critic since 2008, and I'm a member of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle (which I cofounded), the Critics Choice Association, and the Online Film Critics Society. For three years I was the editor-in-chief of the entertainment section of the late TechnologyTell. In the past, you may have seen my byline in New York Press, Fox29.com, RogerEbert.com, Screenrant, PhillyVoice, and elsewhere.

I'm a Minnesota native — from St. Louis Park, the hometown of the Coen Brothers — and I’ve lived in the Philadelphia area for nearly two decades. I've contributed at one point or another to just about every media outlet in the Philadelphia market. 

I live with my wife and two sons in suburban Philadelphia, where in addition to my work and family life I enjoy biking, concerts, and coaching Little League.

What are you going to be doing here? 

I'll be writing reviews of new movies, revisiting older ones, and writing essays about film and popular culture today. I'm also planning to write about books, especially ones about cinema and the industry, as well as the ways movies intersect with the other things I write about (especially technology, politics, sports, and Judaism.) I plan to give documentary films a particular focus as well. 

Why start this newsletter? 

The main reason is that before I was a professional journalist, I was a blogger, having launched my first blog on Blogspot in 2002. The blogging era, especially in the aughts, did a great deal to shape me as a writer, and I've been looking to get back to something like that. I've also noticed that a lot of my old friends from the blogging days are active on Substack and that this platform has a community vibe that I recognize from the blogging era.

A few weeks ago, I posted something on Facebook about the Bradley Cooper/Maestro/nose controversy, and it led to a free-wheeling discussion in the comments with more than 50 comments. If you’ve followed that controversy, you’re likely familiar with most of the things that were said. But what I really enjoyed was that the participants came from all walks of life- there were well-known film writers, exchanging arguments with dads I know from the Little League field, and a least a couple of rabbis in there as well. It reminded me a lot of the blogging days, and if I can recreate those sorts of discussions here, I’ll be very happy.

Are you giving up all of your other stuff?  

I want to make clear that this newsletter will exist in addition to my existing writing work, and not as a replacement for it. I will continue to contribute to all of my other outlets and also share links to those pieces here. If you're an editor, and you're interested in re-printing something from here or would like to commission me to write an original article, feel free to reach out to me about that.  

One of my sites, Tilt Magazine, recently closed, so some of the kinds of things that I was writing there will end up here instead, in addition to some new ideas that I’m looking to develop.

Why “The SS Ben Hecht”? 

Ben Hecht (1894-1964) was a newspaperman, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, memoirist, and much more. He's perhaps best known for the play The Front Page, the original Scarface film, and his memoir Child of the Century. Having read quite a bit of early Hollywood history of late, I am taken with his story and consider him among the most intriguing figures in the history of the motion picture industry.

On top of all of his work, Hecht was a proud Jew who sought to publicize the plight of his people during the Holocaust. More controversially, he fundraised for the Irgun — something that got him boycotted in Britain for a time — although later in his life he lost interest in the Zionist cause, and never actually visited Israel. The SS Ben Hecht was a ship that he sent to rescue 900 Holocaust survivors in 1947. 

Also, "SS" are my initials. And I've written several columns over the years that were some variation on "The Silver Screen" or "Silver's Screen," so I preferred not to do that again. 

This newsletter is named as a homage to Hecht, and I highly recommend both of the recent biographies of this fascinating man- "Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures" by Adina Hoffman and "Notorious Ben Hecht" by Julien Gorbach. 

What will I get if I subscribe? 

I plan to keep the newsletter free at first and go to a subscription model in the coming weeks. The plan for now, although it is certainly subject to change, is to write five newsletters a week. Monday will be an essay, while Tuesday will be a review of a classic movie, usually on or near its anniversary. Wednesday will feature a review of a new-release documentary, Thursday a review of a new-release feature film, and Friday a roundup of news and notes. The plan is for the new-release reviews to be free for all, with the other stuff subscriber-only. 

Thank you very much for reading, and I’m excited to have you with me on this journey.