Okay, I know -- this questions is a little arcane.  Even for me.

But I've been reading the recently published screenplay for "Double
Indemnity" with the introduction by Jeffrey Meyers.  The one that
reproduces the actual screenplay.

Anyone know which font that is?  I know it's a 1940s typewriter font,
but can anyone get a tad more specific?

Please e-mail me if you know the answer.  Thanks.

Tom Moran

I think it can be cmpica, it is a font suggested by the screenTeX
package for script writing.

I have not seen that particular script, but the font for most
typewriters -- and therefore screenplays -- is Courier.

Not Courier New.  Just good old fashined Courier.

The studios made it their standard so that they could judge the running
length of scripts better.

-ADS.

AceDeSone@aol.com wrote:

> I have not seen that particular script, but the font for most
> typewriters -- and therefore screenplays -- is Courier.
> 
> Not Courier New.  Just good old fashined Courier.
> 
> The studios made it their standard so that they could judge the running
> length of scripts better.
> 

Not even close to the facts. Each brand of typewriter had its own forms, and 
since they were created mechanically and not from the same molds, they were all 
different.

What standardization there was came from a limited set of typewriter pitches and 
point sizes.

Courier wasn't designed until the 1950s, when it was designed by Howard Kettler 
for IBM; typewriters existed since the 1870s.

  - Characters

You think of writing as progressively more mechanicl over centuries, thus 
more impersonal, less individual.

Mary Queen of Scotts was interviewed by the best legal minds in the UK in 
the late sixteenth century.  They were unable to determine whether an 
incriminating letter was in her handwriting.  They cut off her head anyway, 
just to make sure.

In the mid-twentieth century, Alger Hiss was hung because the Woodstock 
typewriter he used and then dumped by giving it to a maid was located and 
then matched with the Pumpkin Papers.  Both defense and prosecution agreed 
that the machine made the marks on the papers.  They sent him up for lying 
about it.

Funny how time sneaks back to have a look sometimes.


-- 
    Doubting Timus
 ubi dubium ibi libertas
timus@nerdnosh.com

 

"Doubting Timus" <woesong@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:dmdrq4069n@enews3.newsguy.com...
> You think of writing as progressively more mechanicl over centuries, thus 
> more impersonal, less individual.
>
> Mary Queen of Scotts was interviewed by the best legal minds in the UK in 
> the late sixteenth century.  They were unable to determine whether an 
> incriminating letter was in her handwriting.  They cut off her head 
> anyway, just to make sure.
>

Sorry to be the first to inform you, there was no United Kingdom of Great 
Britain in the 16th century. There was the Kingdom of England and the 
Kingdom of Scotland. Mary Queen of Scots was executed at the order of the 
Queen of England, Elizabeth I. When Mary's son James succeeded to the throne 
of England after Elizabeth's death, he was James I of England and Ireland 
(and by pretense of France) *and* James VI of Scotland.

The two crowns were only united more than a century later by the First Act 
of Union, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. However, the term 
United Kingdom only became official in 1800 with the Second Act of Union 
which united the crown of Ireland with that of Great Britain.

> In the mid-twentieth century, Alger Hiss was hung because the Woodstock 
> typewriter he used and then dumped by giving it to a maid was located and 
> then matched with the Pumpkin Papers.  Both defense and prosecution agreed 
> that the machine made the marks on the papers.  They sent him up for lying 
> about it.
>

Good thing then for Martha Stewart lying is no longer a capital offense.

> Funny how time sneaks back to have a look sometimes.

I suppose you mean something here.

-- 
Frank in Seattle
____

Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
"Millennium hand and shrimp."

AceDeSone@aol.com wrote:

> I have not seen that particular script, but the font for most
> typewriters -- and therefore screenplays -- is Courier.
> 
> Not Courier New.  Just good old fashined Courier.

Could you send some more information about it.

I have been told by screenwriters that they use Courier New,
size 12.

> 
> -ADS.

-- 
Rawat

Character wrote:
> AceDeSone@aol.com wrote:
>
> > I have not seen that particular script, but the font for most
> > typewriters -- and therefore screenplays -- is Courier.
> >
> > Not Courier New.  Just good old fashined Courier.
> >
> > The studios made it their standard so that they could judge the running
> > length of scripts better.
> >
>
> Not even close to the facts. Each brand of typewriter had its own forms, and
> since they were created mechanically and not from the same molds, they were all
> different.
>
> What standardization there was came from a limited set of typewriter pitches and
> point sizes.
>
> Courier wasn't designed until the 1950s, when it was designed by Howard Kettler
> for IBM; typewriters existed since the 1870s.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Now that we've established what font it *isn't,* can someone tell me
what font it *is*?

Tom Moran

Feuillade wrote:

> Character wrote:
> 
>>AceDeSone@aol.com wrote:
>>

> Now that we've established what font it *isn't,* can someone tell me
> what font it *is*?
> 
> Tom Moran
> 

Yes, we do tend to get off on tangents and forget the original question.

It would be much easier to identify if you could provide a link to a site with 
an image of what you're looking at.

   - Character