Gloria Swanson and William Holden and a Noiseless portable in Sunset Boulevard. From the March 2013 edition of Vanity Fair.
Vanity Fair is the only journal to which I still subscribe. I sense a guarantee of at least one or two enlightening features and usually a decent chance of some typewriter images. I suspect editor Graydon Carter actually has a soft spot for typewriters.
Vanity Fair's March 2013 edition has this image reversed and directed away from the right-hand edge of the page. Which is right, I wonder. Which has Barton Fink typing on a Hebrew language Underwood?
Margaret Heidenry wrote, "When the visual novelty [of the first movies] waned, early directors recognized that movies were missing an essential ingredient to sell tickets: a story. And yet, beginning with the earliest screenplays, in the 1910s, writers usually found themselves at the bottom of the totem pole, dismissed as 'schmucks with Underwoods', a reference to the screenwriter’s typewriter of choice."
Scenes from Barton Fink.
The "Hollywood screenwriter's" Optima with its top on.
Heidenry's article is illustrated with images of John Turturro at an Underwood in Barton Fink, Nicolas Cage at a sort of typewriter (an IBM?) in Adaptation and William Holden at a Noiseless portable (Remington or Underwood? Who would know?) in Sunset Boulevard.
What a brilliant book cover design!
Welsh-born Ray Milland's performance in the lead role in this movie won him an Oscar. Milland played alcoholic writer (Wales has produced some notables in this area) Don Birnam, who tries to pawn his Remington portable typewriter on Third Avenue during Yom Kippur. After leaving it behind in a drunken stupor, the Remington is later returned to Birnam by the barkeep at Nat's (based on P.J.Clarke's), apparently marking the beginning of Birnam's rehabilitation.
Don Birnam (played by Ray Milland) mixes his Scotch with coffee in a non-licensed diner in this publicity shot for The Lost Weekend. The Remington portable typewriter's case is at his unsteady elbow.
![]()
A desperate Birnam rests on the Remington case as Nat the barkeep (Howard Da Silva) refuses to barter for Rye.
![]()
Birnam puts the Remington in its case before trying to hock it.
The shooting of The Lost Weekend. Milland has the Remington's case in hand.
From the March 2013 edition of Vanity Fair.
Remington portables have that effect on people, of course. But as author Blake Bailey points out in his story, this was definitely not the way Jackson wanted The Lost Weekend to end. 
Vanity Fair has a good track record of featuring typewriter images, dating back to 1934:
George S. Kaufman, at the typewriter with Moss Hart, in 1937, the year their play You Can’t Take It With You won the Pulitzer Prize.
Sam Shepard with his Hermes 3000 typewriter, in New York City.
Walter Cronkite works at a typewriter in his cluttered office as he writes copy for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, on May 6, 1970.
