Joseph Moncure March

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph Moncure March (July 27, 1899 New York City - February 14, 1977 Los Angeles, California) was an American poet and essayist, best known for his long narrative poems The Wild Party and The Set-Up.

After serving in World War I and graduating from Amherst College (where he was a protégé of Robert Frost), March was managing editor of The New Yorker in 1925, and helped create the magazine's "Talk of the Town" front section. He left the magazine, and wrote the first of his two important long Jazz Age narrative poems, The Wild Party. Due to its risqué content, this violent story of a vaudeville dancer who throws a booze and sex-filled party could not find a publisher until 1928. Once published, however, the poem was a great success despite being banned in Boston. March followed with The Set-Up, a poem about a black boxer who had just been released from prison.

In 1929, March moved to Hollywood to provide additional dialogue for the film Journey's End and, more famously, to turn the silent version of Howard Hughes' classic Hell's Angels into a talkie — a rewrite that brought the phrase "Excuse me while I put on something more comfortable" into the American lexicon. March stayed with Hughes' Caddo Pictures studio for several years, temporarily running the office, overseeing the release of Hell's Angels, and getting into legal trouble after an attempt to steal the script for rival Warner Bros.' flying picture The Dawn Patrol.

March worked …