After his return to the United States in 1932, he worked as an editor for a New York publisher and translated the books Goya and Zeppelin from German to English.[1] He then moved to Hollywood, becoming a successful novelist and rising to prominence as a screenwriter during the classic era of
film noir in the 1940s. He wrote six novels, many screenplays and more than twenty television scripts.[1] He won an
Edgar Allan Poe Award for Call Northside 777, and was an Oscar nominee for the 1944 film noir,
Laura. The 1948 film noir,
Pitfall, was based on Dratler's novel of the same title.
Later in life, Dratler became conversant in Spanish, moving to Mexico in the 1960s.[3] Dratler died of a heart attack in 1968 at the British-American Hospital in Mexico City. His body was returned to New York.[2] He was survived by his widow, Berenice, and their two children, a daughter and son. The latter, Jay Dratler Jr., became a professor at the
University of Akron School of Law,[3] specializing in intellectual property law.[4]
Goya. A portrait of the artist as a man (1936) Knight Publications, New York Translated by Clement Greenberg, Emma Ashton and Jay Dratler, from the German by Manfred Schneider (1935) Don Francisco de Goya
Zeppelin, the story of lighter-than-air craft (1937) Longmans & Co., London Translated by Jay Dratler from the German by Ernst A Lehmann and Leonhard Adelt (1936) Auf Luftpatrouille und Weltfahrt - Erlebnisse eines Zeppelinführers in Krieg und Frieden - Zeppelin, Schmidt & Günther, Kelkheim, Germany
ISBN978-0025828308
Screenplays
Dratler's films as screenwriter, often with collaborators, include: