so all these things came together." In 1931, Dunne was fired from Fox after less than a year at the studio in a cost-cutting move. He was briefly under contract at MGM, writing a comedy for them, but was unhappy with his work and resigned after handing in his first draft. This script was subsequently filmed as Student Tour (1934), which Dunne never saw. Dunne also worked uncredited on Me and My Gal (1932). Career progress The first important screenplay of Dunne's career was The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), produced by Edward Small. Dunne was brought on to the project after the novel had been distilled to a treatment by director Rowland V. Lee and Dan Totheroh, and Dunne helped finesse the script into scenes and did the dialogue. Dunne later credited Lee as an important mentor for him. Small kept Dunne on to work on the script for The Melody Lingers On (1935). He was also credited for Helldorado (1935), the latter at Fox for Jesse Lasky, another early mentor. He did some minor uncredited work on Under Pressure (1935) and Magnificent Obsession (1935). Dunne received a lot of acclaim for his adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans (1936) for Small which he wrote with John L. Balderstone. Dunne claimed the script was hurt by later rewrites from another writer, but the script, rather than the original novel, formed the basis of the 1992 film version. For Universal he wrote Breezing Home (1937) which he later said was the first of what he considered only four original screenplays he would write in his career. 20th Century Fox After working for various studios, he moved to 20th Century Fox in 1937, where he would remain for 25 years (excepting 4 years civilian war service during World War II), scripting 36 films in total and directing 10. He also produced several of his later films. His first assignment at Fox was Lancer Spy (1937), with George Sanders. He then did three films in collaboration with Julien Josephson which established him as one of the leading writers at the studio: Suez (1938), Stanley and Livingstone (1939), and The Rains Came (1939). Alone Dunne wrote Swanee River (1939), and Johnny Apollo (1940) (rewriting Rowland Brown's draft). He wrote How Green Was My Valley (1941) originally developed with William Wyler then taken over by John Ford. He also wrote Son of Fury: