Schnee abandoned a career as a lawyer (graduate of Yale Law School) in 1946 to become a screenwriter and producer. He excelled at melodramas and westerns, often dissecting the plight of outcasts or misfits in a changing environment. Schnee won an Academy Award for the Hollywood 'exposé'
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). This, along with the noirish revenge western
The Furies (1950) and
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962), can be regarded as constituting his best work.