Robert Welles Ritchie

author

Robert Welles Ritchie

1879–1942

A prolific early 20th-century screenwriter, this American writer is chiefly remembered for silent-era Westerns and mystery pictures. His career connected pulp-style storytelling with the fast-growing movie industry of the 1910s and 1920s.

2 Audiobooks

Dust of the Desert

Dust of the Desert

by Robert Welles Ritchie

Inside the Lines

Inside the Lines

by Earl Derr Biggers, Robert Welles Ritchie

About the author

Born on June 17, 1879, in Quincy, Illinois, Robert Welles Ritchie was an American writer who later worked extensively in film. He died on August 2, 1942, in Carmel, California.

Available film records link him to a run of silent-era writing credits, including The Three Pals (1916), Cross Breed (1927), and The Down Grade (1927). Those credits suggest a career shaped by popular genres of the period, especially Western and mystery storytelling.

Although detailed biographical information is limited in the sources available here, his surviving credits show him as part of the busy world of early American cinema, when writers helped define the pace, tone, and adventure of silent film narratives.