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The
Warren Adler E-Sheet 54
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Greetings From Publishing Central
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Pity the Poor Writer
 A recent report that
Charles Webb, author of the
1963 novel "The
Graduate,"
was about to be evicted from his apartment in
London for lack of payment got me reflecting
on the heady subject of the value of original
material, in this case,
the value of plays, novels and
short stories adapted to the silver screen.
Just imagine the disparity.
Mike Nichols and
Dustin Hoffman make their
breakthroughs to fame and fortune and the
creator of the original material,
Charles Webb,
can’t even pay his rent.
As one who has sold or optioned
ten novels to the movie moguls in
Tinsel
Town, I guess one might say that
I am somewhat qualified to analyze the
situation, although the reader must not expect
any revelations that make any sense to the
casual reader...or to me.
My
box score of this sales frenzy are two movies
made,
The
War of the Roses and
Random
Hearts and one television three-hour
mini-series
The
Sunset Gang. But enough of
my alleged qualifications. In baseball,
that might be an acceptable average.
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The movie gods are erratic and fumbling
and often great films are stitched
together from the cloth of creative minds
whose talents are unsung and unremembered. |
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The Writer’s Guild often cites
their 101 best screenplay list. More than
fifty percent are adapted from novels or short
stories. The list does not mention the
classic adaptations of Dickens, Tolstoy,
Shakespeare,
et al.
It would be a sin to compare
those adaptations to the
originals.
The most egregious unfairness
award goes to the late
Murray Barnett and
Joan Alison, who sold all
rights to the unproduced play "Everybody’s
Coming to Ricks" for $20,000,
which became
the film "Casablanca."
Allegedly,
most of the dialogue of the play and certainly
the basic story line that found its way to the
screenplay
were lifted from the original.
The film received a shower of awards, made the
careers of many of those associated with it
and has been the premier classic and all time
best picture for more than sixty years.
And the original authors? They have
been lost to the fickle finger of anonymity,
unable to parlay this youthful success into
exceptional and profitable careers. It has not
been the fate of all as
Mario Puzo,
Margaret Mitchell,
John Steinbeck and others
might attest. The movie
gods are erratic and fumbling and
often great films are stitched together from
the cloth of creative minds whose talents are
unsung and unremembered. Below are some cases
that buttress this assertion.
Even the most ardent movie buffs
might barely acknowledge that such great films
as "High
Noon," my all time favorite,
was adapted from a short story by
John W. Cunningham titled
"The Tin Star." Another favorite "Some
Like it Hot" was actually
based on a German film "Fanfare
of Love." We enter trivia
land when we cite others like
"Dr.
Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love the Bomb,"
based on the novel "Red
Alert" by
Peter George or "Field
of Dreams" based on the novel
by
W.P. Kinsella or "The
Searchers" based on the novel
by
Alan Lemay or "Rear
Window" based on the short
story by
Cornell Woodrich or "Being
There" based on the novel by
Jerzy Kosinki or "Cool
Hand Luke" based on the novel
by
Donn Pearce or "The
Third Man" based on the short
story by
Graham Greene, an exception
to my argument, or "Sweet
Smell of Success" based on
the novelette by
Ernest Lehman.
The list goes on and on. Who knows
what circuitous path brought these great
stories to the attention of those who pushed
to make it happen as a memorable film? There
is no one size that fits all.
It is not my intention to denigrate
the marvelous work of the actors, writers,
directors and craftsman who make these stories
come alive for mass consumption. But the
fact is inescapable that these great movies
would not have had a life on the screen
without the fevered imagination of those who
labor in isolation to create stories out of
the whole cloth of their imagination.
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The truth is that the original writer, the
creator, gets short shrift in Hollywood. |
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One might hide behind the old
cliché that "life is unfair," but somehow I
put a higher value on original imagination,
invention and discovery than how these stories
and ideas are finally adapted
into other mediums. I know I am
playing favorites, placing the writer of the
imagination on a higher pedestal than those
who use the work as a springboard for another
interpretation.
The advantages to the original
writer of an adaptation that has become a hit
movie can be extraordinary and bountiful,
particularly if the original title is
retained. But that is a crapshoot since the
writer of the original material, except in
rare cases, has anything to say about the
rendition of his work beyond the original
content.
The truth is that the original
writer, the creator, gets short shrift in
Hollywood. He is briefly fawned over and
seduced but once the deal is done he or she is
exiled to the bleachers, except in rare
instances. Worse, the writer, who expects
and deserves
respect, is often subject to some awful
humiliations as the project progresses and his
original work becomes chewed over, ingested
and regurgitated by others.
I can remember asking
Kathleen Turner on the set of
"The War of the Roses"
if she had ever read my book. Her response was
an insulting,
"No,
I haven’t. Besides,
it would interfere with my understanding of
the character." My visits to the set were
lessons in how to cope with anonymity.
Stupidly I asked Turner again,
at the premiere,
the same question and got an angry out-of-my-face
dismissal.
My experience with
"Random Hearts"
was much of the same, perhaps worse.
Originally considered to star Dustin Hoffman,
the studio prepared itself for the big meeting
with "the star" to discuss the story. I was
told I was not invited fearing that as the
head of the studio opined "I would defend the
book."
To add to the humiliation,
the studio head asked me to write him a memo
on what he should say to Dustin during the
meeting. I was uncharacteristically polite and
wrote a lengthy memo.
I have no idea if any of the ideas were ever
expressed. It took seventeen years for
"Random Hearts"
to get made,
and by the time the Hollywood gnomes got to
it, the story was absurdly gutted and stupidly
written. Incensed, I had the temerity to voice
my opinion in an article I wrote in the
New York Times. It didn’t
matter. Life went on. I was merely another
aggrieved writer bleating among the herd.
Although I have numerous war stories of my
Hollywood experiences, I find myself still in
the game.
My attitude now is more of
amusement than anger. The process, after all,
is farcical and you can’t knock the monetary
rewards. And it is nice to see your name up
there on a thirty-five foot screen in a fast
credit crawl. My mother would have been proud.
Aside from observing all this folderol, there
have been some small comforts. When I was on
the Warner lot for a year, I did enjoy the
commissary. It was convenient to my office and
the food wasn’t half bad.
You have to be careful about writing about
Hollywood, fearful that you will assault
people with repetitive clichés about the
culture and the system. Most people have heard
it all before. It doesn’t really hurt your
career. Masochism is Hollywood’s disease of
choice.
What struck me as most egregious in that fuzzy
environment was that most people I knew were
appallingly uninformed about world events;
their entire world
was circumscribed by movie talk
and gossip. Many of them happily admitted that
they got their news of national and
international events from the tiny news
roundup in
Variety. It makes me smile
when they talk political talk, flauntingly
compassionate for the less fortunate, a noble
inclination to be sure.
But I have discovered that many, but not all,
are so insulated from the real less fortunate,
fenced off and gated, that they have no idea
what is really happening in the blighted world
miles away from their pampered lives. Don’t
believe what you see in the media of
sacrificing for the needy. These are merely
guilt-inspired publicity stunts
and photo ops. These people are too obsessed
with their careers and their images to care
about anyone other than themselves. Forgive me
for generalizing, but their visible excess and
narcissism often makes my guts water.
I am reminded of an actual happening of a
breakfast meeting with two Hollywood big
shots. On that morning,
there was a significant international incident
of enormous importance and I had the temerity
to ask the executive if they had heard the
news.
"We heard," they responded in unison. "Jerry
Weintraub was fired."
Note how easy it is to fall into a bitterly
satirical mode when discussing Hollywood.
I began this essay championing the original
creator of the story material,
neglecting the fate of the original screenplay
writer who has to cope with an even worse
scenario, no pun intended. They are so far
down in the feed chain that not only are they
pummeled by every available set of eyeballs
from producers, actors, directors, their
wives, hairdressers, girlfriends, trainers,
pool cleaners, and their vast legions of
cosmetic gurus, but in the end they are bagged
and cast aside to fester anonymously in
golden luxury. Believe me. I have never
met a happy screenwriter.
There is an old Hollywood Polish joke, now
politically incorrect but nevertheless apt. It
tells of the ambitious starlet who, determined
to get ahead, slept with the writer.
Nationalist slur aside, it does capture the
intended meaning of what I have tried to
impart.
As for the original writer, that strange geek
who sits in isolation cooking up the tales and
fantasies that feed the machinery, he gets
some bucks and a brief ego massage and very
often winds up, like Charles Webb, unable to
pay the rent.
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