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Category Archives: film adaptation
Thoughts after watching THE VERDICT
Just watched The Verdict for the first time since it came out forty years ago in 1982. Sidney Lumet at the top of his game, a perfect damn script by David Mamet (I can’t say how much it owes to the … Continue reading
Posted in Chicago theater, drama, film adaptation, movies, off-Broadway, playwriting, Pulitzer Prize, Second City, Uncategorized
Tagged American Buffalo, Daniel, David Mamet, Duck Variations, Glengarry Glen Ross, Harold Pinter, James Mason, Jay Presson Allen, Julie Bovasso, Lewis Stadlen, Lindsay Crouse, Mike Nussbaum, Paul Newman, Prince of the City, Sidney Lumet, Slap Shot, St. Nicholas Theater, Stanley Richards, The Verdict, Village Voice, W.H. Macy
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Men in White, Sidney Kingsley, and Ancillary Thoughts
I recently read Sidney Kingsley’s play, Men in White (1933), and last night I watched the 1934 film adaptation directed by Richard Boleslawski. (Interesting that Boleslawski directed the film version of a work that had been directed on Broadway by … Continue reading
From “Crime in the Streets” to “West Side Story”
Watched a clumsy but fascinating film called Crime in the Streets. It started as a 1955 live TV play by Reginald Rose presented by the Elgin Hour, directed by Sidney Lumet. A young John Cassavetes starred as Frankie, a member … Continue reading
Posted in 1950s TV Drama, Broadway, film adaptation, Golden Age of Television, movies, New York
Tagged 12 Angry Men, Crime in the Streets, David Winters, Dead End, Don Siegel, James Whimore, Jon Cassavetes, Mark Rydell, Reginald Rose, Robert Preston, Sidney Lumet, Street Scene, The Defenders, West Side Story
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Ride Share
In 1992, a former cab driver named Will Kern drew on his experience to whip up a bracing entertainment called Hellcab. An actor played the driver and an ensemble of six played something in the neighborhood of 30 passengers who … Continue reading
Posted in Chicago theater, drama, film adaptation, playwriting, television
Tagged Alan Bennett, Hellcab, Judgment at Nuremberg, Kamal Angelo Bolden, Marty, Philco Playhouse, Playhouse 90, Reginald Edmund, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Ride Share, Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway, Talking Heads, The Days of Wine and Roses, The Miracle Worker, The Trip to Bountiful, Twelve Angry Men, Will Kern
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Encountering Rose Franken
Continuing to wander through obscure corners of American playwriting, I have stumbled across a forgotten phenomenon. A writer named Rose Franken created a character who appeared first in a series of stories for Redbook, then in a series of eight … Continue reading
Both Your Houses
I was determined to witness the moment when Joe Biden overtook the Orange Thug in Pennsylvania. I plopped down on the sofa in the living room under the illusion that this might happen at 2AM (which is about the time … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, film adaptation, playwriting, Pulitzer Prize, theater
Tagged Both Your Houses, Frank Capra, Jean Arthur, Jim Carrey, Jimmy Stewart, Joeseph Biden, Joseph McBride, Lewis R. Forster, Maxwell Anderson, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Political Play, Richard Nixon, Sidney Buchman
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Election Day Distraction
Don’t know if it’s true for anybody else, but I’m just trying to get this day out of the way. Latest avoidance tactic, an hour or so at the City Diner with my dog at my feet, reading some chapters … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, film adaptation, Pulitzer Prize, television, Uncategorized
Tagged Abraham, Bill Bryden, City Diner, City Hall, democracy, Directors Guild of America, Ex Libris, Film Forum, Frederick Wiseman, Green Mansions, In Jackson Heights, Ira Krutch, Isaac, Jan Herman, Mrs. Miniver, National Theatre of Great Britain, New York Public Library, Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun, PBS, Rex Ingram, Roark Bradford, television, The Bible, the Blitz, The Golden Age of Television, The Mysteries, Tony Harrison, William Wyler
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Bad Behavior
Richard in Richard III is intended to be a villain. Shakespeare paints him as evil on legs. And yet, we get impatient when he’s off the stage. Clarence has a long speech filled with poetry. Yes, yes, beautiful, but could … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, film adaptation, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, theater, Uncategorized
Tagged A Streetcar Named Desire, Aaron Sorkin, Abby Rosebrock, Alan Cumming, Atticus Finch, Blue Ridge, Carnal Knowledge, Christopher Walker, Daddy, Downstairs, Halley Feiffer, Hamish Linklater, Happy Birthday Wana June, Harper Lee, Heidi Schreck, Hillary and Clinton, Iago, Ink, Jack Nicholson, Jenny Allen, Jeremy O. Harris, Jessica Tandy, Jez Butterworth, John Osborne, Jules Feiffer, Kurt Vonnegut, Look Back in Anger, Marin Ireland, Marlon Brando, Mike Nichols, Network, Othello, Paddy Chayefsky, Restoration, Richard III, Rita Moreno, Rupert Murdoch, Shakespeare, Socratese, The Double-Dealer, The New Yorker, The Pain of My Own Belligerence, Theresa Rebeck, Tim Blake Nelson, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tyne Daly, What the Constitution Means to Me, Wheelhouse Theater
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Wandering Through History
Sometimes I think of the past as a huge black box, and any time you read a book of history or a biography or a historical novel it’s like shining a concentrated beam of light through that darkness, briefly bringing … Continue reading
Posted in film adaptation, movies
Tagged A World to Win, Alan Brinkley, Amazon streaming, Babylon Berlin, Berlin, Beyond the Fringe, Father Coughlin, FDR, Henry Ford, Hotel Adlon, Huey Long, John le Carre, John Osborne, Labour, Lanny Budd, Meyer Levin, Nazis, Netflix, postwar England, the Beatles, the depression, The Old Bunch, Tory, Traitors, Upton Sinclair, Voices of Protest, WWII
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“Mockingbird” — Stage and Screen
Kristine and I just watched the film version of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird a few days after seeing the play. The differences between the film and the stage play are instructive. In the film, the Finches’ housekeeper, Calpurnia, has maybe … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, film adaptation, movies, playwriting, Uncategorized
Tagged 1930s, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Aaoron Sorkin, Alabama, Betty Smith, Calpurnia, Elia Kazan, Gavin Stevens, Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee, Intruder in the Dust, Lucas Beauchamp, Oxford Mississippi, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, William Faulkner
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Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 