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Ah, heck. What a career he had. Great novels and screenplays. Influenced a lot of people. RIP that man.
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Every time Hollywood induces despair, I usually recall some Goldman quote from Adventures in the Screen Trade.
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Posted: |
Nov 16, 2018 - 4:32 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In March 1965, producer and Raymond Chandler aficionado Jerry Bick acquired film rights to mystery writer Ross MacDonald’s The Moving Target, the first of eighteen novels that featured Southern California private detective “Lew Archer.” Bick left the project during pre-production, and producers Jerry Gershwin and Elliott Kastner took over. William Goldman was hired to adapt the book, and the subsequent film, HARPER, became Goldman's first American-produced screenplay. Goldman claimed that Paul Newman agreed to do HARPER only because he was working unhappily on the comedy LADY L (1965) in Europe, and was looking for something as unlike that film as possible. Stories differ as to why the name of the detective character was changed for the film. One version is that Paul Newman was struck by his success in two films beginning with the letter "h" - THE HUSTLER (1961) and HUD (1963). Newman asked that the private eye's name be changed from "Lew Archer" to "Lew Harper". An alternate story is that the name was changed because the producers had not bought the rights to the series of novels, just to The Moving Target. Changing the name relieved them of the necessity to buy the rights to additional novels if sequels were to be produced. William Goldman later wrote "so we needed a different name and Harper seemed OK; the guy harps on things, it's essentially what he does for a living." Once the character name was changed, Warner Bros. used it as the name of the film as well, allowing the studio to use the tag line “Paul Newman Is Harper” to echo Paramount Pictures’ earlier “Paul Newman Is Hud” line promoting HUD. In any event, although the title was HARPER for the North American market, it remained THE MOVING TARGET elsewhere. William Goldman later said he knew he'd succeed as a screenwriter as soon as he wrote the opening scene in the film, in which Harper is forced to recycle used coffee grounds from the trash for his morning cup of coffee. Harper's dismay at the result, as realized by Paul Newman on screen, immediately created empathy between the character and the audience. Ironically, that opening sequence was the last thing Goldman wrote for the script. Goldman created Janet Leigh’s “Susan Harper” character himself; it did not exist in MacDonald’s book. Goldman won the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay for HARPER. Goldman was nominated for a Writers Guild award for Best Written American Drama, but lost to Ernest Lehman for WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF. Jack Smight directed the 1966 film. Johnny Mandel's score was released on a Mainstream LP, and was finally reissued on CD earlier this year.
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That has to be the DUMBEST poster EVER(The HARPER one, that is!)!
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Posted: |
Nov 16, 2018 - 5:35 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Pre-production on the film BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID began in early February 1968, when it was announced that Paul Newman would star and George Roy Hill would direct a film about the outlaws based on a script by novelist and screenwriter William Goldman. Goldman first came across the story of Butch Cassidy in the late 1950s and researched it on and off for eight years before sitting down to write the screenplay. He later recalled, "The whole reason I wrote the thing, there is that famous line that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, who was one of my heroes: 'There are no second acts in American lives.' When I read about Cassidy and Longbaugh and the super posse coming after them, that's phenomenal material. They ran to South America and lived there for eight years, and that was what thrilled me: they had a second act. They were more legendary in South America than they had been in the old West. It's a great story. Those two guys and that pretty girl going down to South America and all that stuff. It just seems to me it's a wonderful piece of material." Goldman said he wrote the story as an original screenplay because he did not want to do the research to make it authentic as a novel. When Goldman completed the script and sent it out for consideration, only one studio wanted to buy it, and that was with the proviso that the two lead characters did not flee to South America. When Goldman protested that that was what had happened, the studio head responded, "I don't give a shit. All I know is John Wayne don't run away." Goldman re-wrote the script, "didn't change it more than a few pages, and subsequently found that every studio wanted it." He sold it for $400,000, then the highest price ever paid for an original screenplay. Paul Newman stated that Goldman discussed his ideas for the development of a script on the little known outlaws with him prior to writing it. Later, Newman was contacted by actor Steve McQueen, who had a copy of the completed script, then titled "The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy," and suggested they co-star in the film. After reading the script, Newman, who assumed he would play the role of Sundance, recommended that he and McQueen jointly purchase the property, but McQueen hesitated and the script was bought shortly thereafter by producer Paul Monash. Goldman indicated that the title change occurred after Newman was cast as Butch. Since he was the bigger star compared to Robert Redford's Sundance, Newman believed that his character's name should be featured first. Marlon Brando had been the first choice to play Sundance, but he turned down the project because of extreme distress over the assassination of Martin Luther King. During filming, as Newman related, a stuntman had been hired to do the bicycle tricks, but when director Hill expressed dissatisfaction with the results, Newman did the tricks himself. Hill noted that the least amount of historical information was available on Etta Place. Goldman decided to make Etta a teacher because he had seen a photo of the real-life woman, and decided she was too young and pretty to be a prostitute. In fact, most women of that profession in the old West looked haggard, unhealthy, and coarse in the photos he had seen of them. Hill and Goldman developed the three musical interludes in the film--Butch performing bicycle tricks against the pop song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” the still montage New York vacation and steamer journey, and the montage of Etta participating in numerous robberies. Burt Bacharach provided the 1969 film's score, which was released on an A&M LP and reissued on CD in 1987. A scene written to show The Sundance Kid returning to his boyhood home in the East was replaced with the New York City montage. In the South America segment, Goldman originally had the characters age to reflect the number of years they spent there, but that was also dropped. "My movie script was darker than the film because of these elements", said Goldman. William Goldman wrote that he couldn't say what the producers' contributions were to this movie because "on a George Roy Hill film, George is the giant ape. Because of his vast talent, his skill at infighting, his personality, he runs the show." John Foreman (along with Paul Newman) were the credited producers, with Paul Monash listed as executive producer. According to Goldman, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID had its world premiere in Durango, CO on 2 September 1969, contradicting news items which reported that the premiere occurred on 23 September 1969 in New Haven, CT, the location of Hill’s alma mater, Yale University. Critical reception of the film was mixed. The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael wrote that she felt “depressed” and “rather offended” while viewing the film, describing it as a “spin off from Bonnie and Clyde." Kael continued: “It’s a facetious Western, and everybody in it talks comical. …The tone becomes embarrassing…its all so archly empty.” Time magazine’s critic concurred, writing: “Every character, every scene, is marred by the film’s double view, which oscillates between sympathy and farce.…dialogue could have been lifted from a Batman and Robin episode.…The score makes the film …absurd and anachronistic.” Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times gave a more positive review, describing the film as “refreshing and tasty entertainment, a literate and sophisticated comedy.” The Hollywood Reporter review was also supportive, noting that “It is a great film and will be an exceptionally popular and profitable one.” As noted, several critics took Goldman to task for the contemporary, overly cool, and clever quality of the dialogue. Although he defended it by noting the picture was set in the early twentieth century, and was therefore not as far removed historically as they claimed, he also later admitted, "There's a lot [of elements] about the screenplay I don't like, the smart-assness being just one of them. I also find there are too many reversals and that the entire enterprise suffers from a case of the cutes." The lukewarm reviews depressed George Roy Hill and William Goldman, but their moods were lifted when a friend of Goldman's told him about waiting in line in the rain to buy tickets on a chilly October day. As the earlier audience filed out, one man who had just seen it shouted out, "Hey, it's really worth it!" "When I heard that story, I thought for the first time that we really might have something after all", Goldman said. Indeed, the film got great word of mouth, and audiences grew solidly and enthusiastically. The film performed very well at the box office, grossing over $15,000,000 in North America, making it the fourth highest grossing film of the year. A September 1970 Hollywood Reporter item noted that BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID was the largest grossing non-roadshow attraction in the history of Twentieth Century-Fox. William Goldman won the Academy Award for best original screenplay. He was not present at the awards ceremony. Katharine Ross accepted the award on his behalf.
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Oh no...........A great writer. I love Butch Cassidy and 'All the President's Men + No Way to treat a Lady. May he Rest In Peace. His family are in my thoughts.
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Posted: |
Nov 16, 2018 - 10:19 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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It was reported in March 1972 that William Goldman had completed a first draft screenplay for PAPILLON based on Henri Charrière's novel and was “going over” it with director Franklin J. Schaffner. In a January 1974 interview, Schaffner asserted that among the film’s many preproduction challenges was finishing the script, and that only sixty-three pages of the screenplay were completed when production began in February 1973. According to Schaffner, Goldman wrote “a very good, fairly faithful script from the book and had to go on to another picture. Lorenzo Semple refined what we wanted to do and also had another commitment. [Dalton] Trumbo came aboard when Dustin Hoffman was signed.” A 20 July 1972 Los Angeles Times news item reported that because star Steve McQueen supposedly “objected to the allusions to homosexuality (among prisoners)” in Goldman’s original script, Semple was brought in by producer Robert Dorfmann to do a rewrite. Semple denied the allegations, however, stating that he was brought in simply because Goldman had moved on to another project. In modern interviews, Goldman stated that only one line of his work remained in the completed film, and he received no onscreen credit.
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Posted: |
Nov 16, 2018 - 10:53 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In 1975, William Goldman adapted Ira Levin's 1972 novel THE STEPFORD WIVES for the screen. Producer Edgar J. Scherick offered Brian De Palma the opportunity to direct the film after he had seen his cult thriller, SISTERS (1973). When Goldman got wind of this, he threatened to quit since he did not like De Palma's work. The producers acquiesced, and British director Bryan Forbes was hired (much to his own surprise). Early on during pre-production, Scherick suggested that Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper could play "Joanna Eberhart" and "Bobbie Markowe," respectively. This was vetoed immediately by Goldman, who deemed it as a "very gimmicky publicity stunt", as both actresses were very popular at the time starring in top-rated sitcoms. The idea was dismissed before casting ever began. According to Goldman, this was the only project he was involved with that he knew was doomed even before production began. The original concept was that if men were going to murder their wives and replace them with robots, the replacements had better "be in the form of a Playboy Bunny". The concept was tossed when Bryan Forbes cast his wife Nanette Newman in the film, as per contract. Newman was "an English actress in her mid-40s. An attractive brunette and very talented, but a sex bomb she wasn't," Goldman later wrote. As a result of casting Newman, Forbes and Goldman had an ongoing feud and out went "the parade of Bunnies walking through the A&P in shorts on their perfect tanned legs" and in came the summertime wear of "long dresses to the floor and big-brimmed hats". For his part, Forbes claimed that he found Goldman very high-handed and rude, and reluctant to change anything in his script, which several previous directors had turned down. Goldman, in turn, insisted that Forbes rewrote his script extensively, mostly during shooting. Goldman was particularly incensed that Forbes rewrote his ending. Michael Small's score for the film has not had a release.
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Posted: |
Nov 17, 2018 - 12:07 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Goldman wrote for Robert Redford for the fourth time in 1976's ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. Based on the 1974 book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Goldman’s first draft of the screenplay was rejected by both director Alan J. Pakula and Robert Redford. When Redford solicited suggestions from Woodward and Bernstein, the latter submitted a screenplay co-written with his then-girlfriend Nora Ephron. Goldman was called to an impromptu meeting with Redford along with Woodward and Bernstein. By that time, Goldman's revised draft of the screenplay had been accepted, and they were waiting on hearing from Woodward and Bernstein. At the meeting, they presented Goldman with the new screenplay, written by Bernstein and Ephron. Goldman refused to read the screenplay (for legal reasons) and walked out of the meeting. Redford was not happy with Bernstein's screenplay either, and he and Pakula held all-day sessions working on the script, interviewing editors and reporters throughout. Ultimately, only one scene from that screenplay ended up in the final version of the film: a scene where Bernstein outsmarts a secretary to get in to see someone. This scene was pure fiction, it did not happen in real-life. (Woodward was allegedly unhappy with Bernstein's script as well, because it depicted Woodward as a naive novice reporter and worshiper of Bernstein's superior talent. Woodward later called Goldman to apologize for the incident, telling him, "I don't know what the six worst things I've ever done in my life are, but letting that happen, letting them write that, is one of them.") Producer Walter Coblenz only had permission to use the names of Woodward and Bernstein; there was some doubt that many other Washington Post staff members would grant permission to use their names. However, District of Columbia Editor Barry Sussman, whose unofficial title had been “Watergate editor,” took issue with being omitted from the script; Goldman had consolidated his character with that of Post local editor Harry Rosenfeld. Redford stated that the finished script would be available to all involved Post staffers, who could grant or deny permission for their real names to be used. Publisher Katherine Graham and managing editor Ben Bradlee both expressed concerns about the accuracy with which the film would portray the Post and its staff, and Bernstein remarked that he would give the finished script “a good, hard look.” Woodward, however, did not express a similar interest. In his script, Goldman had to tone down the dialogue for editor Harry Rosenfeld (played by Jack Warden). Rosenfeld, in real-life, was so hilariously funny that Goldman didn't think that people would believe someone could be so spontaneously witty. Goldman later wrote that Alan J. Pakula drove him crazy asking for re-writes for scenes, with the constant mantra "Don't deny me any riches!" Goldman went on to say that if he could have his career all over again, he wouldn't go near this film. This is a strong sentiment, given that Goldman's screenplay won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Later claims that Pakula and Redford re-wrote the screenplay have been debunked. As part of an investigation into the matter by Richard Stayton in Written By magazine, Stayton compared several drafts of the script, including the final production draft, and concluded that Goldman was properly credited as the sole writer, and that the final draft had "William Goldman's distinct signature on each page." David Shire's score for the film was released by Film Score Monthly in 2007.
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Posted: |
Nov 17, 2018 - 12:33 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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A 20 May 1974 Publishers Weekly news item announced that filming rights to William Goldman’s novel, MARATHON MAN, were sold to Paramount Pictures, with Robert Evans and Sidney Beckerman set to produce, and Goldman contracted to write the screenplay. Goldman was to receive $500,000 for the rights and his writing services, as well as “a substantial participation in the profits.” Although Goldman had written for him in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, Dustin Hoffman was not particularly a fan of Goldman's original novel for MARATHON MAN. Hoffman took the lead role so that he could work with John Schlesinger again (the two had previously collaborated on MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)). He had also heard that Al Pacino was interested in the role and wanted to beat him to it. At one point in rehearsal, Sir Laurence Olivier asked Goldman if he could change a line slightly, and called Goldman "Bill" while doing so. Goldman describes it as the high point of his career. An eight minute and thirty second sequence was shot with "Doc" (Roy Scheider) fighting some men who kill a spy colleague of his. It was later cut. William Goldman speculated that it was cut because it was violent. But he felt it was a grievous excision, one to the detriment of the movie. With the scene missing, Doc's character seems less flawed than he really is. Although William Goldman adapted the script from his own novel, Robert Towne did an uncredited re-write for the climax, which Goldman termed "shit," as he felt that it left out some important plot clarifications. On the last day of shooting, Sir Laurence Olivier visited Dustin Hoffman at his house, bringing with him "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare" as a gift. He then proceeded to read scenes from several of the plays, much to Hoffman's delight. Hoffman credits reports about his conflict with Olivier on the film to general malice on the part of William Goldman, who did not take kindly to the fact that Hoffman had persuaded John Schlesinger to change the ending of Goldman's book. Goldman received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Screenplay, losing to Paddy Chayefsky for NETWORK. Goldman also received a Writers Guild nomination, losing to himself for ALL THE PRESIDENT"S MEN. Michael Small's score for the film was released by Film Score Monthly in 2010.
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Posted: |
Nov 17, 2018 - 12:52 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Cornelius Ryan's 1974 book A BRIDGE TOO FAR gives an account of Operation Market Garden, a failed Allied attempt to break through German lines at Arnhem in the occupied Netherlands during World War II. The title of the book comes from a comment made by British Lieutenant General Frederick Browning, deputy commander of the First Allied Airborne Army, who told Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery before the operation, "I think we may be going a bridge too far." William Goldman wrote the screenplay for Richard Attenborough's 1977 film of the book. Dirk Bogarde's portrayal of General Browning was highly controversial, and several friends of the late General suggested that, had Browning still been alive in 1977, he would have sued Attenborough and Goldman for libel. Bogarde took issue with the portrayal during filming, having known Browning personally, as he was a member of Field Marshal Montgomery's staff during the war. Although Attenborough publicly took responsibility for the controversy, his relationship with Bogarde was never the same again. Sean Connery, who portrayed Maj. Gen. Roy Urquhart, initially turned the movie down, because he felt it would be glorifying a military disaster. He changed his mind after reading the screenplay. The film marked the fifth and final time that Goldman wrote for Robert Redford, who played Maj. Julian Cook in the film. John Addison's score was released on a United Artists LP, which was reissued on CD by Ryko in 1999 and Kritzerland in 2010.
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Posted: |
Nov 17, 2018 - 2:37 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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William Goldman worked with director Richard Attenborough again in his next film, the 1978 horror thriller MAGIC. A 17 March 1976 Independent Film Journal brief announced that producer Joseph E. Levine acquired the screen rights to Goldman’s novel, which was due to be published September 1976 by Delacorte Press. Reportedly, Levine paid one million dollars for the rights. Having previously collaborated with Levine on A BRIDGE TOO FAR, Goldman also signed on as screenwriter. Attenborough accepted the directing assignment because he could use it to finance GANDHI (1982). Gene Wilder was the original choice for the lead role of ventriloquist “Corky Withers,” and Attenborough and Goldman wanted him, but producer Joseph E. Levine refused, on the grounds he wanted no comedians in the movie, to distract from the serious nature of the story. Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert DeNiro were then considered for the role. British actor Anthony Hopkins was eventually cast; like Goldman and Attenborough, the actor had collaborated on A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Goldman ultimately was enthusiastic with the choice, writing in his book "Five Screenplays" (1997): "Burgess Meredith was perfect, and Tony Hopkins was so wonderful here. But running stride for stride with him was Miss Olsson. I think Ann-Margret [Olsson] is the least appreciated emotional actress anywhere." Goldman was awarded the 1979 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay from the Mystery Writers of America. Jerry Goldsmith's score was released by Varese Sarabande in 2003 and slightly expanded by La-La Land for a 2015 re-issue.
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