EVOLUTION OF THE SCREENPLAY (A Forgotten Hollywood Essay)

by MANNY PACHECO

It seems no novel has been adapted to the motion picture screen more times than The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald's work has been filmed five times. Notable versions include a 1926 silent film starring Warner Baxter and a very young William Powell; a 1949 Golden Age motion picture with Alan Ladd and Shelly Winters; and arguably the most popular adaptation in 1974, featuring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, and Sam Waterston, with a script by Francis Ford Coppola. The most recent epic stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire. Other popular titles that have enjoyed numerous reboots include William “Wild Bill” Wellman’s A Star is Born, and most recently, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

Fitzgerald joins Ernest Hemingway as American authors of novels and short stories, whose modern tales are the reflection of times known as The Jazz Age. Before they appeared on the cultural landscape, literature of noted living scribes was not considered viable material for the stage and screen. That said, the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Victor Hugo, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London were often adapted by early screenwriters of the Silent Era. And often, science fiction translated well from the writings of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.

Influenced by the social commentary of Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway used actual history as a backdrop to their fictional stories. Gertrude Stein dubbed these survivors of World War I (The Great War) as The Lost Generation, which also included composer Cole Porter, singer Josephine Baker, dancer Isadora Duncan, and painter Pablo Picasso, among others. John Steinbeck also comes to mind as an American author who developed fiction based on the normal, if dreary, lives of real people. It was T.S. Eliot who first popularized the notion of turning modern fiction into dramatic theatre. More recently, Woody Allen paid homage to these artists of The Lost Generation in his 2012 film, Midnight in Paris.

Once Eugene O'Neill introduced into American drama the stylistic realism associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg, American theatre forever changed. Billed as an alternative to the light musical comedy revues from folks such as Florenz Ziegfeld, O'Neill's plays captured the plight of a nation by including dialogue in American vernacular (or slang). He created characters on the fringes of society, where their struggle to maintain hopes and aspirations was undermined by a slide into everyday disillusionment and despair; plots that resonated well with Depression-era audiences.

This approach of screenplay writing led to the development of Broadway actors discovered by movie moguls searching for new stars for their talkies of the 1930s. Actors such as Spencer Tracy, James Cagney, Paul Muni, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, and Humphrey Bogart emerged in realistic cinematic dramas based on the writings of Hemingway, Steinbeck, and O'Neill. Early entries that were popular among film-goers include A Farewell to Arms, Strange Interludes, and Of Mice and Men.

A gangster lingo that incorporated a sort of Brooklyn or Midtown Manhattan demi-monde was also popularized by the writings of Damon Runynon. His Runyonesque chatter remains a delight in pre-code movies like Lady for a Day. Plus, his characters had rich monikers, such as Harry the Horse, Dave the Dude, and Big Jule. Guys and Dolls and Pocketful of Miracles are the best-known theatrical and cinematic example in the use of Runyonesque.

In the 1930s, a European style of filmmaking became popular as Axis aggression swept two continents. Dubbed film noir... writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were quickly hired by the movie studios to update how gangster-films were put together. Hammett was particularly adept at this gritty nuanced style, since elements of this technique were introduced in the Thin Man series of motion pictures during the 1930s. It all came together in 1941 with the production of The Maltese Falcon. A hero with duplicitous motives, menacing dark evening streets, and a femme-fatale, made stars of Alan Ladd, John Garfield, Veronica Lake, Robert Mitchum, William Bendix, Lizabeth Scott, and others. Iconic movies, including The Glass Key, Out of the Fog, Double Indemnity, The Blue Dahlia, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and The Asphalt Jungle still play remarkably well in rich black-and-white cinematography, and starkly presented through a fascinating film noir script. An Alfred Newman music score would add appropriate tension.

Meanwhile, new adapted projects were being developed from the works of Hemingway, Steinbeck, and O'Neill. For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flat, and Mourning Becomes Electra were among the many productions receiving accolades from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences each year. And, these fine motion picture and stage productions were inspiring a new generation of authors. The writings of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller started to influence how actors studied their craft.

The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute trained actors in a technique known as The Method. This teaching style owed much to the Russian director, Stanislavsky, whose book, An Actor Prepares, dealt with the psychology of interpretation in acting. Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Eli Wallach; and early directors as Elia Kazan and Sidney Lumet embraced this realistic approach. Clift became the first major star in the industry to refuse to sign a Hollywood contract, and instead, opt to appear in independently-produced projects. Robert Redford soon followed suit, establishing what we refer to as the Indie Films Movement.

The method approach to performing was extraordinarily popular during live television of the 1950s, particularly in anthology dramas of the day. Teleplay writers emerged... Rod Serling and Paddy Chayevsky come to mind. Lee Remick, Rod Steiger, George C. Scott, Joanne Woodward, Jack Klugman, Cloris Leachman, and others, were plucked from the small screen and became cinematic stars. Requiem for a Heavyweight, Patterns, Judgment at Nuremberg, and Twelve Angry Men were adapted into successful motion picture productions. One in particular, Marty, became the first movie originated from a teleplay to win a Best Picture Oscar.

The eventual demise of the studio system can be traced by the rebellious creation of production companies by actors such as Humphrey Bogart and Burt Lancaster. Later, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel collaborated with Mike Nichols, Arthur Penn, Brian De Palma, and Martin Scorsese to usher in a post-realism that still exists in movies to this day. The cinematic ethical police known as The Hays Code, established in the 1930s, was the next casualty of this modern-day cinematic revolution. The Motion Picture Ratings were created in 1967 so that families might decide what flicks would be appropriate for children to watch.

The next time you watch an Oscar telecast, notice who the actors thank for their accolade; after their family and God, the writer is given a reverential nod. Somewhere in heaven, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Steinbeck may be smiling.

Author Manny Pacheco has enjoyed a growing acclaim through his Forgotten Hollywood Book Series, now included in the library collections of the Hollywood Heritage Museum, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Film Institute, among others. He's currently in production to turn his literary work into a Forgotten Hollywood Documentary. A Southern California television and radio personality for over three decades, Manny appeared on NBC's Santa Barbara, co-hosted the Daytime Emmy-nominated In Studio on KCOP, and currently hosts Forgotten Hollywood, a web-based podcast on the TherapyCable Channel. He is also a weekend traffic anchor on KNX 10-70 News Radio.

Website: www.forgottenhollywood.com

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