At 23:22 25-07-02 -0400, William Denton wrote:
>DAVID GOODIS SCREENPLAYS
>The IMDB is the best place to check this sort of
thing, and they list 12
>movies under his name, 11 adaptations of his books
and two he wrote: THE
>UNFAITHFUL (1947) and THE BURGLAR (1957) from his own
book. He didn't
>write the screenplay for DARK PASSAGE (1947) but
there is that picture of
>him standing with Bogey and Bacall. He wrote an
episode for the Alfred
>Hitchcock show, too, "An Out for Oscar." I don't know
anything more about
>that.
>William Denton
Goodis in Hollywood is somewhat complicated (but did ever
something simple happened in Dreamland Inc. for writers... or
any other collaborator). The picture rights of the novel DARK
PASSAGE were sold (25000$!) to Jerry Wald (WB) rather quickly
(early 1946) and after this David Goodis wanted to be under
contract with the studio for his future output for films, but
keeping a right to his own production (novels). He signed a
contract (1946) for 6 years wherein he had to work for the
studio 6 months per year in Hollywood (and of course his
output during that period will fully belong to the studio)
the other 6 months of the year he was relieved from his
contractual obligations. Of course they tried to "get" him
and Goodis also tried borderline tricks, like publishing the
novel OF MISSING PERSON, in fact taken from "treatments" he
did for Warner, the film project being canceled. I will not
go in every detail, but Goodis was fed up after about 2 years
of the contract and the studio finally agreed to cancel it-
however some clues seem to show that he continued to work on
and off for Hollywood until 1950.
PHOTO WITH BOGART AND BACALL this photo was dormant in the
Warner archives, as it was made for the promotion of DARK
PASSAGE (the picture), but the publicity dept finally refused
to use it at the time.
SCREENPLAYS by Goodis THE UNFAITHFUL (1947) - the film was a
huge success (co-scripted by James Gunn who apparently never
collaborated with Goodis) THE BURGLAR (1957) - his script was
written in Philadelphia for Paul Wendkos, and based on his
novel with the same title (1953) Note:The French remake in
1971, LE CASSE, based on THE BURGLAR was with a script by
Henri Verneuil
OTHER WORKS FOR SCRIPTS IN HOLLYWOOD
-script for UP TILL NOW - canceled just before the shooting
started(1947)
-treatment for THE PERSIAN CAT (1947)- immediately
canceled
-long treatment for WITHIN THESE GATES(end 1947)- transferred
to Borden Chase and later canceled
-treatments for OF MISSING PERSONS (1948)- later transformed
into a novel
DARK PASSAGE: there's a declaration by Goodis saying he
didn't write the adaptation of his novel for the film, and
also that he thought it was a good thing an author does not
do adaptations of his own novels. Apparently Delmer Dave and
Jerry Wald used Goodis informally just to check with him some
parts of the novel, to get his advice...etc when Goodis was
for his first semester in Hollywood.
Most of the above was retrieved in the biography done by
PHILIPPE GARNIER, but I think there's still no English
translation available. Garnier's book is more a search for
and interviews of the surviving witnesses of Goodis' life and
career, than a literary biography. As very little was known
about Goodis' life it remains a first reference. Title: "La
vie en noir et blanc" (literally: The life in black and
white)-Editions du Seuil, 1984 - republished as a paperback
in 1991 by 10/18,Christian Bourgois Editeur.
About Goodis in Hollywood, there is also a short documentary
made for French TV, that was part of the invaluable series by
Claude Ventura:
"Cinema, cinema":
"Loin de Philadelphie" (Far away from Philadelphia)- 1982
that could still be available through the published national
archives of French film documents.
As we know all, in the early fifties Goodis switched all of
his output for novels to PBOs, starting with Gold Metal,
CASSIDY'S GIRL (1951) being the first one, IIRC. More than 1
million copies of CASSIDY'S GIRL were sold, and the rest of
his PBOs were all rather successful at the time.
E.Borgers Hard-boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
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