Ed Lynskey wrote:
> We watched _Out of the Past_ on TCM.
> [...] The dialogue was snappy without
> sounding overly corny. Does the movie
stay
> faithful to Mainwaring's novel, _Build My
> Gallows High_?
There's a very good article about "Out of the Past" in Film
Comment which goes into some detail about the writing of the
film's script. The author is Jeff Schwanger, the title is
"The Past Rewritten (a close look at who did what on a
classic noir screenplay)," and it's located in the Jan/Feb
1991 issue.
Here's the Art Abstracts summary:
"The screenplay for director Jacques Tourneur's classic "Out
of the Past" (1947) was worked on by three different writers
before reaching its final form. Daniel Mainwaring, who wrote
the film's source nvel under the pseudonym Geoffrey Homes,
was tyhe first to complete a draft of the screenplay. His
draft sticks closely to the novel, maintaining the cliched
toughness of its tone. James M. Cain, called in to rewrite
Mainwaring's version, added several plot elements and a happy
ending, all of which were discarded. Cain's second draft
introduced the two-part structure that the film would
ultimately employ -- the first part consisting of a flashback
about the hero's past and the second part continuing in the
present. The final draft was by Frank Fenton, who contributed
most of the film's best dialogue and many key plot elements
and who rounded out the characters. Unfortunately, Fenton
received no screen credit."
Me, I'd call it a "2 and 1/2 part structure," in order to
acknowledge the film's San Francisco interlude. I'd akso talk
about the way in which the film's opening strongly resembles
the '40s, Siodmak-directed version of "The Killers." But that
abstract is an accurate representation of a highly
recommendable article.
Fenton was a regular writer for RKO's Falcon movies. He was
also involved in the writing of "Nocturne," "Station West,"
"His Kind of Woman," "Walk Softly, Stranger," "River of No
Return" (adapting Simenon), and "Garden of Evil."
Chris
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