Re: RARA-AVIS: on Hollywood ethnic cleansing

From: Steve Singleton ( singleton2003@comcast.net)
Date: 19 Jan 2007


The 1946 adaptation of Cain's THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE changed Nick's ethnicity from Greek (Papadakis) to Canadian (Smith), allegedly to obtain better box office numbers in Greece.

davividavid wrote:

>Just finished Martin Goldsmith's _Detour_. Along with expunging the Sue Harvey/Hollywood
>sub-plot, all of the sex, Haskell's weed habit, and some of the ambiguity about the second
>crime, Goldsmith & Ulmer interestingly decided to remove from the novel the main
>character's Jewishness. Al Roberts in the film was Alex Roth in the novel, stage name for
>Rothenberg. It reminded me of Nick Charles losing his Greek name, Charalambides, in the
>Thin Man films, and got me to wondering how many other characters have lost their ethnicity
>in the transfer from page to screen in noir adaptations.
>
>
>
>RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Jan 2007 EST