Behind the Screenplay (e-book) (used book) | Saskia Block | bookbook.eu

Description

This book is made up of letters that document what went on behind the scenes in writing the screenplay of the 1944 Warner Bros. film, The Adventures of Mark Twain. The main correspondents are New York playwright and author Harold M. Sherman, Mark Twain Estate attorney Charles T. Lark, the film's producer Jesse L. Lasky, and Mark Twain's daughter Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch. In 1936 Sherman wrote a stage play titled "Mark Twain" and submitted it to the Mark Twain Estate, who granted him exclusive dramatic rights for a limited period. Gabrilowitsch generally approved of the play, and after meeting Sherman and his wife, Martha, discovered they shared a mutual interest in spirituality. A close friendship developed between the three. Sherman soon sold "Mark Twain" to Broadway producer, Harry Moses, but when Moses died suddenly the rights reverted to Sherman. By 1940, unable to find another Broadway producer, Sherman agreed to sell the play to Hollywood. Later that year, pioneer filmmaker Jesse Lasky, by then an independent interested mainly in making films about great Americans, chose Mark Twain for his next subject. In his deal with the Mark Twain Estate for the movie rights to Twain's life story, Lasky was obliged to buy Sherman's play. Lasky and Sherman then signed an option agreement hiring Sherman to write the preliminary treatment for shopping the proposed film around to major studios. The letters begin with this option agreement and go on to detail the unfolding relationships among the four main correspondents. They describe how Lasky dealt with the ambitious but inexperienced Sherman; how Sherman had to swallow his pride when Lasky replaced him with big-name Hollywood writers; how the Sherman-Gabrilowitsch friendship disintegrated as Clara's dissatisfaction with the contracts and the final script led her to file suit against the trustees of her own estate; and how Lasky and his wife Bessie formed a personal relationship with Harold and Martha Sherman, while maintaining a professional distance.