Novels, Movies, and Murder RAY E

■ Editors’ Page Novels, Movies, and Murder RAY E. BOOMHOWER NOVELISTS HAVE ENJOYED A LONG, AND OFTEN ACRIMONIOUS, Taylor. Clift is George Eastman, who RELATIONSHIP WITH HOLLYWOOD FILMMAKERS, WHO OFTEN works in his rich uncle’s business, impreg nates a working-class girl played by Shelley TURN TO THE BEST-SELLER LISTS AS SOURCE MATERIAL FOR Winters, and then falls in love with Angela THEIR CELLULOID VISIONS. Vickers, a rich debutante played by Taylor. The film received nine Academy Award The results are sometimes magical. producers, with the proviso that Liveright nominations, with George Stevens win Mark Harris’s lyrical baseball novel Bang would receive a substantial commission if ning an Oscar as Best Director and writers the Drum Slowly lost little of its wit and he succeeded. Harry Brown and Michael Wilson also power in the 1973 film of the same name After returning from a trip to Califor winning for Best Screenplay. starring a then unknown actor, Robert De nia, Dreiser lunched with Liveright. The Dreiser’s novel continues to inspire Niro, as doomed catcher Bruce Pearson. publisher had good news for his author— other artists. In December 2005 composer More often than not, however, the movie he had been able to sell the movie rights Tobias Picker premiered his adaptation of version fails to live up to the sweep and to the book for the hefty sum of $85,000. the novel—an opera—at the Metropolitan grandeur of a full-scale novel. Perhaps Dreiser could not believe his luck and Opera in New York. All of this artistic cre Ernest Hemingway had the best advice began to plan on how he might spend ativity, however, began life as a sordid tale for novelists when he suggested that a his windfall. His calculations were upset, of murder that made national headlines as writer should deal with Hollywood by however, when Liveright reminded him of “the crime of the century” as Gillette was arranging to meet any film producer at the commission the author had agreed to put on trial for Brown’s death. What drew the California state line. “You throw them give the publisher. According to Bennett Dreiser to base his novel on this famous your book,” said Hemingway, “they throw Cerf, later longtime publisher of Random crime, and the research he conducted for you the money. Then you jump into your House, an irate Dreiser seized a cup of his book, is examined in this issue of Traces car and drive like hell back the way you hot coffee, threw it in Liveright’s face, and by Tammy S. Ayer, who shares Dreiser’s came.” stalked out of the restaurant. With coffee fascination with the murder case and his There are some writers, however, who still dripping off his face, Liveright turned old profession of journalism. believe their works are so complex or to Cerf and said: “Bennett, let this be a This issue o f Traces welcomes a new challenging that Hollywood would never lesson to you. Every author is a son of feature, the addition o f the IHS publication come knocking at their door. This proved a bitch.” Black History News and Notes, which w ill to be the case with Theodore Dreiser and Although pleased with the money he be a regular part o f the magazine in the his 1925 novel An American Tragedy, a received from Hollywood, Dreiser became issues to come. The form erly quarterly fictionalized account of the 1906 murder irate with the liberties taken with his book newsletter is a part o f the IHS William of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette at Big by Paramount for its 1931 film version, Henry Smith Memorial Library’s Black Moose Lake in the Adirondacks in upstate directed by Josef von Sternberg. Dreiser’s History Program, founded in 1979 to New York. Dreiser’s publisher, Horace novel received far better treatment years collect historical records and personal papers Liveright, was able to convince Dreiser later in the 1951 film A Place in the Sun, that describe all aspects o f Indiana’s African to allow him to pitch the book to movie starring Montgomery Cliff and Elizabeth American experience. Opposite: Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor in a scene from Paramount’s 1951 movie A Place in the Sun, an adaptation o f Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy. George Stevens won the Academy Award as best director for his work on the film. TRACES | Summer 2007 | 3.

Load more