As the new year moves forward and we say goodbye to the old, we find ourselves looking at our "Best of" lists. So this week's Friday Film Adaptation post will feature my favorites of 2017. Click on the titles to take you to the original posts.
Summary:
The story chronicles the trials and tribulations of Newton Fuller who craves and gets "a little place in the country to call his own." Newton and his wife, Annabell, and their daughter, Madge, are hypnotized into taking over one of those windowless, waterless, almost roofless houses that dot the countryside. The ensuing troubles may be summed up by a search for water, a quarrel with a neighbor who owns not only the brook but the very road that leads from the highway to the house, the attempted elopement of the daughter with a summer-theatre actor, and the usual invasion of the weekend guests, including a prodigal uncle who is assumed to be rich but turns out to be just another bankrupt. It is discovered that the neighbor really doesn't own Newton's roadway, and that Newton's wife, who began by showing disgust over her husband's idiocy in wanting to live in the country, decides that he was right all along.
Film
A pair of New Yorkers face culture shock when they buy a dilapidated country house.
Release Date: November 28, 1942 Release Time: 93 minutes
Cast: Jack Benny as Bill Fuller Ann Sheridan as Connie Fuller Charles Coburn as Uncle Stanley J. Menninger Percy Kilbride as Mr. Kimber Hattie McDaniel as Hester William Tracy as Steve Eldridge Joyce Reynolds as Madge Lee Patrick as Rena Leslie Charles Dingle as Mr. Prescott John Emery as Clayton Evans Douglas Croft as Raymond Harvey Stephens as Jeff Douglas
Awards: 1942 Academy Awards Best Black and White Art Direction -
Max Parker, Mark-Lee Kirk, Casey Roberts - Nominated
Trailer
Clips
Author Bios:
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and director of plays and musical theater. Hart recalled his youth, early career and rise to fame in his autobiography, Act One, adapted to film in 1963, with George Hamilton portraying Hart.
Hart grew up at 74 East 105th Street in Manhattan, "a neighborhood not of carriages and hansom cabs, but of dray wagons, pushcarts, and immigrants" (Bach 1). Early on he had a strong relationship with his Aunt Kate, whom he later lost contact with because of a falling out between her and his parents, and her weakening mental state. She got him interested in the theater and took him to see performances often. Hart even went so far as to create an "alternate ending" to her life in his book Act One. He writes that she died while he was working on out-of-town tryouts for The Beloved Bandit. Later, Kate became quite eccentric, vandalizing Hart's home, writing threatening letters and setting fires backstage during rehearsals for Jubilee. But his relationship with Kate was life-forming. He understood that the theater made possible "the art of being somebody else… not a scrawny boy with bad teeth, a funny name… and a mother who was a distant drudge." (Bach 13).
After working several years as a director of amateur theatrical groups and an entertainment director at summer resorts, he scored his first Broadway hit with Once In A Lifetime (1930), a farce about the arrival of the sound era in Hollywood. The play was written in collaboration with Broadway veteran George S. Kaufman, who regularly wrote with others, notably Marc Connelly and Edna Ferber. (Kaufman also performed in the play's original Broadway cast in the role of a frustrated playwright hired by Hollywood.) During the next decade, Kaufman and Hart teamed on a string of successes, including You Can't Take It With You (1936) and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939). Though Kaufman had hits with others, Hart is generally conceded to be his most important collaborator.
George S Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic.
Kaufman was known as "The Great Collaborator" because he wrote very few plays alone.
Summary:
The Man Who Came to Dinner...and stayed and stayed and stayed! Sheridan Whiteside, the man who came to dinner, throws out insults with a voluminous precision volley. Maggie Cutler, his secretary, is described by Whiteside as an aging debutante supporting her two-headed brother.
Hailed by critics as one of the funniest plays to ever hit Broadway, The Man Who Came to Dinner is, according to Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times "A portrait done out of relish for the bountiful mischief and sharp tongue..." and a hilarious parody and caricature of the famous wit, Alexander Woollcott.
Film
An acerbic critic wreaks havoc when a hip injury forces him to move in with a midwestern family.
Release Date: January 1, 1942 Release Time: 112 minutes
Cast: Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside Bette Davis as Maggie Cutler Ann Sheridan as Lorraine Sheldon Richard Travis as Bertram H. Jefferson Jimmy Durante as Banjo Grant Mitchell as Ernest W. Stanley Billie Burke as Daisy Stanley Reginald Gardiner as Beverly Carlton Elisabeth Fraser as June Stanley George Barbier as Dr. E. Bradley Mary Wickes as Nurse Preen Russell Arms as Richard Stanley Ruth Vivian as Harriet Stanley Nanette Vallon as Cosette
Trailer
Clips
Author Bios:
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and director of plays and musical theater. Hart recalled his youth, early career and rise to fame in his autobiography, Act One, adapted to film in 1963, with George Hamilton portraying Hart.
Hart grew up at 74 East 105th Street in Manhattan, "a neighborhood not of carriages and hansom cabs, but of dray wagons, pushcarts, and immigrants" (Bach 1). Early on he had a strong relationship with his Aunt Kate, whom he later lost contact with because of a falling out between her and his parents, and her weakening mental state. She got him interested in the theater and took him to see performances often. Hart even went so far as to create an "alternate ending" to her life in his book Act One. He writes that she died while he was working on out-of-town tryouts for The Beloved Bandit. Later, Kate became quite eccentric, vandalizing Hart's home, writing threatening letters and setting fires backstage during rehearsals for Jubilee. But his relationship with Kate was life-forming. He understood that the theater made possible "the art of being somebody else… not a scrawny boy with bad teeth, a funny name… and a mother who was a distant drudge." (Bach 13).
After working several years as a director of amateur theatrical groups and an entertainment director at summer resorts, he scored his first Broadway hit with Once In A Lifetime (1930), a farce about the arrival of the sound era in Hollywood. The play was written in collaboration with Broadway veteran George S. Kaufman, who regularly wrote with others, notably Marc Connelly and Edna Ferber. (Kaufman also performed in the play's original Broadway cast in the role of a frustrated playwright hired by Hollywood.) During the next decade, Kaufman and Hart teamed on a string of successes, including You Can't Take It With You (1936) and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939). Though Kaufman had hits with others, Hart is generally conceded to be his most important collaborator.
George S Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic.
Kaufman was known as "The Great Collaborator" because he wrote very few plays alone.
