Academic literature on the topic 'Published screenplays'

This chapter discusses the life and work of Harry Crews. Born on June 7, 1935, in Alma, a rural town in Bacon County, Georgia, Crews described the poverty and despair of his upbringing in A Childhood: The Biography of a Place (1979). In 1968 he published his first novel, The Gospel Singer. When Crews died on March 28, 2013, he had more than twenty-five titles to his credit: novels, chapter collections, screenplays, and novellas. He published his best works between 1974 and 1979. In addition to The Gospel Singer, Crews wrote Naked in Garden Hills, This Thing Don't Lead to Heaven, Karate Is a Thing of the Spirit, Car, The Hawk Is Dying, and The Gypsy's Curse.

Published in 1946, Frank Yerby’s The Foxes of Harrow sold over 500,000 copies within its first two months; the novel’s sales numbers led to a film adaptation by Twentieth Century Fox the following year. Directed by John M. Stahl with a screenplay by Wanda Tuchock, the film eliminates most of the subversive elements found within Yerby’s text that seek to counter the glorification of a mythologized Old South that never truly existed. The removal of these aspects only serves to maintain the image of a glorified, idyll, and nostalgic South that the adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1939) epitomizes on screen. Ultimately, the movie falls short of serving as a major touchstone in cinematic history on the representation of African Americans on screen. Instead, it perpetuates, while also challenging in some ways, the continued view of African Americans in subservient roles to white masters.

In February 1971, while her studio-seized debut feature A New Leaf was being readied its premiere, Elaine May took a job-for-hire – adapting Lois Gould's newly published, fictionalized semi-memoir Such Good Friends for director Otto Preminger. Her work on the film was pseudonymously ascribed to Esther Dale, in keeping with May's general policy of not taking credit for projects for which she lacked authorial control, and has tended to be regarded as little more than a footnote in her career. Yet Such Good Friends is characterized by themes and styles which typify May's oeuvre: betrayal of a partner; the conflict between the roles we play and our ‘true’ selves; abrupt, seemingly spontaneous, tonal shifts; a particularly intellectual, highly verbal brand of New York Jewish humour counterpointed by vulgar farce; the spectre of impending death. Further, the film shows us that, even when working as intermediary between Gould and Preminger, May's outlook remains thoroughly existentialist. This philosophy, popularized by Jean-Paul Sartre, is not merely reflected in the content of her work but also shapes her entire approach to creative endeavours. Indeed, it's fascinating to see how May's inherent spontaneity, manifested as an inescapable subjectivity, merges with Preminger's highly- controlled, deliberately composed objectivity.