Best Screenplay 1951

1927/28 through 1997
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What were the best original and adapted screenplays of 1951?

Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, Walter Newman)
11
39%
An American in Paris (Alan Jay Lerner)
0
No votes
David and Bathsheba (Philip Dunne)
0
No votes
Go for Broke! (Robert Pirsoh)
0
No votes
The Well (Clarence Greene, Russell Rouse)
1
4%
The African Queen (James Agee, John Huston)
1
4%
Detective Story (Philip Yordan, Robert Wyler)
0
No votes
A Place in the Sun (Michael Wilson, Harry Brown)
5
18%
La Ronde (Jacques Nathanson, Max Ophuls)
8
29%
A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)
2
7%
 
Total votes: 28

Heksagon
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Re: Best Screenplay 1951

Post by Heksagon »

Original is a tough choice between Ace in the Hole and An American in Paris. The latter is definitely the better film, but the former maybe has the better screenplay, so I'm voting for it. Ace is all the more noteworthy because there are nowadays incredibly few (if any) films done in Hollywood that portray journalists as anything less that incorruptible defenders of public interest.

The remaining films are hardly deserving of a screenplay nomination. David and Bathsheba is an indifferent, although not terrible, Biblical adaptation. Go for Broke is ultimately a fairly ordinary war film although I sympathize with its subject matter. The Well tries hard, but just isn't as clever as it thinks it is.

Adapted category is perhaps one of the best line-ups ever for screenplay nominations, at least as far my opinion is concerned. It's still an easy choice with A Place in the Sun, the type of pessimistic social drama that often impresses me.

A Streetcar Named Desire would also be a worthy choice, and I also like Detective Story quite a lot. The African Queen is a splendid film, but admittedly, perhaps not so much because of its screenplay.

My least favorite film in this category is actually La ronde. It's a respectable film also, but as I've said previously, I'm not a particular admirer of episode-type films. Granted, the film has a number of good individual scenes and plenty of clever dialogue, but not enough to make up for the premise which I find to be too shallow. I don't like the Master of Ceremonies bits either, they feel too fake for me.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1951

Post by ksrymy »

Seeing as both Ace in the Hole and La Ronde are among the 25 or so greatest films ever written...
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Re: Best Screenplay 1951

Post by The Original BJ »

There are a good number of very strong movies on the Adapted roster, though I certainly think Strangers on a Train would have been a must-have nominee.

It's not like Detective Story is anything terrible, but I can pretty quickly come up with a lot of reasons not to vote for it: it's a filmed play (and in this case, it really feels like it), it doesn't have the most driving narrative line, and as others have said, the affair/abortion storyline that becomes its central spine just doesn't feel like enough to hang a movie on anymore.

The African Queen excels as both a rousing adventure, and a winning character study, and I think the heart and humor of the Bogart-Hepburn relationship elevates the movie well above that of a standard travelogue pic. But its script isn't really its standout element -- the actual plot, for instance, is a bit on the flimsy side, so even though I like the movie a lot, I'm not inclined to give it my vote.

If you've been following my posts in these threads, you can probably anticipate what I'll say about A Streetcar Named Desire. It's my favorite film on this ballot, and I do think it's the rare theatrical adaptation that feels like a movie rather than filmed theater. But that mostly has to do with Kazan, the actors, and the cinematographer -- on the page, it's mostly what Tennessee Williams crafted in his play, minus the cuts demanded by the production code (though nowadays, at least, the "restored" version is what's most commonly shown.) Great movie, but not enough screenwriting to qualify.

The question I have about La Ronde -- which unlike Streetcar, I've never read -- is whether or not it qualifies as enough screenwriting for this prize either. I understand that the Master of Ceremonies is the major addition to the film, and that's certainly an effective cinematic creation. But the film's structure, and specifically the ten vignettes and characters in them, are taken right from Schnitzler's play, and without doing a side-by-side dialogue comparison, it's hard for me to adequately gauge the contribution of the filmmakers. Even with that qualm, it would be a strong contender for my vote -- the film is full of witty, sad, and insightful duets, beautifully threaded together with great precision that nonetheless feels effortless.

But I ultimately went with A Place in the Sun, for taking a mammoth novel and distilling it to its essence for the screen. Watching the movie, you don't feel like you're seeing something that's been pared down -- the story sets up Clift's central dilemma quickly, then drives forward without delay toward its conclusion, feeling like the best of classic tragedy rather than a march to the inevitable. Is it uncool to like this movie? I know Damien hated it, but it was the favorite movie of my favorite film school teacher, and watching it in that context certainly made me appreciate it as something far more human than mere sudsy melodrama. I'd say its script is, along with Clift, the chief element of its success, and I feel no guilt about giving it my vote.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1951

Post by Big Magilla »

I've been busy with other things and haven't been able to get to this until now. I have to say that I agree completely with what Tee has said about both the original and adapted categories with the caveat that both The Browning Version and Outcast of the Islands were not released in L.A. until 1952 and Diary of a Country Priest not until 1967 so none of them were eligible. I don't know if Orpheus ever played L.A. or New York for that matter. The third film in Cocteau's trilogy, 1960's Testament of Orpheus, was released in New York in 1962 and L.A. in 1967, but there is no indication that the 1950 film ever was. IMDb. shows a U.S. release date of November 29, 1950 but the New York Times did not review it and a page by page scanning of the Times for Monday, November 30, 1951 finds no ad for it and no mention of any kind the day it would have been reviewed had it opened the day before.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1951

Post by Mister Tee »

As usual with these things, I don’t know whether foreign entries were eligible this year or some other, but Orpheus is far more interesting than most of the contenders under original. (Of course, it might be considered adapted, under the O Brother Where Art Thou? rule.)

I think, of the dozens of movies I’ve recently crammed in so as to participate in this discussion, none was quite so painful to sit through as David and Bathsheba. I have low tolerance for Biblical movies to begin with, but this stiff, dreary entry is bottom of the barrel. (Odd note about it: apparently, a Biblical source could overrule the Production Code; in any modern-day story at the time, the adulterers would have to have been punished with death or some rough equivalent.)

The only really interesting thing about Go for Broke! was finding out that the title phrase – something I’ve known all my life – actually did come into the vernacular because of the brigade portrayed in this film, and the film itself. Otherwise, it’s routine war-stuff with a hokey side order of racial consciousness-raising via Van Johnson’s character.

An American in Paris isn’t a bad musical, but I’ve never understood why it was the MGM effort to get the best picture treatment, rather than the superior ones that followed in ’52 and ’53. It’s got witty enough lines (courtesy Oscar Levant) and a modestly grown-up plot (at least, till it throws it all away for the sudden happy ending), but didn’t rate its win.

Some people here may be too young to recall, but, back in Fall 1987, there was a widely covered incident of a one-and-a-half-year-old named Jessica McClure who was trapped in an underground well. (She was rescued, to the rapture of a glued TV audience.) There’d been a similar incident dealt with early that year in Woody Allen’s Radio Days (though he was sadist enough to provide a tragic outcome), and I was later surprised to find the incident had been anticipated all these years earlier in The Well. The Well is perfectly watchable, though burdened with a heavy load of brotherhood-of-man-ism (the DVD I watched came with an endorsement from Eleanor Roosevelt). Better than many of the candidates here, but not anything you’d expect the writers’ branch to single out.

The overwhelming choice, strictly from a writing standpoint, is Ace in the Hole (was it originally listed under this title and changed to The Big Carnival, or vice versa? This title seems CLEARLY preferable.) Wilder’s gloss on the Floyd Collins story doesn’t rank with his greatest efforts, but it’s plenty fine on its own, displaying a gripping, prescient view of the oncoming media age. And it has, for me, perhaps the greatest hard-boiled line of all time (“I don’t go to church; kneeling bags my nylons”). No contest.

The adapted category turned out mostly a rematch of the best director slate. Let us note some of the terrific efforts omitted -- Strangers on a Train (my likely overall choice), The Browning Version, Outcast of the Islands, and Diary of a country Priest.

To largely repeat what I covered in the film/director thread: Sidney Kingsley wasn’t a major playwright, but, of his most famous screen adaptations, I think Dead End is far superior to Detective Story. Part of the problem is dated material – a pre-marital affair/suggestion of abortion doesn’t exactly light dramatic fires nowadays. But I think it was always a pretty ho-hum story.

The African Queen is a triumph for its two actors, but I don’t view its script as its strongest element – I have the sense Bogart/Hepburn are making more of the material than was on the page. Oh, and the deus ex machina finale always struck me as deeply silly.

A Streetcar Named Desire is of course a great play, and the film honors it (except for those Hays Office changes to the ending). But it’s as close to transcription as the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? script was, so we get to that unavoidable issue of whether much adaptation was even involved.

A Place in the Sun performs far more surgery on Dreiser’s novel, and creates a memorable social document within an almost noir structure. I know it’s uncool to like this movie all that much, but I think it really works; it competes for my vote.

But I’m going to go for the one contender not carried over from the directing list -- La Ronde, Ophuls’ elegant, rapturous transposition of Schnitzler’s play to the screen. Structurally, of course, it’s a marvel, but each individual scene is beautifully written – characters with limited screen time fully fleshed out so it’s not just a gimmick, but a deeply human story of stabs at love and connection. A wonderful film, and a script well worthy of my vote.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1951

Post by Big Magilla »

Re-posted with correct year in the title.
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Best Screenplay 1951

Post by Big Magilla »

The poll is open.
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