#guy trosper

[gregorygalloway]

Birdman of Alcatraz was released on 3 July 1962.

Guy Trosper’s screenplay was loosely based on Thomas E. Gaddis‘s 1955 biography of Robert Stroud,

Charles Crichton began directing the film, but was replaced with John Frankenheimer after disagreements with Burt Lancaster (Frankenheimer stated that he had little creative input in the film, since most production choices had been made by the time he was hired).

Gaddis was originally cast to play himself in the film, but Edmond O’Brien took over the part before filming began.

Birdman of Alcatraz was nominated for 4 Academy Awards: Best Actor (Lancaster), Best Supporting Actor (Telly Savalas), Best Supporting Actress (Thelma Ritter), and Best Black-and-White Cinematography (Burnett Guffey). It did not receive an Oscar.

[directorsnarrative]

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold • Director Martin Ritt

[sesiondemadrugada]

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Martin Ritt, 1965).

[gregorygalloway]

Marlon Brando’s one and only directorial effort, One-Eyed Jacks, premiered in New York City on 30 March 1961.

Producer Frank P. Rosenberg rejected Rod Serling’s adaptation of Charles Neider’s 1956 novel The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, and hired Sam Peckinpah to do a re-write. Brando’s production company purchased the rights to the novel and hired Stanley Kubrick to direct, who convinced Brando that Peckinpah’s script was no good, and Calder Willingham was hired (Willingham had worked with Kubrick on Paths of Glory and Spartacus). Veteran screenwriter Guy Trosper replaced Willingham, and the final script has little of Neider’s novel in it (All of the screenwriters claimed credit for the film at one point or another; co-star Karl Malden stated that there was only one writer responsible: Marlon Brando).

Kubrick backed out of the project 2 weeks before filming began. Brando volunteered to take over for Kubrick.

The film -- scheduled for three months and budgeted under $2 million -- took 6 months and cost $6 million. Brando started with almost 8 hours of film; his first rough cut was more than 4 hours, and the print he handed to the studio was more than 3. The studio asked for more cuts and Brando refused, which led to either Brando being fired or Brando quitting, with the final edit of the film being 141 minutes.

While receiving mixed reviews, and an Oscar nomination for cinematographer Charles Lang, the film was a failure at the box office.

[gregorygalloway]

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was released in the US on 16 December 1965.

Paul Dehn (who had been an assassin in the British espionage in WWII) and Guy Trosper adapted John Le Carré's 1963 best-selling novel for the screen, and Martin Ritt (who had served in the US Army Air Force during WWII) directed. Richard Burton was not the first choice for the lead role, and he and Ritt had many disagreements during filming.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was a commercial and critical success, named one of the best movies of the year, and was nominated for 2 Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Burton.

[movie-titlecards]

Eyes in the Night (1942)

My rating: 6/10

Fairly amusing, though it does tend to fall into that old trope of treating the protagonist's disability as a superpower and the black character is... not great. Still, for the 40s? Very good fun, and Friday is an exceedingly good dog.

[movie-titlecards]

Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)

My rating: 6/10

By all accounts, this is a wildly inaccurate portrayal of this guy - apparently he was a right nasty bastard - but damn if it ain't a compelling narrative.