Options (Re: [UA] The Screenplay (was Re: [UA] Dream)

[stuartanderson at uswest.net]

John Nephew wrote:

> >     I'm not saying I want to buy an option right now (actually, I'm
> looking
> > forward to being able to buy myself dinner again sometime soon), but what
> do
> > you think the cost would be?
>
> Well...I wouldn't actually suggest a cost unless I was speaking to someone
> who was definitely interested and able to make a deal.  And then it would
> depend on a number of factors.  The first option deal I signed, I was
> willing to settle for a very small dollar amount, mainly because the whole
> process of negotiating it and getting all the details involved was a big
> educational experience that I wanted to go through.  Understanding the
> reality that most options expire unused, and most projects go nowhere, I
> would be more inclined to simply ask for a bigger chunk of money to make it
> worth my time to negotiate the deal -- and to brush off people who don't
> really have the resources to do anything with it.  But who knows?

I think we're about sixty years too late to make a worthwhile UA movie.
Here's what the movie guide entry would look like:

Clash by Night
1941, written and directed by John Huston.
Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre.
*****
    A surprisingly obscure film from the company of Casablanca and The Maltese
Falcon. Bogie plays Dirk Allen, a down on his luck, hard drinking screenwriter.
He's approached by Daphne Lee (Astor) who claims she's being hounded by the
family of a missing actress. She wants him to use his contacts in Hollywood to
help her find a reel of film she feels will vindicate her. At her heels is
Greenstreet as industrialist Alex Abel, also pursuing the film, but claiming Lee
is not what she appears. Much of the story happens in flashback, leading up to
the disappearance of the actress, played with eerie aplomb by a Bette Davis
lookalike whose name we unfortunately will never know, since her credit on the
original negative is damaged and no other records of her have ever been located.

    The special effects are inspired for the time, showing a young John Garfield
as a hash slinging fry cook who can evidently conjure visions in grease and a
dreamlike scene where Bogie walks through a burning building, actually on fire,
yet emerging unhurt. Perhaps the reason for this film's comparative lack of
receptance was it's racy subtext, with intimations that the missing reel of film
is pornographic, and Lorre's bizarre, compellingly androgynous performance as a
character known only as The Freak. Evidently, the film was banned in England and
the Netherlands as too sexually oriented for the time. Definitely worth the
rental, if you can find it. A French version with English subtitles pops up
occasionally under the title Darkling Plain. Five stars simply for the offhand
reference to The Maltese Falcon: Bogie, setting fire to the presumably missing
reel of film is asked what's on it. "That? The stuff nightmares are made of."
--Stu.



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