{"id":219,"date":"2015-10-25T16:11:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T20:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/?p=219"},"modified":"2015-11-08T10:06:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-08T15:06:33","slug":"the-screenplay-and-the-actor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/?p=219","title":{"rendered":"The Screenplay and The Actor"},"content":{"rendered":"

One regret I\u00a0have about my book The Screenplay as Literature<\/em> was that I did not give enough attention\u00a0to the contribution of the actor in the production of a film.\u00a0 We all know that the casting of a particular actor in a film can overshadow almost everything else, making it impossible to conceive of the film without him or her.\u00a0 For example, who could think of the film noir<\/em> classics The Maltese Falcon<\/em> and The Big Sleep<\/em> without Humphrey Bogart?\u00a0 Or The Godfathe<\/em>r without Marlon Brando?\u00a0\u00a0 Furthermore, the influence of the casting of a particular actor in a film can even affect the underlying\u00a0 screenplay, especially if the actor is a major star, as the two following examples illustrate.<\/p>\n

Meet Me in St. Louis<\/em> is a 1944 film musical set during the time of the1904 World\u2019s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri.\u00a0 The story of the film concerns a family living in St. Louis and the anxiety and uncertainty caused by the husband\/father\u2019s decision to move his family to New York in order to start a new job.\u00a0 The star of the film was Judy Garland, who was then 22 years old.\u00a0 At the time Judy Garland was \u201cAmerica\u2019s Sweetheart,\u201d and one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

In the film Judy was to sing a song entitled \u201cHave Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.\u201d\u00a0 The lyrics to the song began like this:<\/p>\n

Have yourself a merry little Christmas<\/p>\n

It may be your last<\/p>\n

Next year we may be living in the past<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Judy Garland was first given the lyrics to read, she protested that she could never sing them.\u00a0 She is quoted as saying, \u201cIf I sing that, little Margaret will cry and they\u2019ll (the audience) think I\u2019m a monster.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 (Margaret was Margaret O\u2019Brien, who played Judy\u2019s younger sister, to whom she was to sing the song.)<\/p>\n

The lyricist of the song, Hugh Martin, was unmoved, telling Judy that the lyrics he had written perfectly fit the screenplay, no matter how depressing they sounded.\u00a0 Finally, one of the other actors in the film said to him, \u201cDo what she asks and change the lyrics; if you do you\u2019ll have a\u00a0huge hit.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Martin did change the lyrics, which began as follows:<\/p>\n

Have yourself a merry little Christmas<\/p>\n

Let your heart be light<\/p>\n

Next year all our troubles will be out of sight<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am not familiar with the source material (a novel) for the film, so I cannot comment whether or not the changes made to suit Judy were an improvement or a detriment; but in any event the audience did not seem to mind: \u00a0Meet Me In St. Louis <\/em>turned out to be the second highest grossing film of the year.\u00a0 And as for the song in question: it has become an American standard\u2014played again and again at Christmas time.<\/p>\n

In 1976 John Wayne made a Western entitled The Shootist.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Wayne was an enormously popular actor who had appeared\u00a0mostly in Westerns for over five decades.\u00a0 In most of these films he\u00a0portrayed\u00a0 a hero, who although often violent and sometimes uncouth, was nevertheless \u201ca straight-shooter.\u201d\u00a0 In The Shootist<\/em>, Wayne deviated somewhat from his usual roles; here he\u00a0is an ex-gunfighter with an unsavory past who was dying of cancer.\u00a0 When Wayne read the screenplay for the first time, he noted to his chagrin that his character was to shoot someone in the back.\u00a0 Wayne is then alleged to have said, \u201cMister, I\u2019ve made over 250 pictures and have never shot a guy in the back.\u00a0 Change it.\u201d\u00a0 Well, the script was changed: someone was shot in the back, but not by John Wayne.\u00a0 Since I am not\u00a0conversant with the source material for the film (a novel), I cannot say that this was an improvement.\u00a0 But in any event Wayne\u2019s multitude of fans never had to witness their beloved hero shooting someone in the back.\u00a0 This turned out to be Wayne\u2019s last film; he passed away three years later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One regret I\u00a0have about my book The Screenplay as Literature was that I did not give enough attention\u00a0to the contribution of the actor in the production of a film.\u00a0 We all know that the casting of a particular actor in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[60,59],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-screenplays","tag-john-wayne","tag-judy-garland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}