"Stalag 17" (1953), the riveting drama of a German prisoner-of-war camp, was adapted from the Broadway play directed by Jose Ferrer in 1951. Billy Wilder developed the play and made the film version more interesting in every way. Edwin Blum, a veteran screenwriter and friend of Wilder's, collaborated on the screenplay but found working with Wilder an agonizing experience.
Wilder's mordant humor and misanthropy percolate throughout this bitter story of egoism, class conflict, and betrayal. As in a well-constructed murder mystery, the incriminating evidence points to the wrong man. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction enriches the reading of "Stalag 17" by including comparisons with the Broadway production and the reasons for Wilder's changes.

A major release from Initial films for Channel Four starring Stephen Rea and Richard Harris. Award-winning writer Billy Roche and director Gillies Mackinnon create a strange compelling world on the edge of society Eddie is a small-town hawker who dreams of a business of his own. Treated as little more than an errand boy by his employer John Power, the godfather of the local traveller community, his modest ambitions seem far beyond his grasp until Power becomes obsessed with a young traveller girl, Kathleen. On the night of their wedding Kathleen elopes with Power's nephew, Dermot, and GBP11,000 in dowry money. Eddy aids their escape and finds himself inextricably embroiled in the violent consequences..."A feisty flavourful script from Billy Roche...Trojan Eddie will please audiences still in search of old-fashioned storytelling values" Screen International

Based on the Novel and with an Introduction by James Ellroy

L.A. Confidential

Now a Major Motion Picture from Warner Bros.

Los Angeles in the early '50s. A booming city anxious to shed its small-town skin. A city being touted as the metropolis of the future, L.A. is practically paradise on earth. That's the image. The reality is something different. From its fabulous mansions to its sizzling nightclubs, it's a city of corruption, double-dealing, and dangerous passions. A horrific mass murder shatters the simmering facade as three cops, each with his own private agenda for solving the case, are inextricably linked in a dangerously tightening spiral where justice and truth may cost them everything.

Based on James Ellroy's epic masterpiece, this screenplay of L.A. Confidential is being published to coincide with the release of the Warner Bros. film starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger, and Danny DeVito.

L.A. Confidential has the critics raving!

"A flawless ensemble cast and style to burn ... boiled down beautifully from James Ellroy's labyrinthine novel."

-Janet Maslin, New York Times

"An electrifying thriller ... L.A. Confidential brings the rancid thrill of corruption cracklingly alive."

-Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

"Jazzy, stylish, smashing film noir ... with a surprise in every scene."

-Rex Reed, New York Observer

"Expertly written ... rich and clever ... one of the best films of the year."

-Jeffrey Wells, L.A. Times Syndicate

"Terrific entertainment, as funny as it is nasty .... This may be the best noir storytelling since Chinatown."

-David Thomson, Esquire

"An irresistible treat, with enough narrative twists and memorable characters for a half-dozen films .... L.A. Confidentialis an almost overwhelming reminder of the pleasures of deeply involving narratives in the old Hollywood sense."

-Todd McCarthy, Daily Variety

Winner of the 1996 BAFTA for Best Single Drama Jane Austen's classic novel is the story of Anne Elliot. Engaged eight years previously to a young navel officer, Frederick Wentworth, she allowed herself to be persuaded by a trusted family friend that the young man she loved wasn't an adequate match, and that she had better prospects. The scene opens some seven years after Anne has refused the love of her life when Frederick Wentworth returns from the sea, in search of a wife. Nick Dear's critically acclaimed screen play was first screened on BBC2 in April 1995 and was subsequently released worldwide as a feature film.

Premiering at the Bush theatre in 1993, "Beautiful Thing" was released as a feature film by Channel Four films in 1996 directed by Hettie Macdonald and featuring Meera Syal.

The story explores pre-teenage homo-erotic sensuality, and the frictions and intimacies of living cheek by jowl on a Thamesmead housing estate.

Set during the early 1950s, this story of love and linguini, purity and compromise--soon to be a major motion picture from MGM--takes a poignant and pointed look at Old World vs. New World values and provides a rueful assessment of the American Dream. In a New Jersey town, two Italian immigrant brothers stuggle to keep their restaurant afloat. Includes recipes.

The hilarious, Academy Award-nominated screenplay that features six old friends, three disastrous receptions, a tongue-tied priest, and the role that made Hugh Grant the world's favorite bumbling bachelor.

Toasted by romantics and cynics, critics and fans, Four Weddings and a Funeral grossed more than $250 million worldwide, garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and was unanimously pronounced the romantic comedy of the 90s.

Richard Curtis's smart, irreverent, and brilliantly crafted screenplay will delight fans of the movie, as well as screenwriters and film students. From the first spoken line (see page 7) to the last ("I do"), it's a jubilant celebration of friendship, romance, and good humor.

Two Jeanette Winterson film scripts. Set in the 1950s, Great Moments in Aviation features a young black woman with a passion for aeroplanes. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, an award-winning television drama, is an adaptation of the author's novel of the same name.

Six independent African American filmmakers, including Charles Burnett, director of the film To Sleep with Anger, are represented in this collection by screenplays produced from 1973 to 1989. They speak in their own voice, a black voice which has resisted the cultural dominance of Hollywood. Phyllis Rauch Klotman introduces each screenplay provides a biographical sketch of the filmmaker, and lists the casts and production credits for each film: Ganja and Hess, Killer of Sheep, Losing Ground, Illusions, A Different Image, and Sidewalk Stories.

Natural Born Killers is a disturbing and brilliant indictment of violence in the media and American celebrity culture. Mickey and Mallory Knox, outlaw lovers on the run, go on a killing spree of startling viciousness -- and find themselves transformed into cult celebrities by the tabloid media. The film, directed by Oliver Stone, departed significantly from Tarantino's original screenplay, so much so that Tarantino removed his name from the screenplay credits. Now available in America for the first time, the original screenplay offers fans and film buffs of all stripes the opportunity to compare Tarantino's original vision with Stone's version of the story of Mickey and Mallory.

This film is the essence of thirties screwball comedy. It is also quintessential Howard Hawks, treating many of the director's favourite themes, particularly the loving war between the sexes. Criticized by some reviewers when it was released for its dependence on a prepostorous plot employing comic cliches and stereotypes, few recognized it as a potential classic. The introduction of this book gives the production history of the film. It also provides a biographical sketch of Hawk's career. The original story by Hagar Wilde, on which the film is based, is reprinted as well. Also included are an interview with Hawks by Joseph McBride, reviews, essays by Stanley Cavell, Peter Wollen and Gerald Mast and a filmography.

THE must-have book for every Monty Python fan is now in paperback! Monty Python's Flying Circus: Complete and Annotated... All the Bits includes every script from every episode of the innovative, hilarious, and absurd series--one of the most influential of all time--plus hundreds of annotations, behind-the-scenes stories, profiles, and more, as well as photographs, drawings, and Terry Gilliam's iconic artwork. Monty Python's Flying Circus is one of the most popular, important and oft-quoted comedy series of all time. This landmark work collects the complete scripts for every one of the 45 episodes of Flying Circus: every silly setup, every clever conceit, every snide insult, and ever saucy aside from these classic skits, including "The Ministry of Silly Walks," "The Dead Parrot," "Banter in the Cheese Shop," "Spam, the Funniest Joke in the World," "The Spanish Inquisition," "The Argument Clinic," "The Fish-Slapping Dance," "The Lumberjack Song," and all the rest. Every script is thoroughly annotated with notes that cover the plethora of cultural, historical, and topical references touched upon in each sketch. Sidebars and commentary throughout include profiles of the principles -- Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, and John Cleese -- and interviews with the cast and crew; fascinating facts about technical concerns, set design, and shooting locations; insider stores from on and off the set, including arguments, accidents, and practical jokes; goofs and gaffes; and much more. Also included are thousands of stills and artwork from the shows.

In a field being transformed by technology, Syd  Field shows you what works and why and how to find  new ways to create a truly outstanding film using  four extraordinary examples: Thelma &  Louise, Terminator 2: Judgement  Day, The Silence Of The  Lambs, and Dances With  Wolves.

"The Pleasures of Structure "starts from the premise that the ability to develop a well understood and articulated story structure is the most important skill a screenwriter can develop. For example, good structure requires a great premise and rigorous character development. Without clear character motivations and goals--which are themselves indicative of key structural beats--your story is going exactly nowhere. Using the simple and flexible 'W' model of screenplay structure developed in the prequel "Write What You Don't Know," Hoxter sets this out as its starting point. This model is tested against a range of examples which are chosen to explore the flexibility not only of that model but of movie storytelling more generally. Writers and students often worry that they are asked to work 'to formula'. This book will test that formula to breaking point. For example, the first case study will offer the example of a well written, professional, mainstream movie against which our later and more adventurous examples can be compared. So the lessons we learn examining the animated family adventure movie "How To Train Your Dragon "lead us directly to ask questions of our second case study, the acclaimed Swedish vampire movie "Lat den Ratte Komma In "("Let The Right One In"). Both movies have protagonists with the same basic problem, the same goal, and they use the same basic structure to tell their stories. Of course they are very different films and they work on their audiences in very different ways. Our linked case studies will expose how simple choices, like reversing the order of elements of the protagonist's transformational arc and shifting ownership of key story beats, has an enormous impact on how we respond to a structural model that is otherwise functionally identical.

*THE SIDE-SPLITTING NEW COMIC SHORT FROM ONE OF BRITAIN'S BEST-LOVED WRITERS, NOW A MAJOR BBC TV SERIES* ______________________________ 'It is as honest and multi-faceted an examination and appreciation of marriage as you could hope to find' The Guardian on Hornby's script adaptation Each week, Tom and Louise meet for a quick drink in the pub before they go to meet their marriage counsellor. Married for years and with two children, a recent incident has exposed the fault lines in their relationship in a way that Tom, for one, does not wish to think about. In the ten minutes in the pub they talk about the agenda for the session, what they talked about last week, what they will definitely not talk about with the counsellor, and how much better off they are than the couple whose counselling slot immediately precedes their own. Over the ten weeks that follow Tom and Louise begin to wonder: what if marriage is like a computer? When you take it apart to see how it works you might just be left with a million pieces you can't put back together . . .

Wolf Mankowitz was a high-profile and pugnacious participant in the cultural life of 1950s and 1960s London and a prolific writer throughout his life. This is a biography of his life which reveals a writer from the Jewish East End with the confidence and ability to exercise his talents in many fields.

In 1997, a BAFTA award-winning British film about six out of work Sheffield steelworkers with nothing to lose took the world by storm. And now they're back, live on stage, only for them, it really has to be The Full Monty. Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar-winning writer of the film, has now gone back to Sheffield where it all started to rediscover the men, the women, the heartache and the hilarity of a city on the dole. The Full Monty was the winner of the UK Theatre Best Touring Production award 2013.

John Cleese's special introductions to each episode are included in this collection of all 12 TV soundtrack episodes. Welcome to Fawlty Towers, where attentive hotelier Basil Fawlty and his charming wife Sybil will attend to your every need - in your worst nightmare. With hapless waiter Manuel and long-suffering waitress Polly on hand to help, anything could happen during your stay - and probably will. Every episode of both TV series is included in this soundtrack collection: A Touch of Class; The Builders; The Wedding Party; The Hotel Inspectors; Gourmet Night; The Germans; Communication Problems; The Psychiatrist; Waldorf Salad; The Kipper and the Corpse; The Anniversary; Basil the Rat. Co-starring with John Cleese as Basil are Prunella Scales (Sybil), Andrew Sachs (Manuel), Connie Booth (Polly) with a supporting cast including Ballard Berkeley, Bernard Cribbins, Joan Sanderson, Geoffrey Palmer, Nicky Henson and Ken Campbell. Also included are special introductions to each episode by John Cleese.

Off the Page examines the business and craft of screenwriting in the era of media convergence. Bernardi and Hoxter use the recent history of screenwriting labor coupled with close analysis of the screenwriting para-industry-from "how to write a winning script" books to screenwriting software-to explore the state of screenwriting throughout the US media industries. They address the conglomerate studios making tentpole movies, expanded television, Indiewood, independent animation, microbudget scripting, the video games industry, and online content creation. This book is designed to be used by students and writers who want to understand what studios want and why they want it, but also how scripting is developing in the convergent media, beneath and beyond the Hollywood tent-pole. By addressing specific genres old and new, across a wide range of media, this essential volume sets the standard for anyone in the expanded screenwriting industry and the scholars that study it.

"Sunset Boulevard" (1950) is one of the most famous films in the history of Hollywood, and perhaps no film better represents Hollywood's vision of itself. Billy Wilder collaborated on the screenplay with the very able Charles Brackett, and with D. M. Marshman Jr., who later joined the team. Together they created a film both allusive and literate, with Hollywood's worst excesses and neuroses laid out for all to see. After viewing "Sunset Boulevard" Louis B. Mayer exclaimed: "We should throw this Wilder out of town " The "New York Times," however, gave the movie a rave review, praising "that rare blend of pungent writing, expert acting, masterly direction, and unobtrusively artistic photography." The film was nominated for Best Picture, and Wilder won an Academy Award for Best Story and Best Screenplay.
This facsimile edition of "Sunset Boulevard" makes it possible to get as much pleasure from reading the highly intelligent screenplay as from seeing the film. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction provides an intriguing array of background details about Wilder, the film's casting and production, and the lives of those connected to what has become a classic.

Memories of Underdevelopment was the first great international success of Cuban cinema. The film provides a complex portrait of Sergio, a disaffected bourgeois intellectual who remains in Havana after the Revolution, suspended between two worlds. He can no longer accept the values of his family's reactionary past and yet boredom and the conditioning of his early life prevent him from committing himself to the new revolutionary society. Sergio's story is played out in the turbulent period of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 missile crisis, events he can only watch on his television screen or from his apartment balcony. The film, initially banned by the U.S. government as part of its trade quarantine of Cuba, was shown here five years after its original release. But American critics responded enthusiastically to it and the National Society of Film Critics bestowed an award on its director. This double volume includes the complete continuity script of Memories, as well as the complete novel, Inconsolable Memories, upon which the film is based. An interview with Alea is reproduced here, as well as documentation of the political controversy that surrounded the film in this country. Michael Chanan's introduction places the film in the context of Cuban political and cultural history. The volume also includes a biographical sketch of Alea, a chronology of the Cuban Revolution, reviews, commentary, a filmography, and a bibliography. Michael Chanan lives in England, where he teaches and writes on film. He is the author of The Cuban Image: Cinema and Cultural Politics in Cuba.

Frances Marion was Hollywood's highest paid screenwriter--male or female--for almost three decades, wrote almost 200 produced films and won Academy Awards for writing "The Big House" and "The Champ". Here author Cari Beauchamp masterfully combines biography with social and cultural history to examine the lives of Frances Marion and her many female colleagues who shaped film making from 1912 throughout the 1940s. 62 photos.

One spring morning, a quiet, shy man in his sixties sets out from Land's End to walk the length of his native land. He has never walked more than a dozen miles in his life before, his health is uncertain, his boots are new, and he is too diffident to talk to anyone he meets along the way.

His slow, solitary progress up the spine of Britain is watched by an unseen audience--his family and friends at home. How far will he get before he is forced to give up? Is he being heroic or merely selfish?

As the days of his absence go by, the old alliances and quarrels inside the family shift and alter. What emerges is a story about the arbitrariness of human endeavor, the tenacious complexity of human relationships, one man's glimpse of the country he lives in, courage, and love.

"One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds."--"The Times"

"First and Last" was directed by Alan Dossor in a production for BBC television with Joss Ackland as the walker.

"The Marriage of Maria Braun" is the fourth volume in the Rutgers Films in Print Series and the most contemporary of those to appear in it thus far. Because of the enormous influence of New German Cinema and the importance of Fassbinder himself, the film is already considered a classic. "Maria Braun" is its director's attempt to recount and assess postwar German history through the personal example of his main character, played brilliantly by Hanna Schygulla. It is also a tribute to the Hollywood directors of the women's movies of the thirties and forties. Maria, and in the loose allegory Fassbinder has constructed, Germany itself, in their cold acquisitiveness and materialism, melodramatically rise from the ashes of World War II only to veer toward an inevitable doom that takes the film full circle, recalling the film's opening shots of a city reduced to rubble.

This volume contains the editor's introduction, a chronology of the the years 1943-1954, a biographical sketch of Fassbinder, the full transcript of the film as released, notes on the shooting script, interviews with the scriptwriter and director, commentary on Douglas Sirk by Fassbinder, reviews, commentaries by Thomas Elsaesser and Sheila Johnston, a filmography, and a bibliography.