| re: The Elephant Man movie vs. the play (and TV adaptation) | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 04:48 am EDT 09/04/18 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 04:36 am EDT 09/04/18 | |
| In reply to: The Elephant Man movie vs. the play (and TV adaptation) - bobby2 03:02 am EDT 09/04/18 | |
|
|
|
| Bernard Pomerance's play ''The Elephant Man'' opened on Broadway on April 19, 1979. David Lynch's movie ''The Elephant Man,'' with a screenplay by Christopher DeVore, Eric Bergren and Lynch, opened Oct. 8, 1980. Both tell the story of John Merrick, a terribly deformed man who was rescued from a sideshow and became a darling of London society. Because the play and the movie are based on Dr. Frederick Treves' account of Merrick, there are similarities in both versions, such as the inclusion of Mrs. Kendal, a London stage actress (he may or may not have met). The biggest differences are that the play was more poetic and metaphorical in depicting Merrick. Philip Anglim was an attractive young man who contorted his athletic body to suggest the grotesqueness of Merrick's misshapenness. In Lynch's black-and-white movie, however, John Hurt wore remarkably realistic makeup, supervised by Christopher Tucker, which was directly designed based on casts of Merrick's body. Reports say it took seven to eight hours to apply the makeup to Hurt and another two hours to remove it. Both versions would be celebrated: On Broadway, it got 7 Tony nominations and won 3 of them, including Best Play. In Hollywood, it got 8 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. And both Anglim and Hurt were nominated for their performances. (Oddly, the Oscars didn't single out Tucker's movie makeup.) So was it a coincidence that there were two properties about John Merrick within a year or so? Depends on who you ask. According to a 1979 People magazine interview with Anglim: ''The Elephant Man'' might never have been staged in the U.S. if it were not for Anglim. In the fall of 1977, after hearing about the London opening of the play, Anglim plunged his savings on a cheapie Freddie Laker ticket and flew over. He saw the drama twice, called playwright Bernard Pomerance’s agent and, posing as a theatrical scout, returned to New York with a script. There he “hounded” producer Richmond Crinkley into staging the play. Anglim’s persistence paid off.'' ''The Elephant Man'' changed Anglim's life. He had been rejected by three drama schools, and until this play, had been making ends meet by walking dogs, doing office work and driving a buggy in Central Park. Playing Merrick led to a Drama Desk and Obie, plus a Tony nomination, and the TV movie brought him an Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. In 2014, when Bradley Cooper revived ''The Elephant Man,'' the N.Y. Post's Michael Riedel interviewed Nelle Nugent, who with Elizabeth McCann and Crinkley, put on the original production, which cost $350,000. Riedel writes: ''The return on that $350,000 investment was something like 500 percent. The only thing missing was a movie sale. Mel Brooks shrewdly realized that Merrick’s life was in the public domain, so he produced the 1980 movie without having to write a big check to the producers of the Broadway play.'' The producers sued Brooksfilms over using the same title. Lynch, for his part, says: ''I never heard of 'The Elephant Man' until I saw the script.'' But he added: ''When I put myself in [the Broadway producers'] position, you can't blame them for being upset.'' However, as the Washington Post reported at the time: ''Titles, per se, cannot be copyrighted. The lawsuit was settled with Brooksfilms' agreement to disavow, in its announcement and advertising, any link to the play. Nugent says: “You’ll see in the opening credits that it says, ‘Not based on the play.’ And that’s all I’m going to say about that.” I once had the honor of interviewing Anglim when he brought ''The Elephant Man'' to A.C.T. in San Francisco, his hometown, in 1980. Apparently, he's left showbiz. Nugent says: ''I think he's raising horses in Kentucky.'' But he sure left his mark with ''The Elephant Man.'' |
|
| Link | ''The Elephant Man'' (1982), starring Philip Anglim |
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | The Elephant Man movie vs. the play (and TV adaptation) - bobby2 03:02 am EDT 09/04/18 |
| Next: | re: The Elephant Man movie vs. the play (and TV adaptation) - den 08:50 pm EDT 09/04/18 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.013808 seconds.