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Papeetepatrick brought up something on the Tennessee Williams thread that I thought would make a good topic on its own.

The moviemakers are between a rock and a hard place, because what worked on stage won't necessarily work on screen even if transferred over with minimal changes. You can get away with stuff in the theater that the camera won't let pass.

Yes, and although there are many examples, one of the most glaringly obvious, which looks like a filmed version of a televised play is 'Glengarry Glen Ross', which I enjoyed despite this total absence of the cinematic. Surely because of the performances, Pacino and Lemmon especially good, but so are all the others too. Not that I know how it should have been filmed. Was this the best way for those of use who didn't see it onstage. Definitely a cut above just a televised live performance of a play.

What's an example of a play that went to the screen and seemed both like the play and also seemed like a real movie? Is 'The Importance of Being Earnest' a good example'? Maybe so, because it's so 'naturally artificial' that you need the sense of staginess even on film. I realize I've seen very little Williams onstage, maybe only 'Streetcar', with Rosemary Harris at the old Vivian Beaumont, and I preferred this to either of the film and/or TV versions I've seen (Leigh/Brando/Hunter and Ann-Margret/Treat Williams/d'Angelo, although I liked both of those as well.

I agree that the film of Glengarry Glen Ross is very good. . There's nothing necessarily wrong with a "photographed play" if it's done right. The movie version is opened up but not too much, although I thought it was a bad mistake to amplify – to create, really -- the subplot involving Shelley and his sick daughter (the movie milks it for all it's worth and then some, while the play relies much more on the power of suggestion).

The film also has a nice bonus in the speech that Mamet wrote for Alec Baldwin, whose character doesn't appear in the play. And you would never get such a powerhouse ensemble for a stage production.

I love The Importance of Being Earnest (the Anthony Asquith version; I think there's been another one since?). It's close to perfect and it has Edith Evans. Asquith did noodle with the text a bit, mostly by trimming scenes and moving them around, but not too much.

What other such adaptations did you like, or not like, and why?

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Thanks for making the new post, dirac. I'm going to see if I can think of some, this will be fun. I do now recall, when talking to kfw about finally remembering that I read 'Night of the Iguana' in high school, that I also read 'Baby Doll', but in that case it was maybe 30 years or more before I finally saw the film, and so can't make a comment on that. It was at about the same time I read 'Night of the Iguana' which I at least remember a little, but that points to how the film's images make me remember fragments of text.

Oh well, I think I love the film of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' almost better than anything, as is probably patently obvious. This one http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091262/ was an important one for TV, with names like MacCowen and Plowright, but I didn't think it was worth much.

Right now, I'm remembering that I saw the closing nght of the original 'Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' with Zoe Caldwell, and thought nothing could be more perfect of that kind. Then I saw the film, and liked it still more because Maggie Smith is equally eccentric, but it's more subtle and less stylized. But it's been too long ago for me to make comment on the play as it changed from stage to screen.

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Jean Brodie is a special case, because it's an adaptation of an adaptation - from novel to stage to film (like the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice, which isn't taken directly from Austen but from a stage adaptation).

Oh well, I think I love the film of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' almost better than anything, as is probably patently obvious

There are many things to love about it. The costumes by Beatrice Dawson are divine. (You can get fixated on all the doodads on the ladies’ hats.)

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I didn't see the play, but the film of Sam Shepard's "True West" shown on PBS looked like a play to me.

Yes, it did. Was it a real film? I wasn't sure. I thought it was more a 'filmed play' in the literal sense, unlike 'Glengarry Glen Ross', which was a real film, but little 'cinematization' was done. Dirac? There's some difference, isn't there? My impression of the 'True West', if it's the Malkovich/Sinise one, was just that they photographed the play more or less as is.

Just looked that up, you might mean the 2002 Bruce Willis/Chad Smith TV 'True West', which I didn't see.

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Sorry, Patrick, you asked

What's an example of a play that went to the screen and seemed both like the play and also seemed like a real movie?]

but I read that too quickly. I was referring to the Malkovich/Sinise performance, which had me literally (and I mean literally as in the dictionary definition, and not in its all too frequent latter day mode, as in "she literally exploded with laughter," where who knows what it means) rolling on the floor laughing. Yes that did look like a filmed play, which was my point, but not what you were asking for.

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But I wasn't asking not for that, just because I asked another different question; because I think that's part of all this. In fact, if it's a literally 'phototgraphed play', like the movies of Graham's 'App. Spring' and 'Night Journey', that's another slight difference. The 'Choreography by Balanchine' series and 'Dance in America' series might be exactly like this perf. of 'True West', in that they don't do much except angles and closeups, etc., but in both cases you are getting the exact replica, with some camera play, of what is seen onstage. So, in a sense, you have the play to judge from in one of these kinds of films or televised plays, against the changes that are always made in film--no, that's not right either, because the 50s Graham dance-films were really films but changed only what Graham herself had changed from an early 40s film in the choreography. I remember some old PBS plays of Harold Pinter and Albee (I think) and others in a series, which were also mostly a kind of 'filmed play', I think there was 'Celebration' or maybe 'The Birthday Party', and these were made to look more like film than television, whereas I think I remember our 'True West' 'looked like television'. But I think all these cases have to do with 16mm or 35mm or something someone else will know, so that you get a sensation of film in some (as in the old Graham films) and of television in others (including several on 'Martha Graham Dance Company'), but that they are still both exact replicas of their stage originals. Of course, 'Hill Street Blues' and much other TV has been filmed in 16mm, so it's by now gotten too complicated for me to keep up with. If it's literally a 'photographed play or dance', you still have the text of the original to compare with a 'real film', which always would alter, no matter the camera.

Then there are 'television musicals', of course, like 'Gypsy' with Bette Midler, which doesn't resemble the movie of that, and may be closer to the stage version than the movie was (which was very cinematized), but you can tell by the look of the Midler one that it could never be shown onscreen.

Maybe somebody has seen the Willis/Smith version and will know if it's been 'cinematized' somewhat. Actually a bit surprised that a full feature version of 'True West' hasn't been done.

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Another clip from the Williams thread:

papeetepatrick:

Hey, that's interesting, and maybe why, generally, musicals made for the screen like 'Singin' in the Rain' are usually considered by critics to be greater than adaptations of Broadway musicals. I'd like to think that it also may be why I seem to be nearly alone in thinking Kelly's 'Hello, Dolly!' is one of the very best film adaptations of a Broadway musical ever made. Most do agree that 'Call Me Madam' is as good or better than the original (also with Merman), but that's beside the point here, since it wasn't made by Kelly, and probably is a fluke. But this could explain why the Broadway musical films don't seem to have something fresh in the way that even silly baubles made directly for the screen do--this stage-time thing.

In the case of big Broadway hits such as Carousel and Oklahoma! the idea was to give movie audiences as good an approximation of the stage experience as possible. They aren't great as film, but then they weren't made with that in mind.

I didn't see the play, but the film of Sam Shepard's "True West" shown on PBS looked like a play to me.

I remember that show from years ago, which was great, and I think you're right. They didn't shoot a live performance, but basically just taped the play. It probably wouldn't work for a feature film but it was just fine for television, and Malkovich and Sinise were terrific.

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Of course, 'Hill Street Blues' and much other TV has been filmed in 16mm, so it's by now gotten too complicated for me to keep up with.

Television shows are visually more sophisticated than they've ever been (not that the shows are always better).

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In the case of big Broadway hits such as Carousel and Oklahoma! the idea was to give movie audiences as good an approximation of the stage experience as possible. They aren't great as film, but then they weren't made with that in mind.

I can't remember anything but 'Cabaret' among musicals that I saw both on Broadway and on film. I've seen most shows in either just one or the other (onstage usually because they weren't made into films, like most of Sondheim's). And while the film was much celebrated, I much preferred the stage musical, which had much more the flavour of an intimate cabaret. Michael York was the chief improvement. I'm also the only believer in Jill Haworth as Sally Bowles, but that's life.

Oh yes, a couple do come back. I did see 'Rent' in both forms, and loathed both. the movie definitely worse though. Also 'Gypsy' in revival in 2007 with Lupone, I preferred the movie even though she was great. 'Hairspray' made a better movie (though nothing special), although it was all right for an evening's entertainment at the theater, because material is mediocre to begin with, and some stars helped it out.

That's interesting info on the early R & H musicals, dirac. They do rather look like that, and are satisfying as such, at least for one viewing, because the material is good and the songs well-sung.

I haven't put any Shakespeare here, because that probably doesn't make sense. Have only seen a couple onscreen anyway.

Are there good films of 'Hedda Gabler' and 'A Doll's House'? I've seen fine productions, the Hedda in London with Maggie Smith (Olivier/Bergman) magnificent, but also good 'Doll's House' here with Claire Bloom. Also, is there a good 'School for Scandal?' I saw excellent production of that in LA in 2004. Good 'Arms and the Man' on B'way 1985 w/Kevin Kline, is there a comparable movie?

Think 'Member of the Wedding' with Julie Harris and Ethel Waters is better than the original play versions I've seen.

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I can't remember anything but 'Cabaret' among musicals that I saw both on Broadway and on film. I've seen most shows in either just one or the other (onstage usually because they weren't made into films, like most of Sondheim's). And while the film was much celebrated, I much preferred the stage musical, which had much more the flavour of an intimate cabaret. Michael York was the chief improvement. I'm also the only believer in Jill Haworth as Sally Bowles, but that's life.

I never saw Cabaret on stage, but I’m perfectly willing to accept that Haworth or just about anyone else would be a better Sally Bowles. Nothing against Minnelli, I just don’t think the character makes much sense as an American girl and Liza was too much The Star. I think Cabaret is a marvelous movie, though.

There's a Doll's House with Jane Fonda that was a feature film, but I haven't seen it. I don't recall any Arms and the Man, either, but I can understand if nobody wanted to try that. There are the three Shaw pictures made by Gabriel Pascal, Pygmalion, Major Barbara, and Caesar and Cleopatra. All of them are good and Pygmalion is not only a legitimate classic but provided the uncredited basis for My Fair Lady.

I think we have a separate thread related to Shakespeare on film somewhere. I agree, it's a subject to itself.

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Earlier, Patrick used the phrase "photographed play." The techniques which the Metropolitan Opera are developing in their HD/Live series -- a complex arrangment of mini-cameras located in various locations on the stage, with close-ups, cross-cutting, etc. -- could open the door to a new way of looking at plays. The National Theater's Phaedre, filmed on stage, was extremely effective. (We had an earlier thread on this.)

I imagine that the live-camera-on-stage technology for theater will be expanded as time goes on, as it already has been after several seasons with Met HD/Live. Do you think that this might become an alternative to the choice we now have, which is mostly one of stage play OR screen adaptation?

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There are the three Shaw pictures made by Gabriel Pascal, Pygmalion, Major Barbara, and Caesar and Cleopatra.

Yes, all of these are excellent, and I love Major Barbara, which I only saw last year. But I've never seen any of these onstage.

Do you think that this might become an alternative to the choice we now have, which is mostly one of stage play OR screen adaptation?

I would think it would, people do like these Met HD's, even though I'm unable to get interested in them personally. But there are many TV remakes of almost all the classics, some every few years, like 'Turn of the Screw', there will be as many as a dozen for some of them going back to the past and into the future.

You did remind me that, although I've never seen Phedre live, I have read it, and think the old French film from 1968 with Marie BelJ Jean Chevrier, Jacques Dacqmine, and Claude Girardl is wonderful. It is somewhat cinematic, but mostly looks like the play.

Dirac's earlier remarks about early R & H explain how South Pacific and then The Sound of Music began to expand cinematically. South Pacific is my favourite of all R & H, but the location shooting doesn't quite turn it into a great film, although I like it anyway. I can see, though, why the Sound of Music is the best film of R & H, though, it's better technically. I still like 'Mary Poppins' much better though, and I'm almost sure it's because it seems mint-new, you get something you had never even heard on a cast album. As time has gone by, I only really treasure as films a very few B'way adaptations, even when I can see they're good, as compared to the ones made directly for the screen, as 'State Fair' (not the terrible remake.) But also see that I usually woudn't go to revivals of shows I'd seen films of, 'Gypsy' is the only revival I've ever been to, I think--except ones that weren't movies like 'Apple Tree' and '110 in the Shade'. That says something about the way film sticks in some of our heads (or it might--I just don't seem to want to see them usually after I've got the film imprinted in my head.) It's like, dirac can say 'Cabaret' is a marvelous movie, and I really don't think you have to have seen stage versions to make that decision. But then I'm not nearly the purist I used to be, if I ever was (I'm much more demanding of ballet orchestras being up to the standards of the dancers, about that I can go into a rage). Quiggin seems to be more so, as with the Tennesse Williams plays/movies, and surely with good reason. I'm actually startled I've seen so much more ballet than I have theater. I did play in the orchestra of 'No, No Nanette' here when Ruby Keeler was in it, but that's not something you really can compare with the Doris Day 'Tea for Two' movie, being pretty much before the book musical. Wait, there are two old versions from 30s and maybe 1940, but I haven't seen those, I think I'll look for them, as the 'Tea for Two' was indeed just a loose adaptation of the silly but fun material.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the PBS "True West" with Malkovich/Sinise was part of a program series called "American Playhouse" which, for economic reasons, was produced by a consortium of 3-5 PBS stations--but staged/shot in either NY/LA.

RE: Play vs. Film: "American Playhouse" was neither, it was American plays 'filmed' in a tv studio for television broadcast. I also remember out of 5 plays that season, a play with Swoosie Kurtz " ('House of Blue Leaves'? I don't remember what it was) and "Morning Becomes Electra" about the same time. "American Playhouse" was the first attempt to bring theater performances to primetime US television since the heydays of live television in the '50's & '60's, and an American response to the BBC's 'filmed' classics of English lit, then so prevalent on PBS. The program was also the precurser to "Great Performances." But of course, it all went under because PBS simply didn't have the budgets to sustain it. (Especially when Republicans--eg. Nixon and Reagan--kept trying to gut PBS completely.)

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Thanks for the background information, 4mrdncr. That's what I remembered, they just taped the play in the studio. Too bad.

I imagine that the live-camera-on-stage technology for theater will be expanded as time goes on, as it already has been after several seasons with Met HD/Live. Do you think that this might become an alternative to the choice we now have, which is mostly one of stage play OR screen adaptation?
It’s certainly a new and valuable option, but speaking for myself I prefer not seeing actors who are emoting for the balconies too closely – it’s not fair to them or us, even if one as a viewer makes allowances. Putting a camera onstage doesn't necessarily enhance when everything has been staged for an audience on the other side of the proscenium arch viewing the stage picture as a whole.
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I think stage to screen adaptations are often difficult because stage pieces are designed to work within the context of live performance. Allowances need to be made for actors to make it from one scene to another, costume changes, set movement, etc. With musicals, consideration for the limits of human physical ability needs to be made, for example not having a vocal immediately follow a long dance sequence (I'm ignoring Michael Bennett and "A Chorus Line"). Many older plays and musicals have what are otherwise superfluous scenes/sequences strictly for the ability to make a scene change behind the curtain.

It takes a very good director/screenwriter/producer to be able to take that stagebound material and reimagine the cinematic possibilities. Much of what is successful about Robert Wise's adaptation of "The Sound of Music" is because Wise did not feel bound by the original material, and liberally cut, pasted and deleted whole chunks of what had been performed onstage into something that was actually a coherent movie from something that is usually considered one of the less artistically successful Rodgers and Hammerstein works.

Some pieces that I do think work very well that made the shift from stage to screen are Ernst Lubitsch's "The Merry Widow," Chuck Walter's "Good News," "Amadeus," and Branagh's "Henry V" (I'm not counting Olivier's "Henry V" mainly because of the cuts required by wartime censorship). I like these because they work exceptionally well as movies; I don't feel like I'm watching the adaptation of a play/musical when I watch them. They stand on their on own in the film medium.

As an aside, I like the clips that I have seen of Judi Dench as Sally in the original London production of "Cabaret." From the bits I have seen of her, she must have been a very fine Sally, indeed.

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Thanks for reviving this, sidwich, and for many interesting new perceptions. I think that's very good on 'The Sound of Music', you had said things about it before, but I understand what you mean more now. I'm never going to like the movie, since I don't care for the material, but I can understand better 'what the fuss was all about' now, although it's the story itself that had to appeal to so many people in a way that went way beyond even the most popular of the other R & H film adaptations.

Olivier's 'Hamlet' may seem too stagey, but I like it tremendously anyway, he's superb as an actor and a physical presence onscreen here. I had thought I followed the entire text once while watching and found a few, but not many, cuts in the text, but I may not have followed it all the way through, it's been probably 10 years since I did this. Have not seen Branagh's film.

Do like 'Good News', too, although I know nothing of it as a stage piece. I can't say I value 'Amadeus' at all, given that it's very fictional, very black-and-white in characterizations, about important historical musical figures, but I only saw the movie, so can't speak to the matter of what the transition matters might consist of.

If you hadn't revived this, I probably wouldn't even mention that old film version of 'No No Nanette' with Anna Neagle and Victor Mature. It's the strangest thing I've nearly ever seen that calls itself a musical. It has a certain charm, and Ms. Neagle is lovely, Mature very young and already very handsome, but only 'Tes for Two' is even sung once straight through, although it's a nice enough way to do it, with Tom and Nanette singing from different locations. There's a snippet of the title song just after or with the opening credits done by Ms. Neagle, and here and there they'll throw in the first line of 'I Want to Be Happy', but it is not sung straight through a single time. There's some sort of dream ballet for Ms. Neagle, and her dancing is not terribly arresting, and finally a bit of background music toward the end in which I think I picked up 'Take a Little One-Step, Two-Step', but this has almost no resemblance to the show with the big Youmans score. Even the Doris Day 'Tea for Two' is closer, although I recall little of it. Interesting, as an aside of my own, that Day did so many musicals, but only a couple from B'way, I don't know what people feel about 'Pajama Game' (she has some of her very loud-sound problems in one of the songs) and 'Jumbo', and I've never seen them onstage. I preferred her original movie musical pics like 'Calamity Jane', though.

Thanks for the info on the Dench clips, I'm going to look them up.

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The Olivier Hamlet has a number of big cuts, the most well known being the elimination of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and as I remember Oliver also omits Fortinbras arriving at the end to clean up the mess. It's probably the least well regarded of his Shakespeare films today but it looks better and better to me over the years. I wouldn't say it's stagey, rather the reverse - Olivier keeps his camera so busy roving around the castle that one wishes he'd hold still for a minute. Hamlet was never considered one of Olivier's best roles but I liked him very much.

The Branagh Hamlet goes the whole hog, four hours long, and I wanted to like it more than I did. I agree with sidwich that his Henry V is generally wonderful. It doesn't hit the peaks of Olivier's film but it doesn't have the lows, either. Branagh isn't quite up to the St. Crispin's Day speech, which Olivier hits out of the park, but he's more than good and his supporting cast is generally superior to Olivier's.

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I didn't think Amadeus worked so well as a film, the script was cleaned up with all the scatological references taken out, so that one of the aspects of Mozart's character that Salieri despised wasn't very apparent.

Another film of about that time was Dangerous Liaisons and having seen the original London cast of the play I'm inclined to say almost everyone and everything was far better in the film, particularly as the sets for the play hardly evoked the 18th century at all whereas the film benefited from those wonderful locations.

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I never got around to reading the Hampton play but I did understand that many thought like you, Mashinka, that the film was an improvement. It's a very fluid piece of filmmaking, especially for a costume drama. For some reason those tend to be on the clunky side even when they're good.

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What about O'Neill? I think the 'Long Day's Journey Into Night' is the most amazing performance I ever saw (well, one of the top 3 or 4), don't know enough to judge the transition to screen. A friend saw Vanessa do it a few years ago, said she was incredible, which I can easily believe, but I stupidly didn't even know she was doing it. Which reminds me of 'Orpheus Descnding', in which I saw her recreate her B'way role. It was just a filmed play, although I liked her better than most, but now am thinking about the old 'Fugitive Kind' when we were discussing Williams, and that comes across better than the filmed plmed play.

Back to O'Neill, like Garbo's talkie 'Anna Christie', but never saw on stage either--really wouldn't be able to judge much about it. She also did a German version, I think (don't remember whether it was silent or talkie), which is maybe the only major film of hers I haven't seen. Anybody see that? I don't much care for 'Desire Under the Elms', even without seeing it onstage, although I'd read it--can't believe Tony Perkins cast next to glorious Sophia, just something about the chemistry didn't work.

Then there are things like 'Picnic', that I find so near-perfect I don't ever want to see a stage version, even if I should.

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Totally agree about "Dangerous Liasons"; it 'opened up' and 'realized' the play, and maybe having americans play the parts made the story/characters more accessible to modern viewers, than if british actors had done it, with all those latent connotations (at least in colonial minds) of superiority-superciliousness and a 'remoteness in time, place, class'.

Though I like both play and film, the film of Amadeus has a slight edge for me because again, it 'opened the play up' with Prague's beautiful locations, and the weather, and the Tiln theater, but also for one particular scene...

I've always wondered how to demonstrate 'genius at work' on film, and have many horrible hoary bio-pics of notables of the near and ancient past as examples. But Forman's "Amadeus" did it so very simply, that I still marvel at it: Mozart composing that serene, loving, opera duet(?), at a billiards table, while a family argument is raging outside the room between his wife and father. It's not the composing that explained the genius to me, but the fact that he could do that, while rolling a ball (without looking at it), letting it ricochet from side to side, and then picking it up and continuing the motion (again without looking at the ball), while simultaneously continuing to compose. However fictionalized it was, it's a simple amazing scene, of an amazing composer.

I haven't seen that many staged musicals--though did see Cabaret in a regional production--But I've always preferred the film of Camelot to the play, because the characters aren't so childish. I was glad when R.Harris (A.J.Lerner?) changed the later revival play's script to match the film's language/characterizations and structure more, which I thought improved the play considerably. Regarding the acting, I won't comment since both play (original cast) and film have their good and bad points. The film also 'opened up the play' by going on location; mandating every prop, costume, set be created especially for the film in extreme detail, making good use of Warner's backlot and forest, and spending 5 months filming in Spain to have real castles to use ,(which except for Segovia and Coca, unfortunately got cut from the film.) So, because the language and characterizations were more natural, and the setting/locations real and beautiful, I prefer the film.

I know I will think of other examples of stage to film, or filming stage to film, but those stick in my mind for now.

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Totally agree about "Dangerous Liasons"; it 'opened up' and 'realized' the play, and maybe having americans play the parts made the story/characters more accessible to modern viewers, than if british actors had done it, with all those latent connotations (at least in colonial minds) of superiority-superciliousness and a 'remoteness in time, place, class'.

I think having an American cast did make a difference, mostly for the better, although I had some trouble accepting Swoosie Kurtz as an aristo and Malkovich's diction screams Chicago.

What about O'Neill?

One adaptation you don't hear too much about is a Mourning Becomes Electra from 1947, with Rosalind Russell and Michael Redgrave. It's an inert piece of filmmaking but you give them brownie points for trying. Worth checking out.

MGM had a go at Strange Interlude with O'Neill's interminable internal monologues done in voice over. Basically this means Norma Shearer and Clark Gable standing around making faces and twitching their eyebrows and it's pretty awful. The fault lay not in the stars, however.

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I never got around to reading the Hampton play but I did understand that many thought like you, Mashinka, that the film was an improvement. It's a very fluid piece of filmmaking, especially for a costume drama. For some reason those tend to be on the clunky side even when they're good.

I'm fond of both the stage and the filmed version, but have a very soft spot in my heart for the opening sequences of the film, where we see the Glenn Close hcaracter literally sewed into her clothing. I used to show this to dance history students when we were covering Renaissance and Baroque dance -- a generation who is used to lycra and spandex can have trouble making the connection between the upright nature of the dancing and the tight-fitting clothing that went with it.

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