…and, then, that script is usually summarily ruined by a bunch of suits who think they know better than the guy who actually wrote it.
Fortunately, that doesn’t happen all the time, as the Writer’s Guild of America has proven with their selections of the “101 Greatest Screenplays.” Topping the list is “Casablanca,” and rounding it out is “Notorious,” the Alfred Hitchcock film. Somewhere in-between, you’ll find three Charlie Kaufman films…quite an accomplishment, given how recent all those films are…as well as some John Huston, some Woody Allen, and even my boy, Cameron Crowe, for “Jerry Maguire.” (I’d rather have seen “Almost Famous,” but what can you do?) It’s a bit premature, I think, to include “Sideways,” given how many thousands of movies could’ve made it into that spot, and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” showing up all the way at #24 seems pretty damned high, even if it WAS a really good movie. Still, there’s a lot of good stuff in there…
But, for the record, it says a hell of a lot about Hollywood…and speaks to the accuracy of my opening line…that, in the 1980s, the script to “Casablanca” was sent to readers at a number of major studios and production companies under its original title, “Everybody Comes To Rick’s.” Some readers recognized the script but most did not, and of those who didn’t, many complained that the script was “not good enough” to make a decent movie.
And, yet, they greenlighted “Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow.”
Funny old world…
