WGA 101 Best Screenplays (Now Discussing: No. 1 "Casablanca")

Heard a joke that this movie was popular in Hollywood because it's so full of egomaniac second-raters.

I certainly concur with that! Hollywood is the ego capital of the world.

 

They all sympathetized with Salieri.

Casting story: the role of Salieri was offered to Walter Matthau (!) He wanted to play Mozart. (!!)

 

Walter Matthau as SALIERI? My God. He's a fine actor but a TERRIBLE choice for that role.

 

Thelma and Louise by Callie Khouri

Haven't seen it

 

i remember liking it but i can't remember all that much about it.

i think feminists were raving about it the inevitablity of the ending and all that.

 

It's become such an icon that most people have forgotten that it's actually a great film. The characters are all realistic and sympathetic; even our heroines ex-lovers, even Davis' utterly boorish husband, get moments to be real and human. And the part of Harvey Kietel's ever pursuing cop is so brilliantly written . . .

 

Haven't seen it, and from your description, should obviously do so.

 

I always thought it was a great film. And one more feather in Ridley Scott's cap.
To think he did Alien, Thelma and Louise and Gladiator! Talk about range!

I think Khouri's script was pitch perfect and the casting of Sarandon and Davis
was too. They seemed to be on the same frequency with the material.

 

Lion in the Winter by James Goldman

Seems like an off key choice, but it shows that these lists can chose movies that aren't only two or three years old

 

Love Lion in Winter. The Screenplay is essentially the play on screen and retains much of the biting humor between the cast. It take genius to make this script work and Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn do it wonderfully.

 

Oh, God. I use this screenplay as an example of What Not To Do. Loaded with anachronisms and really clunking lines: "What shall be hang? The holly or each other?"

Each other.

 

If done correctly, this play just makes you feel uncomfortable. The point is the game that the two play with each other until they really begin to hurt each other.

It's more about the weaving of the dialogue than the dialogue itself. Hepburn won the Oscar for it.

 

It's more about the weaving of the dialogue than the dialogue itself.

I definitely agree. It may be awkward, but the way they pull it off is impressive. An example of the words becoming more than just words: they embody the tension, plot, relationships, and atmosphere. Perhaps if anything 'Lion in Winter' relies too heavily on the dialogue, which could get tiring. I enjoyed it, though.

 

Go check out the Patrick Stewart/Glen Close TV movie. Its too bad that it wasn't picked up as a major film project. If it had, Patrck Stewart would have almost certainly won an Oscar. His performance is unbelievable.

 

I've seen it and HATE it, probably because Glenn Close is Horribly miscast as Eleanor. Couldn't get through half of it.

 

No she's not. I've seen both versions and the Stewart/Close version is excellent.

 

I never got the feeling she was being crafty as Eleanor, she just stays on the screen for two hours and is Gleen Close. Eleanor needs to be crafty, she has a plan for this whole thing at the beginning and then just improvises her way through it as it changes. It's Henry who is making it up as he goes along and clearly enjoying it. The second Close got on screen I thought, "My God, she's Batty!" and it never got any better.

 

THE AFRICAN QUEEN
Screenplay by James Agee and John Huston. Based on the novel by C.S. Forester

Haven't seen it

 

I've read the novella, and the script follows it quite closely, except Charlie is a cockney, and since Bogart couldn't manage that, they rewrote him as a Canadian. They added more humour. The script is reprinted in the two volume "Agee on Film", but as in "The Night of the Hunter" there is some question of how much Agee wrote, since he was chronic alcoholic.

Apparently, Hepburn had trouble with Rose, until Huston told her to play her like Eleanor Roosevelt. That worked. It's a great script.

 

The dialogue is great; it's a bit long.

 

69. DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975)

Screenplay by Frank Pierson. Based on a magazine article by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore.

A great screenplay, enlivened by terrific performances.

 

68. "Star Wars" (1977) written by George Lucas.

This is a very curious inclusion. Lucas is nobody's idea of a good scriptwriter. He developed the story, and was smart enough to start it in the middle to preserve the major plot twist. But his idea of dialogue is pretty lame. When his story sense meets a couple of good scriptwriters, as in ESB, karma results. When it doesn't, as in the PT, the movies are very uneven. Lucas' talents are for action, and for the *look* of a fantasy world; he doesn't deal with emotions well.

 

This one has surprisingly good dialogue, with a few clunkers thrown in.

 

Star Wars? Never heard of it.

 

67. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL

Written by Melissa Mathison

This is indeed a very good screenplay, balancing angst and humour and action.

She also wrote "The Black Stallion" (1979).