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'50s Horror and Sci-Fi
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IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
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Re: IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
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Ted Newsom
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Aug 9 10 6:55 PM
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delgadosaur: Bradbury didn't aim brickbats at Harry Essex. In fact, they remained friends, and worked together on something 25 or 30 years later, a play or something. Essex was not part of the IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE brew until after Bradbury was finished. Clearly, his derogatory comments are therefore not aimed at Essex, but someone upstream. Since William Alland was the only person he was dealing with, that would be him.
In deference to Essex, he DID write the script, Bradbury's pontifications not withstanding. Nearly every screenplay is written from some form of other material: a book, a short story, prose poem, painting, song title... whatever. It's the screenwriter's job to pick and choose what works, what doesn't, what will make a practical movie scene or bit of dialogue, what needs to be trimmed or expanded, and create a practical blueprint which can be read and understood by everyone involved. Essex was given Bradbury's detailed 111 page screen treatment, and within it were chunks of dialogue that-- with judicious trimming-- became screenplay dialogue. The characters and their attributes were all there, as was the description of the location.
It's the screenwriter's choices of what to keep-- and what not to keep-- that make a screenplay work or not. John Huston, for instance, did the obvious thing on THE MALTESE FALCON none of the previous adapters had done in the two prior film versions-- kept most of the story and a great deal of Hammet's dialogue verbatim.
It helps (sometimes) to have a detailed story like Bradbury's. And often the screenwriter will retype good stuff verbatim from the previous work. Same thing happened with David Koepp's first draft of Spider-Man. A lot of specific description and dialogue was lifted word for word from the James Cameron "scriptment"-- not because Koepp was a poor writer, but because that's the job he was hired to do.
There were also amorphous descriptions which would give designers, prop makers and make-up artists fits. If you're writing a novel, or a description for radio, it's all well and good to describe an alien creature as an angel-hair-covered bloblike bat-rat-spider-crab with gossamer arms and a liquid eyeball, Lovecraftian and indescribable, etc., etc. However, a screenplay is a practical means to an end, not a stand-alone work of art. Things need to be explicit rather than poetic.
A good example is in Bill Warren's KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES in the chapter on ANGRY RED PLANET. The big blob creature which attacks and engulfs the rocket is described as an amoeba with an eye revolving in its membrane. Not bad, pretty icky. Except the prop makers read it and literalized it, so this thing had an eye on it that revolved around like the turret of a tank.
Last Edited By:
Ted Newsom
Aug 9 10 7:03 PM. Edited 2 times.
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Welcome to the CHFB
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CHFB TURNS 20!
Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards
Universal Horrors
The Universal Monsters Blu-Ray Collection
Golden Age Horror
Kong - 8th Wonder of the World
Silent Horror
Poverty Row
The World of Sherlock Holmes
Murder and Mystery
Thrills and Chills
'50s Horror and Sci-Fi
'60s Horror and Sci-Fi
'70s Horror and Sci-Fi
Hammer Horror
The Psycho Ward
Foreign Horror
Japanese Giants
Horror and Sci-Fi of Recent Decades
Current Films
Second Takes on Films of the 2000s
Independent Films and Documentaries
Coming Soon
TV Terrors
Classic Horror on DVD, Blu-Ray and Streaming
Stream and Stream Again
Horror Film Books and Magazines
Horror by Candlelight
Horror Comics and Fantasy Art
Monster Toys and Collectibles
Classic Horror Movie Memorabilia
Horror Music
Old Time Radio and Audio Horror
Classic Horror Online
CHFB Member Reviews
Our Favorite Horror Hosts
Classic Disney Scares
Horror Film Stars
Men Behind the Monsters
Monster Kid Memories
General Horror and Sci-Fi
Horror Tech
Movie of the Day
Off Topic Discussions
Classic Horror News and Events
Birthdays and Holidays
DVR / TiVo Alert
Final Farewells
Classic Horror Polls
Classic Horror Classifieds
Monster Kids Helping Monster Kids
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