8/11/23
Newsletter #424
The Crack of Dawn
I was talking with my producer friend Dan yesterday and he told me about being a guest speaker at a writing class at Wayne State University. During the Q&A a young lady asked, “Do you believe it’s true that one ought to write what they know?” Dan immediately replied, “Yes, but first you have to know something.”
A great playwright and screenwriter from the 1950s and ‘60s, who is now mostly forgotten, is William Inge. Back in the 1950s, William Inge was always included in the top five playwrights, along with Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neil, by anyone who knew anything. Given my druthers, I’ll take William Inge over all of them.
I was probably about 14 when I first saw Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) with Burt Lancaster and Shirley Booth, and was reduced to tears, which certainly didn’t happen to me very often. And I thought, “Who wrote this?” But regarding that movie, I’m really glad I saw it when I was that young because I totally bought Burt Lancaster being an old, broken-down drunk. It’s only looking back that makes it so clear that he was severely miscast. The part is for a man in his 60s, and Lancaster is about 35 and couldn’t be in better condition. But Shirley Booth is perfect and won an Oscar for her part.
William Inge’s play, then movie, Bus Stop (1956), may very well be Marilyn Monroe’s best performance in a movie. It’s the movie where pretty much everyone said, “Oh, she really can act.” Well, a major reason for that is she finally got a good part (although, I think she had already showed that she could act in Don’t Bother to Knock [1952], where she plays the original psychotic babysitter, except that nobody saw that movie).
A movie that’s always haunted me is Picnic (1955) with William Holden and Kim Novak, based on William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play (that’s a lot of Ps). For years if I was between writing projects and tried to put my mind into neutral, Picnic would appear with my brain chanting, “Write something like that.”
A penniless drifter (William Holden) arrives in a small Kansas town just as it’s having its annual summer Picnic celebration. It turns out that this is Holden’s hometown, and he hasn’t been back since he left years ago. His old buddy (Cliff Robertson in his movie debut) is about to marry the prettiest girl in town (Kim Novak, who is as good as she ever was in movies). There’s an immediate chemistry between Holden and Novak that’s electric. We really want to see these two together. Inge created a wonderful connection between them – they’re both extremely attractive, have never appreciated it, and neither one is very bright. After the picnic, Holden and Novak have a slow dance all by themselves that’s just great.
But William Inge is probably best remembered for his Oscar-winning original screenplay for Elia Kazan’s Splendor in the Grass (1961), with Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty (in his movie debut). It’s a brilliant story of repression. It’s mid- to late-1920s America, and all these two attractive young people want to do is have sex, except they can’t. Society won’t allow it, their families won’t allow it, and ultimately their programming won’t allow it. Finally, Natalie Wood completely freaks out naked in the bathtub, which is an amazing scene. It’s strong material, and so clearly motivated right from the beginning.
However, if William Inge is largely, and sadly, forgotten, his most-forgotten play and movie have to be, Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), with Robert Preston, Dorothy McGuire and Eve Arden. Getting back to the concept of write what you know, William Inge almost always wrote about growing up in the Midwest. Dark at the Top of the Stairs is the story of his early youth in the early 1920s, and his father (Robert Preston) is a bombastic buggy whip salesman. Time has passed him by, and he can’t except it. The young William Inge character is about 12, has very few lines and simply sits there and watches all of these adults work themselves up over just about everything. At some point the little boy says to Eve Arden, “Do you want to see my movie stars?” She says absently says yes, and he returns with a thick notebook. He opens it, then slowly goes through it, and it’s 8x10 photos of all the big movie stars of that time, like Rudolf Valentino, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. None of the adults could care less. Meanwhile, it’s a terrific part for Robert Preston.
William Inge wrote about what he knew, which was life in the Midwest. He also knew how to be a human being, and what it was like to suffer, which allowed him to set up clear, simple motivations. Shirley Booth just can’t except that her dog, Sheba, is gone. Every morning when she gets up, she goes to the door and calls for her little Sheba, but Sheba never comes back.
William Inge was a well-respected, Pulitzer- and Oscar-winning writer, who finally got an associate producer credit on Splendor in the Grass. However, he was a severe alcoholic and committed suicide at the age of 60.
I may not write as well as William Inge, but I outlived the son of a bitch.
Aye, ‘tis the dawn.
I just found PICNIC on Television and wish I had caught it all. Back in my watch list.