Lonelyhearts | |
---|---|
Directed by | Vincent J. Donehue |
Written by | Dore Schary |
Based on | |
Produced by | Dore Schary |
Starring | Montgomery Clift Robert Ryan Myrna Loy Dolores Hart Maureen Stapleton |
Cinematography | John Alton |
Edited by | John Faure Aaron Stell |
Music by | Conrad Salinger |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 100 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Lonelyhearts, also known as Miss Lonelyhearts, is a 1958 American drama film directed by Vincent J. Donehue. It is based on the 1957 Broadway play by Howard Teichmann, which in turn is based on the 1933 novel Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West.
The film stars Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Jackie Coogan, Dolores Hart, and Maureen Stapleton in her first film role. Stapleton was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Fay Doyle.
The story opens on a small-town street. A man throws a bundle of papers onto the sidewalk from the back of a truck labeled Chronicle. Adam White is sitting in a bar when a woman offers him a drink. He refuses, explaining that alcohol seems to be poisonous to him. After talking with her for a while, he learns she is married to William Shrike, editor-in-chief of the Chronicle, where Adam is hoping to work. The editor shows up to meet his wife only to find her talking with Adam. When Shrike asks how Adam found him, Adam explains: "I heard there was a bar where newspaper people hang out. I came here since it is the closest to the Chronicle, the only paper in town". Florence Shrike says Adam can write, and he deserves the chance to prove it. Shrike retorts: "OK, so write!" Adam hems and haws momentarily, but then delivers the following story: "The Chronicle is pleased to announce the addition of a new member to our staff. He met the editor in chief, who went so far as to insult his own wife in an effort to provoke the new staff member. Instead of punching the editor in the face, he accepted a position on the paper."
Adam tells his girlfriend Justy about his new job. He doesn't tell her about his father, a man named Lassiter, who is doing 25 years in prison for having murdered Adam's mother and her lover. On his first day at the newspaper, Adam is astounded at being assigned the "Miss Lonelyhearts" advice-to-the-lovelorn column. One of his colleagues, reporter Ned Gates, is disappointed, having wanted that column for himself, and another, Frank Goldsmith, openly mocks the readers who seek the column's advice.
After a few weeks, Shrike refuses a request by Adam to give him a different assignment. He also insists that Adam personally contact the letter writers to substantiate their stories. Adam randomly selects a letter from a Fay Doyle and meets her. She relates how her husband Pat came home from the war crippled and impotent. As they share a lonely moment, Adam and Fay are briefly thrown together sexually. When he declines meeting her a second time, she is furious.
Adam decides to leave the newspaper for good. Justy's father offers her a trust endowment to get their new life under way. At a party in the bar, Pat Doyle turns up with a gun. Adam manages to talk him out of using it. He leaves, whereupon Shrike decides to give some flowers to his own neglected wife.
The film was Dore Schary's first film as an independent producer after leaving MGM. [1]
Nathanael West's 1933 novel, on which this film was based, was adapted for the screen in 1933 as Advice to the Lovelorn starring Lee Tracy. It was made by Twentieth Century Pictures, distributed by United Artists, and directed by Alfred L. Werker from a screenplay by Leonard Praskins. The 1933 film was more of a comedy-drama than this version.[ citation needed ]
Howard Teichmann adapted the novel into a stage play titled Miss Lonelyhearts, which opened on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre on October 3, 1957. The production, directed by Alan Schneider and designed by Jo Mielziner, ran for twelve performances. [2]
The Thin Man is a 1934 American pre-Code comedy-mystery film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. The film stars William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a leisure-class couple who enjoy copious drinking and flirtatious banter. Nick is a retired private detective who left his very successful career when he married Nora, a wealthy heiress accustomed to high society. Their wire-haired fox terrier Asta was played by canine actor Skippy. In 1997, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Test Pilot is a 1938 American drama film directed by Victor Fleming, starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy, and featuring Lionel Barrymore. The Oscar-nominated film tells the story of a daredevil test pilot (Gable), his wife (Loy), and his best friend (Tracy).
Myrna Loy was an American film, television and stage actress. As a performer, she was known for her ability to adapt to her screen partner's acting style.
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American actor. A four-time Academy Award nominee, he was known for his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men", according to The New York Times.
Isadore "Dore" Schary was an American playwright, director, and producer for the stage and a prolific screenwriter and producer of motion pictures. He directed one feature film, Act One, the film biography of his friend, playwright and theatre director Moss Hart. He became head of production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and replaced Louis B. Mayer as president of the studio in 1951.
Miss Lonelyhearts is a novella by Nathanael West. He began writing it early in 1930 and completed the manuscript in November 1932. Published in 1933, it is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression. It is about a male newspaper advice columnist who provides advice to lonesome people. He becomes so affected by their desperate letters that he spirals into depression, drinking, and ill-considered sexual affairs, which lead to his downfall.
Vanity Fair is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Chester M. Franklin and starring Myrna Loy, Conway Tearle and Anthony Bushell. The film is modernized adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 novel of the same name with the original Regency-era story reset in Twentieth Century Britain. Three years later Thackeray's novel was adapted again as Becky Sharp, the first three-strip technicolor film.
Richard Thorpe was an American film director best known for his long career at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Twentieth Century Pictures, Inc. was an American independent Hollywood motion picture production company created in 1933 by Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck from Warner Bros., and co-founded by William Goetz from Fox Studios, and Raymond Griffith. The company product was distributed theatrically under United Artists (UA), and leased space at Samuel Goldwyn Studios.
Vincent Julian Donehue was an American director noted mainly for his theater work, with occasional film and television credits.
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The Shrike is a 1955 American film noir drama film based on Joseph Kramm's play of the same name. José Ferrer directed and starred in Ketti Frings' screenplay adaptation.
When Ladies Meet is a 1933 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Harry Beaumont and starring Ann Harding, Myrna Loy, Robert Montgomery, Alice Brady, and Frank Morgan. The film is the first adaptation of the 1932 Rachel Crothers play of the same name. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons.
Raintree County is a 1957 American epic historical romance western film adapted from the 1948 novel of the same name by Ross Lockridge Jr. The film was directed by Edward Dmytryk and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Set in the American South against the backdrop of the Antebellum South and the American Civil War, the film tells the story of a small-town Midwestern teacher and poet named John Shawnessy, who meets and marries a beautiful Southern belle named Susanna Drake; however, her emotional instability leads to the destruction of their marriage. The leading roles are played by Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, Nigel Patrick and Lee Marvin.
George Caryl Sims, better known by his pen names Paul Cain and Peter Ruric, was an American pulp fiction author and screenwriter. He is best known for his novel Fast One, which is considered to be a landmark of the pulp fiction genre and was called the "high point in the ultra hard-boiled manner" by Raymond Chandler. Lee Server, author of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers, called Fast One "a cold-hearted, machine-gun-paced masterwork" and his other writings "gemlike, stoic and merciless vignettes that seemed to come direct from the bootlegging front lines."
Contempo, A Review of Books and Personalities was a "literary and social commentary" published by Milton A. Abernethy and Anthony Buttitta at Chapel Hill, North Carolina from 1931 to 1934. Though less well-known than some of its contemporaries, Contempo fits into the tradition of the "Little Magazine," a group of elite literary magazines pervasive in the first decades of the twentieth century.
Night Flight is a 1933 American pre-Code aviation drama film produced by David O. Selznick, distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Clarence Brown and starring John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy.
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Advice to the Lovelorn is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film directed by Alfred L. Werker and starring Lee Tracy, Sally Blane, Paul Harvey and Sterling Holloway. The film was released on December 1, 1933, by United Artists. It is based on the novel Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West with a number of changes made.
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