[New York: ca. 1945]. Vintage original 9 1/2 x 8″ (24 x 20 cm.) black-and-white print still photo, some light creasing, mimeographed text and photo agency sticker on verso, very good+.
A portrait of Woody Guthrie promoting a “People’s Songs’ Hootenanny” concert in New York City, in which he appeared with Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy.
New York: Herb Snitzer, [ca. 1959]. Vintage original borderless 9 1/2 x 6 1/2″ (24 x 17 cm.) photo. With two stamps on verso of photographer Herb Snitzer and a photo agency sticker, various creases, very good-.
Photographer Herb Snitzer is known to have done various portraits of Nina Simone for her concert hall debut at Town Hall in New York, a concert which then became the primary basis for an album on the Colpix label, and we believe this photo to have been taken at that time.
In any case, a powerful portrait of this legendary artist at the onset of her great career while still in her mid-20s.
[Hollywood]: Paramount Pictures, 1957. Vintage original film script, quarto, brad bound, mimeograph, 129 pp. Self-wrappers, just about fine
HOUSEBOAT was international sex symbol Sophia Loren’s seventh English-language movie, and the second (after THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION) in which she co-starred with Cary Grant. Remarkably though, it was the first time Hollywood cast her in a romantic comedy.
HOUSEBOAT’s Academy Award-nominated original screenplay was by producer Jack Rose and director Melville Shavelson. Both were experienced screenwriters. Rose’s previous screenplays included two Bob Hope films, THE ROAD TO RIO (1943), and THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS (1955), which he co-wrote with director Shavelson. The prolific Melville Shavelson (1917-2007) was the writer and director of BEAU JAMES (1957), THE FIVE PENNIES (1959), IT STARTED IN NAPLES (1960), ON THE DOUBLE (1961), THE PIGEON THAT TOOK ROME (1962), A NEW KIND OF LOVE (1963), CAST A GIANT SHADOW (1966), and YOURS, MINE AND OURS (1968). The latter film — like HOUSEBOAT — was a romantic comedy about a couple (Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball) dealing with a brood of kids. Jack Rose, working independently from Shavelson, received another Academy Award nomination for his 1973 screenplay, A TOUCH OF CLASS.
The three children in HOUSEBOAT belong to a recently widowed Washington D.C. lawyer named Tom Winston (Cary Grant) — renamed Tom Winters in the completed film. When the youngest child, a boy, gets separated from his father and siblings at an outdoor classical music concert, he meets and is brought home by the conductor’s daughter, Cinzia (Sophia Loren). Unaware of her wealthy background and observing how well Cinzia gets along with the children, Tom offers her a job as the family maid. She accepts. Comic misadventures ensue when the only place Tom can find for the family to live is the titular houseboat.
The story’s subtext, not heavily stressed, is class and ethnic prejudice. Without knowing any better, and based solely on her accent, Tom assumes that Cinzia is a poor immigrant who just got off the boat. He believes he is doing her a big favor by offering her the maid/housekeeper job. She, in turn, accepts the job because she wants to get to know “real Americans.”
It is also assumed that Tom will now remarry his late wife’s affluent sister, Carolyn (Martha Hyer). However, with two actors as attractive as Grant and Loren playing the leads, the audience knows Tom and Cinzia will eventually fall in love, and Cinzia will become the children’s new mother. Interestingly, though it relies heavily on the conventions of romantic comedy, some of the HOUSEBOAT screenplay’s visual gags date back to Buster Keaton silent comedies like THE BOAT and ONE WEEK.
There are few significant differences between this screenplay draft and the completed film apart from the deletion of some dialogue and some parts of some scenes. For example, in the long sequence where Cinzia, having run away from her father and his concert, joins with young Robert, and the two runaways stroll through a carnival, the movie omits a brief interlude where Cinzia meets a young man and dances with him. One major change — a scene in which Tom and the Italian who owns the houseboat (Harry Guardino) fight over Cinzia has been deleted from the narrative.
Screenwriters Shavelson and Rose, both of whom had worked previously for Bob Hope, have no trouble writings lines tailored to the personalities of Loren and Grant. Consider the following exchange which is funniest if you imagine Loren and Grant speaking it.
CINZIA
(To Tom, referring to the boy Robert):
I tried all night to find out your address — He did not wish to come home at all! You must have done something terrible to him.
TOM
Yes — I took him to a concert.
Knowing who was cast, it is virtually impossible to read this screenplay without mentally hearing the voices of Loren and Grant speaking the lines written for them.
The HOUSEBOAT screenplay has a little bit of everything: slapstick comedy, some good one-liners, romance, implicit sex, a song for Loren to sing, great clothes (which are described in the screenplay), and a climactic wedding with fireworks — all the better to show off the movie’s Technicolor and VistaVision. HOUSEBOAT is the kind of project that was once a Hollywood specialty, a comedy that children could enjoy with just enough adult content to keep the grownups entertained.
October 2022, I am pleased to announce the launch of Waler Reuben’s 50th Catalog. As usual, it contains a wide variety of material. Here are the listed categories and an example of their contents:
Minneapolis: Mike Barich, [1968]. Vintage original 10 x 8″ (25 x 20 cm.) black-and-white print still photo. There is tanning at the edges of the back of the photo, which does not show through, overall just about fine.
Portrait of Jim Morrison of The Doors performing at a concert in Minneapolis on November 10, 1968. With stamp on back of photographer Mike Barich.
In celebration Gay Pride 2022, Walter Film is highlighting Derek Jarman (1942-1994), one of the preeminent gay filmmakers of the late Twentieth Century, and one of the great names in British “queer (as it was known)” cinema. From the time of his feature film, SEBASTIANE (which rendered the story of[…]
Clarence Muse (October 14, 1889 – October 13, 1979) was an African American actor, screenwriter, director, singer, and composer. He was the first African American to appear in a starring role in a film, 1929’s Hearts in Dixie. He acted for 50 years and appeared in more than 150 films. He was[…]
Screenplays that either won or were nominated for an Academy Award. After all, without a bit of imagination and the written word there would be no movies, no Academy Awards and, of course, no Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
Peter Allen – Australian LGBTQ wunderkind: a singer, an award-winning songwriter, a flamboyant entertainer and oh so beloved, that Hugh Jackman starred in a Broadway musical of his life, The Boy from Oz, which earned Jackman a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.