FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23 - CONTEMPORARY SCREENWRITERS 3 Films 8:00 p.m. (ET)/5:00 p.m. (PT) DARLING (1965) For an incisive and biting social satire of London's jet set culture in the swinging sixties, look no further than Darling (1965), directed by John Schlesinger. Julie Christie, in her first starring role, portrays Diana Scott, a beautiful but easily bored model who drifts through a series of affairs and experiences while searching in vain for personal happiness. Radio disc jockey Godfrey Winn presented the basic story line to Schlesinger and producer Joseph Janni during a luncheon. Winn (who makes a cameo appearance as himself in Schlesinger's Billy Liar, 1963) knew a model who became the shared mistress of several men. But shortly after she was set up in a luxurious flat by her "sponsors," she committed suicide. After Winn turned in a rough, ten-page draft of his story to Schlesinger, the director turned it over to novelist/screenwriter Frederic Raphael for scripting. In John Schlesinger by Gene D. Phillips, the director said, "We started with the idea of the ghastliness of the present-day attitude of people who want something for nothing. Diana Scott, the principal character, emerged in the script of Darling as an amalgram of various people we had known." Despite the fact that Schlesinger and Raphael had several major disagreements over the eighteen months it took to produce a satisfactory screenplay, the final result justified their efforts and won Raphael an Oscar¨ for Best Screenplay. Julie Christie, who had previously played a small part in Schlesinger's Billy Liar, was not the first choice for the title role but Schlesinger eventually auditioned her for the part after flying to Philadelphia where she was touring with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Convinced that Christie could project the perfect combination of charm and bitchiness for the part, he hired her and turned to filling the role of Robert Gold, an American columnist who falls in love with Diana. Montgomery Clift was Schlesinger's first choice, but after meeting the actor he realized Clift was an emotional wreck and too ravaged by drugs and alcohol to handle working. Paul Newman and Cliff Robertson were also offered the role (both declined) and then Schlesinger pleaded with Dirk Bogarde to accept the role, reshaping his character into a BBC interviewer and columnist. In his autobiography, Snakes and Ladders, Dirk Bogarde recalls the making of Darling: "It was a very happy film although, predictably, we ran out of money halfway through and no one really believed in it except for the people who were actually involved in it. Joseph Janni, our producer, came sadly into my room one evening at the end of work. Face putty, his eyes hooped with fatigue. 'Disaster,' he muttered sitting dejectedly on the arm of a chair. 'I've mortgaged everything: car, flat, stocks and shares, everything except Stella, my wife. Can you help us? Will you accept a cut in salary and defer your deferments?' The reluctant backers sat glumly through the daily rushes; no big American name, an unknown girl and an, almost, unknown director. They also thought the story was, in the good old Wardour Street word, down beat. Anything that didn't have a happy ending had to be down beat. But the news had spread that something remarkable was happening on Darling. David Lean, at that time casting his epic of Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago asked to see film on both Julie and myself...In the event she won the Oscar¨ for Darling, the little film, and rocketed to stardom in Hollywood. All she ever got out of "Zhivago", as far as I know, was a theme song." Although Bogarde's excellent performance in Darling was ignored at Oscar¨ time, he did receive a British Film Academy Award for his work. Darling, in addition to winning Oscars¨ for Julie Christie and screenwriter Frederic Raphael, also received Academy Award¨ nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Costume Design by Julie Harris (who won in this category). Director: John Schlesinger Producer: Joseph Janni, Victor Lyndon (associate) Screenplay: Frederic Raphael Cinematography: Kenneth Higgins Music: John Dankworth Art Direction: Ray Simm Principle Cast: Dirk Bogarde (Robert Gold), Laurence Harvey (Miles Brand), Julie Christie (Diana Scott), Jose Luis de Villalonga (Cesare), Roland Curram (Malcom), Basil Henson (Alec Prosser-Jones) BW-128m. By Jeff Stafford 10:15 p.m. (ET)/7:15 p.m. (PT) HARPER (1966) The man with the barbed wire soul turned himself into the first of the compassionate private eyes when Paul Newman took on the role of Lew Harper, a private eye trying to find a missing millionaire amidst the lush life and low life of Los Angeles in Harper (1966). The result was a memorable successÑone of Newman's biggest hits of the Ô60s and a film that helped establish his reputation as one of the screen's coolest stars. Harper entered the world as Lew Archer, the hero of a series of books started by mystery writer Ross Macdonald in 1949 with The Moving Target. The series has been hailed for adding psychological depth to the detective genre and made Macdonald one of the best-selling authors of mystery novels. As a result, he has been consistently ranked among such giants as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. In fact, one critic dubbed Hammett, Chandler and Macdonald the "Holy Trinity of hardboiled detective fiction," with Macdonald as the Holy Ghost, a title that stuck. That didn't stop Newman from changing the name of Macdonald's most famous detective, however. Struck by his success in two films beginning with the letter "h" Ñ The Hustler (1961) and Hud (1963), Newman asked that the private eye's name be changed from Archer to Harper. Aside from that, the film remained true to Macdonald's vision and helped bring him new readers. The role became so associated with Newman that he would play Harper nine years later in The Drowning Pool (1976). Harper also demonstrated a respect for the film noirs of the past that had helped inspire it. To play Mrs. Sampson, the acid-tongued older woman whose husband has disappeared, the producers cast Lauren Bacall, who had starred in one of the classics of the genre, The Big Sleep (1946). In fact, the man who had hired detective Phillip Marlowe in that film, General Sternwood, was confined to a wheelchair, just like Bacall's character in Harper. Director: Jack Smight Producer: Jerry Gershwin, Elliott Kastner Screenplay: William Goldman, based on the novel ÔThe Moving Target' by Ross McDonald Cinematography: Conrad Hall Editor: Stefan Arnsten Art Direction: Alfred Sweeney Music: Johnny Mandel Cast: Paul Newman (Lew Harper), Lauren Bacall (Elaine Sampson), Julie Harris (Betty Fraley), Arthur Hill (Albert Graves), Janet Leigh (Susan Harper). C-121m. By Frank Miller 12:30 a.m. (ET)/9:30 p.m. (PT) THE BEST MAN (1964) Released during the Presidential campaign of 1964, The Best Man was a caustic political drama which kept a lot of critics and filmgoers guessing which real-life politicians inspired the lead characters. In one corner, you have William Russell (Henry Fonda), the older, more idealistic candidate whose wife is on the verge of divorcing him. In the other corner, you have Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson), the younger, more opportunistic candidate who doesn't hesitate in using smear tactics if necessary. In the middle is the former President (Lee Tracy) who still hasn't decided which candidate to endorse. It's easy to see William Russell as the Adelai Stevenson stand-in, Joe Cantwell as a combination of Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy, and the ex-President as a kindred spirit of Harry Truman. What no one could have foreseen, however, is how some of the melodramatic situations in The Best Man mirrored real-life incidents in later years, particularly the sequence where William Russell's past emotional problems are revealed in a dossier. In the 1972 Presidential campaign, senator Tom Eagleton, George McGovern's choice for Vice-President, redrew from the race after revealing he had suffered a mental breakdown earlier in his career. Before The Best Man was actually slated as a project for director Franklin J. Schaffner, Frank Capra was seriously considered as a director by United Artists, the company that owned the property. It had been three years since Capra's last film, A Pocketful of Miracles, and the famous director had some unique ideas for this production which did not sit well with Gore Vidal, author of the original play. For one thing Capra wanted to add a climatic scene where Henry Fonda's character, who is losing the vote at the Democratic convention, makes an appearance on the delegate floor dressed as Abraham Lincoln and makes an inspiring speech. Gore tried hard to mask his horror at this suggestion but in his autobiography, Palimpsest (Random House), he wrote, "The Capra-Connolly script for The Best Man invents a new protagonist: the hero is no longer the man who refuses to blackmail his opponent because "one by one, these compromises, these small corruptions destroy "character" but the dark horse of the title, who receives the nomination when the two leading candidates cancel each other out -The Best Man, in their grotesquely sentimentalized version, is the guileless young mixed race governor of Hawaii, their muddled notion of a John Doe for the 1960s." Luckily, United Artists found the Frank Capra-Walter Connolly version of The Best Man unacceptable and decided to let Gore Vidal dictate the director and write the screenplay. Capra would never make another film. Director: Franklin J. Schaffner Producer: Stuart Millar, Lawrence Turman Screenplay: Gore Vidal (based on his play of the same name) Cinematography: Haskell Wexler Editing: Robert Swink Music: Mort Lindsey Principle Cast: Henry Fonda (William Russell), Cliff Robertson (Joe Cantwell), Lee Tracy (Art Hockstader), Margaret Leighton (Alice Russell), Edie Adams (Mabel Cantwell), Kevin McCarthy (Dick Jensen), Shelley Berman (Sheldon Bascomb), Ann Sothern (Mrs. Gamadge), Gene Raymond (Dan Cantwell) BW-102m. by Jeff Stafford