ACT ONE (1963)

Everyone’s favorite theatrical memoir, a surprise bestseller for playwright/director Moss Hart, limps to the screen under Dore Schary’s direction.  His one attempt at megging pure self-sabotage, with his writing, casting & producing little better.  Schary, previously a major Hollywood producer who rose to M-G-M head-of-production before quickly flaming out, a lifelong friend who’d been Hart’s assistant in the ‘20s, tosses out the first half of the book, losing much of a rags-to-riches saga that goes from tenement to Tamiment (the Catskills adult camp resort/B’way incubator) that made the book so memorable.  (Streamers?  Are you listening?)  Reduced to Hart’s first B’way success on ONCE IN A LIFETIME, about Hollywood’s silent-to-sound transition, co-written with established playwright George S. Kaufman.  As Kaufman, Jason Robards Jr is a reasonable choice compared to George Hamilton’s doorstop of a Hart.  Made even worse as best pal George Segal is so obviously right for the part.  That’s the way things go here.  Only Jack Klugman, Hart’s non-pro friend, coming across as a fully lived-in character.  And with the film’s compressed grey scale and Skitch Henderson’s OTT score, things can get pretty dire.  Fortunately, the tropes of getting a play up & running nearly impossible to kill.  Other than that, screwing up nearly everything wise, warm & witty from the book.  And most likely missing your favorite moment. (For me, it’s when play producer, and general mensch, Sam Harris notices at the last minute how loud the play is.  A casual comment that helps Hart fine tune the last act and turn out a hit.)  James Lapine’s recent rewrite for B’way got closer, but still not quite there.  Maybe if Sam Harris had been around to say something sage . . . 

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Lots of once well-known Algonquin Round Table celebs flit by, all unrecognizable as cast by Schary.  But look for Eli Wallach as top B’way director/producer Jed Harris, here called Warren Stone for legal reasons.  Famously awful, he’s the man Laurence Olivier modeled his Richard III on.

READ ALL ABOUT IT:  A literary rite of passage for all theater nerds, ACT ONE easily lives up to its rep.  And knowing that Hart died at 57, only months after completing it (and that his last two credits were directing MY FAIR LADY and CAMELOT), makes the never written ACT TWO only more tantalizing.

DOUBLE-BILL:  Many Hart (and Hart/Kaufman) plays were adapted for film: YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU/’38; THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER/’41; LADY IN THE DARK.’44.  But his best film work came adapting GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT/’47 and in his stunning Hollywood savvy in the rewrite of A STAR IS BORN/’54.

CONTEST:  Name two connections between this film and the Marx Brothers’ A NIGHT AT THE OPERA/’35 to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choice.