Book People Archive

Re: Anderson, Bradbury, Van Vechten

On Mon, Mar 12, 2001 at 01:16:29PM -0600, Attila the Hunn wrote:
> >From: Eric Eldred <eldred@[redacted]>
>            
> >(But in the case of printed works, this has already
> >happened--Ray Bradbury learned only from a Georgia
> >bookseller's buying of a typescript of a screenplay
> >of a new movie based on "Fahrenheit 451" just what
> >the movie studio was up to.  Where is the "fixation"
> >of the screenplay for the movie?  Certainly Bradbury
> >never was shown one, he said.)
> 
> Where can I find more about this?  Bradbury's one of my favorite writers and 
> I can't imagine how foolish someone would have to be not to consult him, at 
> least over a lunch, about a movie being made from his work.  I think he was 
> one of the first writers to be heavily influenced by the cinema and he would 
> be a natural to consult with on the adaptation of one of his works.  I guess 
> that's why the best movies aren't made in Hollywood nowadays...

I noticed this little tidbit of info on some web site a
month ago, but can't locate it now.  A Google search for
"Fahrenheit 451" comes up with only 27,000 pages!  Can
anybody give the citation?

Mel Gibson supposedly bought the rights but his adaptation
was officially cancelled a year ago, I heard.  So much for
Hollywood movies.

Among some other trivia related to the book:  the character
'Montag' got his name from the brand of paper Bradbury was
using at the time.  He typed the draft at the L.A. library,
using pay-per-hour typewriters.  So the love of books in
this book relates directly to the library in which it was
written.  Some 200 copies of the first edition were bound
in fireproof Johns-Manville asbestos board.  As related in
an appendix in recent editions, the book's publisher came
out with a "school" edition that censored many parts of
the book, again without telling Bradbury.  Enterprising 
students put on the Internet the missing parts.

I rather liked the 1966 Truffaut film, but many reviewers
now say it was not good.  I liked the contrast between books
and television.  See

http://www.brookingsbook.com/bradbury/bibliography/bradfamo.htm

   Ray Bradbury said about this film in a recent interview: "It
   was very good, but [Truffaut] was a coward about doing
   certain things. He didn't put in the Mechanical Hound, which
   should be included, because it's a metaphoric adventure
   thing. The tactical stuff is really miserable. The flying
   men should be cut out.  They're not flying anywhere except
   down. And the casting was a mistake. Not all of it. Oskar
   Werner I like very much." (quoted from "Playboy Interview:
   Ray Bradbury." Playboy, May 1996.)