The Lost Weekend swept the 1945 Academy Awards, with nominations for Best Film Editing, Score, and Black and White Cinematography, and Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Screenplay. It also received numerous awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Globes. Based on the novel by Charles Jackson, a work that many in Hollywood had thought unfilmmable because of its relentless grimness, The Lost Weekend was one of the first films to explore the devastating effects of alcoholism. Ray Milland was cast against type as Don Birnam, a writer plagued by depression and self-doubt who, as his alcoholism progresses, slips into a horrifying downward spiral of lying, begging, stealing, and madness. Milland's riveting performance won him an Oscar. Jane Wyman also delivers a powerful performance as his faithful girlfriend, Helen St. James, whose selfless love offers Birnam a hope of redemption. This facsimile edition of The Lost Weekend not only reveals the genius of the film but also illuminates how the script stands alone as a rare, wonderful piece of writing. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction looks at the transformation from novel to film and examines Wilder and coauthor Charles Brackett's methods as collaborators. Readers will gain important insights into the craft of screenwriting, and the personality and methods of one of Hollywood's greatest directors.

Raised in the Hollywood of the 1920s as the privileged son of a pioneer studio mogul, Budd Schulberg went on to win fame as a distinguished novelist, short story writer, playwright, Oscar-winning screenwriter, and boxing historian. Moving Pictures is his fascinating remembrance of growing up amidst the glamour, swank, courage, triumphs, defeats, cabals, and double-crosses of an industry in the making. His utterly candid account includes unsparing portraits of outsized characters in all their power, venality, charm, pettiness, and vindictiveness. As a book on the early days of the movies in Hollywood, this one is hard to beat. Abundantly illustrated with rare photographs. Book jacket.

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959), which stars Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Ed Begley, and Gloria Graham, is written by blacklisted screenwriter Abraham Polonsky and directed by Robert Wise. The last great film noir of the black & white era, ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW reflects the author's strong social conscience--as racial conflict is portrayed as central to the failure of a bank robbery. This publication of the complete script of ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW blends the shooting script (written before the film was shot) and the continuity script (the elements which are contained in the finished film). The critical analysis draws extensively on specially conducted interviews with Robert Wise, Harry Belafonte, and Abraham Polonsky. Discussed din depth are the significance of a black protagonist within the film noir genre; the film's staus with African-American related cinema; the adaptation from William McGivern's novel; and the critically celebrated jazz score by John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet.