Film Adaption: My Foolish Heart (1950)
Shortly after The New Yorker published Uncle Wiggly in March 1948, Salinger sold the movie rights to Darryl Zanuck. The sale promised to advance Salinger’s career, and was financially lucrative.
With its dialog driven plot, Uncle Wiggily was more appropriate for a stage adaption, and the story would require a major rewrite by the movie studios to achieve a film version. Salinger had relinquished all control over the screenplay, which was written by Julius and Philip Epstein. In the process of making a Hollywood film version, the story was transformed from “an exposé of the suburban society” into a sentimental love story with a happy ending.
Salinger was horrified by the results, and to his dismay, My Foolish Heart received two Academy Award nominations (best actress and best theme song), and did well at the box office.
Read more about this topic: Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut
Famous quotes containing the words film, foolish and/or heart:
“I’ll be right here.”
—Melissa Mathison, U.S. screenwriter, and Steven Spielberg. ET, ET The Extra-Terrestrial, saying goodbye to Elliot as he touches Elliot’s forehead—ET’s final words in the film (1982)
“Men don’t and can’t live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don’t live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of Labourers’ Unions.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“They borrow words for thoughts they cannot feel,
That with a seeming heart their tongue may speak;
And in their show of life more dead they live
Than those that to the earth with many tears they give.”
—Jones Very (1831–1880)