The Word Cloud

At this point, when I've done an awful lot of these blog,s I have to check back every now and then to make sure I haven't already talked about someone, especially when it's someone whom it seems like I should have already covered. How To Marry a Millionaire (showing on film4 this Wednesday at 12.55pm) was written by Nunnally Johnson, about whom I have considered writing on several occasions but have always gone with someone else simply because I knew that there would be another chance to write about Johnson. He's one of a handful of writers who seem to have written almost everything during the golden age of cinema. So where to begin? Well a full career overview is out of the question, IMDB lists 72 writing credits and although that includes films based on his earlier scripts that's still a lot to cover. Plus, unlike many writers of his generation, Johnson's career did not seem to peter out as he grew older, his last film credit at the age of 70 was for The Dirty Dozen. He didn't exactly get off to a slow start either, writing the story for the silent film Rough House Rosie in 1927, a Clara Bow vehicle. Despite this start he apparently was not looking for a screenwriting career as he continued as a journalist and short story writer for another 6 years before relocating to Hollywood in 1933. Like most writers of that era Johnson's screenplay is a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly, there are westerns, war films, dramas and comedies, and, of course, there's a lot of uncredited work because that's how it was then. The stand out is The Grapes of Wrath, and when a writer has one script that stands head and shoulders above 70 odd other films it's quite tempting to give credit to the director, especially when that director is John Ford. That's probably fair but does also raise the question; would more of Johnson's films be better known if they had been directed by men of Ford's calibre? Who knows? but I think it's interesting that another of his best films The Three Faces of Eve was one of the rare ones he directed himself. We always remember how directors enhance the screenwriters work and are quick to give credit (quite rightly) to men like John Ford, David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock et al, but we sometimes forget how many great scripts were ruined by incompetent direction. And there's a lot more incompetents than there are John Fords. I think it's fair to call Johnson one of the backbone writers of classic US cinema but, given the paucity of 'classics' (by which I mean films we remember today) he wrote, it might surprise people to learn that he was the highest paid screenwriter of the 1950s. This certainly reflects his reliability and versatility but I think also reflects how few films make the posterity cut. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was one of my favourite films of last year but will it be remembered in 50 years time? If reading about Nunnally Johnson has taught me anything then it's that there are more great films out there than the list of approved 'classics' would have us believe.

Not my usual screenwriting blog this week because I spent last week at the silent comedy festival in Bristol, Slapstick 2012. I managed to see five events including the Friday night Gala at the Colston Hall featuring Buster Keaton's The General supported by shorts from Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin.
I've got nothing but good things to say about the festival (with the possible exception of Griff Rhy Jones' unbelievably self-serving introductions to other people's films), but the high spots for me were the two events hosted by Oscar winning film historian Kevin Brownlow. There is simply no one who has done more for silent film and Brownlow's films and books on the subject are definitive and, annoyingly, as commerically unavailable as the films he's talking about.
Which leads me to my topic; there is a vast body of silent film that remains unavailable despite already having had money spent on them for restoration purposes. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was one of the most successful films of all time, it features Rudolph Valentino's first starring role and was a personal favourite of David Lean who always referenced its director Rex Ingram as an influence, and yet you cannot go into a shop and buy a decent copy (there's probably a few ropey and illegal ones knocking about). Even currently popular stars like Buster Keaton suffer; The Camerman and Spite Marriage are so seldom seen that they have been at best glossed over by film history and at worst considered sub-par (which they are certainly not).
Can I do anything about this? I don't know but I think I'd like to try. At least I can raise awareness, so watch this space.
Oh, and so this is still technically about screenwriting, let's have a round of applause for the teams of gag-writers who helped make the great silent comedians so great!

In all of the Patrick McGilligan interviews with screenwriters I have read, George Axelrod's is the only one to begin with the subject critiquing the Backstory books. I'm not sure what that says about him but I'm sure it says something. As you may have guessed Axelrod wrote the screenplay for Breakfast at Tiffany's, adapted from Truman Capote's novella. It was in fact on TV last week but I'd never seen it before, taped it, and just got round to watching it today, plus I'd recently read the Axelrod interview. I really enjoyed Tiffany's and I think part of the reason it's aged as well as it has is because of the vagueness forced upon it by the production code. In Capote's book Holly Golightly is a call girl and even as late in the day as 1961, a major studio would not have that. Worse still the man in the book is likely homosexual, a subject about which major studios still get jittery. Axelrod made sweeping changes, the largest being that the man (played by George Peppard in his pre-A Team days) becomes a gigolo, so he and Holly are basically in the same line. It's still impossible to mention either character's profession but Axelrod uses that to his advantage, our uncertainty about what they are mirrors the character's uncertain relationship, the undefined nature of which is the crux of the piece. From a remove of 50 years it also makes the film less dated; if they had talked about their occupations then the film would have showed its age, by not doing so Axelrod has inadvertently allowed it to stand the test of time. The film is not to everyone's taste, but I enjoyed it and I think there's room for an essentially sweet, offbeat romance amongst the more formulaic ones. The only thing I dislike is the same thing that Axelrod did; the bizarre casting of Mickey Rooney as the comedy Japanese neighbour. I've nothing but respect for Mr. Rooney and for Blake Edwards who directed, but the result is just not funny. Axelrod was a favourite target of the Production Code, Legion of Decency, and various other killjoys, as his films (some adapted from his own plays where rules were less stringent) frequently dealt with sex (The Seven Year Itch, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter). But that did not stop him from writing some very successful films, despite his belief that most of them were mangled to some extent, leading him to direct 2 himself (unsuccessfully). Arguably Axelrod's greatest film was banned, but not because of any sexual content. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) was banned after the assasination of President Kennedy and was not re-released until 1988. It is a phenomenal film, and one with a dark sense of humour that often goes unrecognised. It's a film that has not dated and so had no need of a remake which made me very cautious of the 2004 version, but you know what? it's actually a very good film too. How often does that happen? An alcohol problem blighted the second half of Axelrod's career and he never really recovered, but his work in the 50s and 60s is remarkable, capturing Hollywood as it evolves to keep up with the new era. If he had only written Manchurian Candidate he would be remembered as one of the greats, but Breakfast at Tiffany's confirms that position and shows a range that most writers would kill for.

Properly it should say 'screenwriters of the week' as Hud was written by one of the few genuine screenwriting partnerships to be found in the latter half of the twentieth century; Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank jr. The pair met, fell in love and married while junior writers at MGM but it was a several years before they considered writing together.
Before I come to the point I really wanted to make in this blog I should say, I have not seen Hud (I plan to watch it Monday 11.05am BBC4), nor have I seen any of the films written by Frank and Ravetch, together or separately. Through the whole of The Story of Film last year I felt that Mark Cousins was berating me for not watching enough films from around the world, writing this blog I often feel like I'm berating myself for not having even watched enough from America!
Back to the point; working apart for ten years both Frank and Ravetch amassed a decent CV of Western credits, outside of film Ravetch tried his hand at playwriting while Frank was a very successful short story writer. But when they begin to work together, starting with The Long, Hot Summer (a loose adaptation of Faulkner's The Hamlet) the whole tone of their work changes. Though it is still very American, most often southern in setting and can occasionally be called Western, their collaborations tend to have a strong social conscience, dealing with big issues like race (Hombre) or exploitation of workers (Norma Rae). Most of these collaborartions were directed by Martin Ritter who directed 8 of their films and with whom they enjoyed a more congenial working relationship than many of their contemporaries did with directors.
My interest in this is, how much do we change as writers when we take on a partner? In some partnerships there is decidedly a junior and senior partner, Billy Wilder's partners sometimes seem like interpreters of his ideas (I'm not demeaning them, Wilder's co-writers were a hugely talented bunch). In the case of Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, the general tone of what they wrote seems similar whether they wrote together or apart, and both wrote successfully apart (though Gordon more for the stage than film). Ravetch and Frank seemed to become a distinct new writer when they worked together. Is that common? I don't know, but it's almost interesting enough to make me want to work with a partner again.
Frank and Ravetch are an interesting couple, they were interviewed by Patrick McGilligan for Backstory after a lifetime of refusing interviews (and more recently by William Baer which I haven't read as it mainly concerns Hud and I don't want to ruin a film I plan to watch tomorrow), part way through they broke off to argue whether film can be seen as art (Frank for, Ravetch against), it's a fascinating exchange. Their explanation for the difference collaboration made to their styles was simple '...whatever faculties we had, we combined into a fresh view'.  Ravetch died in 2010, Frank, now 94, is still alive; They come across as an extremely likeable pair and I look forward to seeing Hud.

A tribute this week to one of the last of the silent era. Federica Sagor Maas died on January 5^th at the age of 111, she was a silent film writer who worked on such prominent films as The Goose Woman with Louise Dresser, Flesh and the Devil with John Gilbert and Greta Garbo (and Barbara Kent who died last October aged 103), as well as several Clara Bow films including ’It’ and The Plastic Age. Despite having seen a couple of her films I had never heard of Frederica Sagor Maas (partly because much of her work seems to have been uncredited) and from what I can gather from the various obituaries (which are by no means 100% consistent) she had a pretty frustrating career; she got little credit for what she did, saw ideas taken away from her and suffered during the McCarthy era. All of which left her with an understandably jaundiced view of Hollywood. Reading some of the more oddly forthright obituaries I find myself wanting to know more about Miss Sagor Maas so I can judge for myself, and the good news is that, at the age of 99, she was talked into writing an autobiography by film historian Kevin Brownlow. Once I’ve tracked down a copy (by which I mean; once my parents have tracked down a copy and given it to me for my birthday), I shall report back.

Until then, whatever her attitude towards Hollywood, whatever axe she might have legitimately had to grind in later life, the fact is that she contributed to some of the most notable films of the silent era. As well as those I’ve already mentioned she wrote the story for The Way of All Flesh for which German actor Emil Jannings won Best Actor at the first ever Academy Awards Ceremony. Although Flesh and the Devil is not a film I particularly like, it is the film that made Greta Garbo a star. The real gem here though is ‘It’, which is a delight, it’s fun, funny and features Bow’s best performance. On top of that, though it may seem dated now, at the time it’s portrayal of an unwed mother was extremely brave.

So there’s a happy thought to end on; perhaps Frederica Sagor Maas’s film career did not pan out as she would have wanted (she’s not alone in that), but the films she did work on are an impressive legacy.

Happy New Year!
I'm playing catch up a bit this week as the film I'm talking about was on last Sunday but, to be honest I'm not talking about it that much. I'm not a massive fan of the Harry Potter series in print or onscreen. Don't get me wrong, I think anything that gets children reading books bigger than the Bible is a good thing, I just don't understand why adults read them. None of which has much to do with this blog.
I've spent a lot of time talking about how directors tend to divert the attention from screenwriters but there is one group that does so to an even greater extent; original novelists. The Harry Potter films are not written by Steve Kloves, they're written by J K Rowling; Great Expectations will always be Dickens, Lord of the Rings is Tolkien etc etc. And to a degree that's pretty reasonable, it's the author not the screenwriter who came up with the story, the characters and their journey, and to an extent the structure, why should the screenwriter take a great share of the credit? Because it's hard. Adapting an existing novel is a very different skill to writing one from scratch, but it's no less difficult, it's just difficult in different ways.
The fact is that a novel needs to be cut down for the screen, but fans of that novel are the target audience and losing too much of what they loved about the book is fatal. Take Bram Stoker's Dracula, adapted by James Hart, the love story between Dracula and Mina is entirely invented, and wholly detrimental. On the other hand the film retains a chase scene across Europe from the book which is equally detrimental because a chase in which one of the protagonists is asleep on a boat throughout works in print but not on film. Most film buffswould agree that the best adaptation of the much-adapted Dracula is the silent Nosferatu, adapted by Henrik Galeen, in many ways it bears only a cursory similarity in plot terms but it captures the spirit of the original.
In my opinion, this is what makes a successful adaptation; being true to the spirit of the book. Great Expectations (adapted by David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan,Kay Walsh and Cecil McGivern) is considered one of the best ever adaptations of Dickens' work but the ending is completely different in the book. The Lord of the Rings is a pretty faithful adaptation (despite some bizarre additions) but to me (and I know I'm in a minority here) it fails to capture what made the book special.
How do you capture that spirit? Search me, it probably depends on the book. Another good recent example would be Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (adapted by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughn), an extremely complex story full of tension and suspense, and the solution to adapting it seems to have been to accept that if the audience is to understand all that is going on the characters would be talking constantly; so just accept the audience's ignorance and focus on the tension. And it worked brilliantly.
As I said, I'm not a big Potter fan but it seems to me that Steve Kloves (who adapted all but one of the books) has done a good job, if nothing else they are films that stand alone as films, dramatic and involving, and, crucially, never feeling like cut down books.  

I didn't plan on leaving it quite this late in the day but here is the second part of my Christmas blog and as I am writing it the film itself is about to start on Channel 5. But don't worry about missing it because it's the colourised version which really does rob it of a lot of its charm. There is considerable argument about which is the best version of the oft-filmed Dickens story 'A Christmas Carol' and based on the response I got last week there is a considerable movement in favour of the Muppet version, but there is far less argument about who is the best Scrooge; it is the part that Alistair Sim was born to play. He was one of our finest comic actors anyway but as Scrooge he simply excelled.
But of course I'm not here to talk about Sim I'm talking about Noel Langley who did this particular screen adaptation, and it would be wrong to ignore the contribution that script makes to the film's success (which goes way beyond Sim's dominating central performance).
I just assumed that the writer of Scrooge would have a raft of Ealing comedies and small British films I had never heard of on his CV, but Langley is actually quite intriguing. He was born in South Africa but worked predominantly in the US, though Scrooge is far from his only UK cedit. His best known credit I was shocked to find is for The Wizard of Oz, a job he won on the basis of his successful children's book the Tale of the Land of Green Ginger. Oz famously went through 3 directors but it was also worked on by 18 writers! Including some I have already blogged about (John Lee Mahin is one of the most surpising names), Langley was one of only 3 to get a credit, ironically since he hated what was done to his script and didn't like the finished film to the extent that he tried to make a sequel using the bits of his original which were cut out.
Adaptation seems to have been a something Langley specialised in; he adapted Dickens again for a largely unregarded version of Pickwick Papers, as well as Tom Browne's Schooldays and Svengali. Swashbucklers seem to have been another interest (and I should make it clear that I'm interpreting from his CV here, I know next to nothing about the man!), he scripted Knights of the Round Table, Prisoner of Zenda (The Stewart Granger version) and, most famously, Ivanhoe.
Though the screenplay work seems to have stopped in the fifties I have to say that my main interest in Langley is his abilty to write in different media. As well as film he was a novellist and playwright, he wrote for both television and radio as well as being a short story writer for various magazines. As a jobbing writer myself who has tried his hand at everything and will happily go where the money is, I identify with this and admire it. A writer isn't a writer unless he writes, doesn't matter what, and Noel Langley was clearly a writer through and through.

Breaking my own rule this week by talking about a writer/director but, like a lot of writer/directors, Lawrence Kasdan started as a writer, still writes without directing and is probably best known as a writer. Body Heat (on this Wednesday BBC1 11.55pm) was Kasdan's first and probably best film as a director, it's one of the most successful modernisations of film noir and a great film but it does rather suffer in comparison to some of Kasdan's films as a screenwriter because they include some of the most successful films of all time. Kasdan's first credit as a screenwriter was The Empire Strikes Back which he took over after the death of Leigh Brackett (incidentally a writer of classic film noir who wrote almost exclusively for Howard Hawks and was one of the most prominent female screenwriters of her generation). How he managed to get that gig as his first credited job is a longer story than I really have space for, plus it's not the Empire script, good though it is, that I wanted to talk about. Whenever I want to use an example of perfect film structure there is one film I always go straight to; The Raiders of the Lost Ark. You don't have to like the film (although I can't think of one good reason why you wouldn't!), but it hits the beats of the classic three act structure with a precision you can set your watch by. The plot, protagonist and antagonist, and imperative are introduced by the 20 minute mark, the characters and situation build to a mid point twist then things spiral out of control as we head for the big climax. And more than that, think about the way the character of Indy is introduced; the opening set piece is a tight ten minutes, for the first five Indy can do no wrong, his whip never misses, he out smarts every booby trap. Then, on the five minute point, Indy switches the idol for the bag of sand and everything goes to hell, for the next five minutes he can do no right and only gets away with his life through luck. That's the character of Indiana Jones in a nutshell, he's a hero but not a superman, a hero you can believe in and identify with. To make that point using structure and do it so that no one watching notices (unless they're an anal film-obsessive with a stopwatch like me) is simply brilliant. I'm not going to pretend that Steven Spielberg had nothing to do with this, that would be ridiculous, but it's still a very fine piece of writing. I've no doubt that part of the reason that Kasdan wrote in this highly structured, textbook way is that he had not been doing it long, and when you start it's best to stick to the rules. But another reason is that he is a fan of Kurosawa, another very structured writer. He was working with Lucas and Spieberg, two film buffs who revered older movies where structure was king. And of course the most important reason; it works. It worked in the thirties and it works today. Nobody is saying that you can't play with the structure, Hitchcock did it brilliantly, but it's best to learn how to use that structure first. And to keep in mind above all else; structure works. It just does.

 I’ve never done a film review before, nor impersonated a film reviewer; heigh ho, how hard can it be?

 Saturday night I watched ‘Taken’ on TV – a 4 star romp according to the guide and I was in the mood for a good film.

 This is what happens:

 Liam Neeson as Brian (Brian?) is at a loose end. Chooses a karaoke machine for his daughter’s 17^th birthday. Seems he’s been away a lot while she was growing up, doing something secret – ‘working for the government’. His ex-wife (who’s cross with him) has remarried and at the lavish birthday party thrown by the new stepdad, his daughter, Kim, unwraps the Karaoke and throws her arms around him with, ‘Oh Daddy, I love it.’ Liam’s then promptly upstaged by stepdad who leads in a live pony. OK, conflict established.

Seems he does a bit of security work these days. Old workmate persuades him into a spot of body-guarding for a singer at a concert (Holly Valance – I’d just seen her on ‘Strictly’, an hour before. Life really is stranger than fiction).

Liam protects Holly from some upsetness with an excited fan. She’s grateful and when Liam says his daughter wants to be a singer, Holly gives him a phone number. That’s handy. So far, so good.

Cut to scene in café – Liam meets ex-wife and daughter, who want him to sign a consent form so she can travel to Paris, France with her friend. She’s too young, he’s not happy. He signs it.

He takes her to the airport, gives her a mobile phone and makes her promise to phone him all the time. He finds a map in her rucksack with several European cities circled – uh-oh, seems she’s planning more than just Paris – she’s going to follow U2 on tour all over the place. ‘Don’t worry,’ says ex-wife, ‘it’s what girls her age do.’ Yes they do.

Dad says, ‘If anything happens, I’ll come straight over and get you back.’

Anyway, Kim and friend arrive at airport in Paris, France. Bump into ‘Peter’ who offers to share a taxi with them (and so knows where they’re staying!). Peter drops them off then makes a sinister phone call: ‘Two fresh ones, just arrived!’

Kim and friend explore the apartment as Liam phones, ‘Hey, you promised to phone me when you landed.’

‘Sorry Daddy, I forgot.’

As Kim walks about the apartment talking on the phone, and before she can give her new address, she sees her friend attacked and snatched from another room. She tells Liam that the only person who knows where they are is ‘Peter’, who they met at the airport. She relates the struggle to Liam who instructs her to crawl under a bed and tell him everything she sees, and to leave the phone open so he can hear what’s going on. She does. She sees feet. She’s snatched too. The men are speaking some foreign language that nobody knows.

Liam, over in California, leaps into action. Happily, his old CIA recording equipment is to hand and while she’s on the phone, he plumbs it in. A foreigner picks up Kim's phone and Liam tells him to let her go or he’ll come over and kill him. Ominous.

Foreigner says, ‘Good Luck’ in a sinister swarthy accent and crushes the phone.

Liam hurtles over there, faster than a comet. It’s not like California is the other side of the world or anything. He has 96 hours to find his daughter, or she’s lost for good [Govt Stats].

He arrives at their Paris flat a few short minutes later; as quickly as anyone arriving at a foreign airport. Not sure how he knows where it is – I might have clocked out for a second there. He gains entry (not sure about that, either) and paces through the rooms, replete with signs of struggles. He crawls under the bed where his daughter must have been, to see what he can see. Oh look! There’s the crushed phone that she was talking on – and the sim card intact. What a stroke of luck. He also pulls – er, something – from the cracked mirror – a few black hairs? Dunno what that was about – they don’t appear again.

Anyway, he gets a photo off the sim card – the one Peter took of the two girls at the airport. He enlarges it and hey presto, there’s the hazy image of Peter taking the pic – reflected in a phone box next to the girls. Phew!

Liam returns to the airport with the photo and sits in a bar, watching. A pretty Swedish tourist arrives and would you credit it? Peter only approaches her and offers to share a taxi! Liam’s on the case immediately, has words with Peter, who runs off and is crushed by a lorry. Exit Peter.

Somehow, Liam has a gun. Clever, that. When I tried to smuggle a sealed jar of ginger jam into France last month, Customs had it off me in a trice: it was a gel and therefore a bomb, despite my having bought it in Sainsbury’s the day before. They also nabbed my companion’s unopened tin of Stella. However, guns on flights is different – less of a threat and much harder to spot.

He meets up with an old colleague from ‘The Service’ who tells him it was probably Albanians wot dun it. Ah, of course. Kim’s destined for the sex trade most likely, after they’ve got her hooked on drugs. Dearie me.

Then Liam’s in a car (he has a car now – hurumph. When we tried to pick up a booked hire car in France last month, we queued for three hours). An Albanian translator joins him (they’re so easy to come by in a crisis in Paris) who listens to the recording and luckily speaks English too. There wasn’t much useful information to my ear, but Liam has read between the lines. He asks for an Albanian-English dictionary to help him work out the rest of the phone conversation and ditches the translator.

The next bit’s a little fuzzy; I think the cat wanted feeding or something. Anyway, someone swarthy has given this clue under duress: ‘go to Rue de Paradis’ and Liam charges off there, despite having no map and no idea where it is. He gains entry to the correct building immediately (wow) and gallops up the stairs. He opens door after door. Behind each, is a comatose girl lying on a bed, with her arm out and needle marks in it. The last room contains a girl who looks a bit like Kim. He pulls her hair away from her face. No, it’s not Kim, but what’s that in the corner? Why, Kim’s distinctive jacket! He scoops the girl up and takes her back (where?), killing a few swarthy people on the way.

He hooks her up to a saline drip to bring her round. It was another stroke of luck that he’d remembered to pack the saline drip (and its stand and needles) in the panic of leaving America, and that he got it through Customs and they didn’t think it was a bomb. Of course he could have acquired the saline and equipment in Paris – should be easy enough. Remember he only has four days to retrieve his daughter from the clutches of evildom so doesn’t have time to muck about.

Anyway, when the girl comes round, he asks her where she got the jacket. Can’t remember what she says, but it’s another clue and Liam furrows his brow. Think the girl may die at this point. Whatever, she’s served her purpose.

I’m a bit muddled over the next bit too. There’s a car chase, he screeches all over Paris (like you do in an unfamiliar city), outwitting the natives who know where they’re going, abandons the car, steals another, hotwires it and he’s off again. I remember thinking that we must be two-thirds of the way through at the car chase – it’s a common technique to wake the audience up (learned during a brief sojourn studying film-making). So please stay with it – we’re nearly at the climax.

Time is running out so he visits his old French colleague, whose welcoming wife invites him to dinner. No time for that, and we’re beginning to suspect the frog anyway. Is he all that he seems? Liam shoots the wife in the arm to make the traitor tell him the next bit.

‘Don’t worry,’ he says to the screaming woman who’s just had a gun pulled on her in her own home, ‘it’s only a flesh wound.’

Anyway, he gets the piece of the jigsaw and in a flash he’s at a seedy club where he kills a few more swarthy people (kerpow!) to muscle his way into a back room where girls are being auctioned. Swathed in sexy veils, the girls sway – clearly drugged – as men bid for them. Then, would you believe it, but little Kimmie is led onto the stage, also stumbling and swaying. He puts a gun to a man’s head and instructs, ‘Bid for her.’ The man’s uncooperative so Liam shoots him and bids for her himself. There are now dead bodies everywhere and people are upset. Soon he’s overpowered and jostled into a boiler room; he’s manacled to an overhead pipe but just as a swarthy man tries to strangle him, the pipe gives way! He’s free! Well, he has to get out of the handcuffs, but that’s not a problem.

Oh, I forgot a bit – he’s already tracked down the Albanian who kidnapped his daughter and wished him ‘Good Luck.’ He checks the man’s voice against the tape recording to be on the safe side, then kills him, because ‘I said I would.’

[Ah, I remember now - he's the one who squealed, 'Rue de Paradis' with his dying breath. Knew it was someone under duress. Yes, that's the johnny.]

Anyway, back to the plot. While he’s been unavoidably detained, shooting people in the boiler room, Kim has been hustled off somewhere else. Liam takes a bullet to the leg causing a mild limp, but as he said earlier, 'It's only a flesh wound.' He gets over it in no time. Literally.

He finds out she’s being taken to ‘The Sheikh’. Of course. The Albanian Sheikh. He must get to The Quay, pretty sharpish, as the sheikh is about to sail away in his ocean liner. He knows how to get to the quay too, and naturally there’s only one quay in Paris.

He’s there in a jiffy (another stolen car and with another stolen – and loaded – gun).

The yacht is already sailing, but our hero gets on it anyway. Not sure how.

Oh – forgot another bit – somewhere along the line, he finds the daughter’s friend, dead with needle tracks in her arm. So quickly? Poor thing. So that’s her dealt with. Kim’s jeopardy increases.

Anyhoo, he bursts into the master bedroom on the yacht to see the sheikh embracing his daughter. He shoots the sheikh stone dead. Kim is no longer drugged and swaying but falls into her father’s arms, ‘Oh Daddy, you came for me.’

Liam hugs her. ‘I said I would.’

 Zoom out. Fade.

 Epilogue: Despite the trail of carnage and court cases that must be brewing all over Paris, the pair arrive back promptly in California to be met by ex-wife and stepdad. Ex-wife extremely grateful, awe shining from her eyes. My hero. ‘You brought my baby back.’ Stepdad offers his hand and a lift home. Liam demurs, with, ‘No thanks, I’ll get a cab.’ Daughter skips off with them (sans amie) as Liam looks on wistfully.

 Epi-epilogue: He and daughter knock on Holly Valance’s door. ‘Welcome,’ she says, ‘I understand you want to be a singer? Come on in and let’s hear what you’ve got.’

 THE END.

 Crackin’ romp. Four stars.

* No Albanians were harmed in the writing of this review.

I'll come clean, I have written about Robert Riskin before but it was 18 months ago and not in the context of my 'screenwriter of the week' blogs. Plus, Riskin is a fascinating writer and one whose story has definite relevance to the writer vs. director theme that occasionally pops up in these blogs.
First things first; Lost Horizon is a great film that tanked on its release and it is on BBC2 this Tuesday at 11.45am. It was directed by Frank Capra and Capra is a key player in the Riskin story. When we think of Frank Capra we think of little man making good versus the big, we think of communities pulling together, we think of liberal values. But Capra was a lifelong Republican (even after HUAC had a pop at him), the tone of his movies came largely from his most prominent screenwriter; Robert Riskin. Riskin was a staunch liberal and probably had some communist sympathies as well, it is his beliefs that Capra so brilliantly translates to the screen. Which probably accounts for why their relationship was marred by frequent arguments over credit, which eventually ended the association during the making of Meet John Doe. On the face of it, it sounds like Riskin has a point; he was the author of these stories, without him what would they be? And although Capra's most famous film, It's a Wonderful Life, was made long after they had parted ways, it uses many of Riskin's themes and techniques. Bu, with other directors calling the shots Riskin's films were average at best, the simple truth is that Capra was by far the best interpreter of Riskin's work, even when he tried directing his own material it came up short. Capra may not have done as much of the writing as he claimed, but he certainly contributed something.
The sad moral of this story is that neither man was as good without the other and if they could just have accepted that and acknowledged each other's strengths they probably would have been all the happier for it. But Riskin had to watch Capra getting praise (not to mention a lucrative profit share scheme) heaped on him for what the writer felt was his own work. Meanwhile, Capra was so plagued by insecurity that he tried to take credit for every aspect of his films. The last word went to Capra as Riskin died in 1955 aged only 58, following a stroke which left him incapable of writing for the last 5 years of his life. His body of work in the 1930s is as good, and as astutely of its time, as that of any other screenwriter.
There's a huge amount that could be written on the relationship between these two men who so defined  each other's work (if you want to know more avoid Capra's revisionist and self-serving autobiography), but the thing that I take from it is that, contrary to the current trend of writer/directors, there is a real value to director and screenwriter being different but equally skilled and strong-willed people; it maybe be a volatile relationship, but the whole is likely to be greater than the sum of it's parts.