[dir. ALTMAN, Robert] LARDNER Jr., Ring M*A*S*H
Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1969
141 mimeographed pp. bound in oversize blue stiff paper wrappers, secured with three split pins to left edge. Front wrapper printed in black. Inked name (‘Weyl’) to front wrapper, a further three names scribbled to final leaf. The number ‘209’ to front wrapper, also printed to the lower left corner of all pages. Wrappers a little edge worn, but a very well preserved copy.
Final screenplay of the funniest film ever made about the horrors of war. Nominated for five Oscars, winning one for Ring Lardner Jr.’s screenplay, and winner of the Palme D’Or at Cannes (known in 1970 as the Grand Prix).
One of the original Hollywood Ten, Ring Lardner Jr. spent the 1950s in Britian writing under a pseudonym, before resurfacing as the credited co-screenwriter of Norman Jewison’s The Cincinnati Kid (1965). He won an Oscar for his work on M*A*S*H (1970)
— aided and abetted by the film’s stars Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland who, encouraged by Robert Altman, improvised to great comic effect. Although set during the Korean war, the parallels with the war in Vietnam were clear and deliberate, and the film’s elevation to counterculture classic was instant.
Robert Altman’s director’s fee for the film was $70,000. Altman’s fourteen-year-old son wrote the lyrics for the film’s title song, Suicide is Painless, and the worldwide success of the TV spin-off made him a millionaire.
[dir. ALTMAN, Robert] LARDNER Jr., Ring M*A*S*H
Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1969
141 mimeographed pp. bound in oversize blue stiff paper wrappers, secured with three split pins to left edge. Front wrapper printed in black. Inked name (‘Weyl’) to front wrapper, a further three names scribbled to final leaf. The number ‘209’ to front wrapper, also printed to the lower left corner of all pages. Wrappers a little edge worn, but a very well preserved copy.
Final screenplay of the funniest film ever made about the horrors of war. Nominated for five Oscars, winning one for Ring Lardner Jr.’s screenplay, and winner of the Palme D’Or at Cannes (known in 1970 as the Grand Prix).
One of the original Hollywood Ten, Ring Lardner Jr. spent the 1950s in Britian writing under a pseudonym, before resurfacing as the credited co-screenwriter of Norman Jewison’s The Cincinnati Kid (1965). He won an Oscar for his work on M*A*S*H (1970)
— aided and abetted by the film’s stars Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland who, encouraged by Robert Altman, improvised to great comic effect. Although set during the Korean war, the parallels with the war in Vietnam were clear and deliberate, and the film’s elevation to counterculture classic was instant.
Robert Altman’s director’s fee for the film was $70,000. Altman’s fourteen-year-old son wrote the lyrics for the film’s title song, Suicide is Painless, and the worldwide success of the TV spin-off made him a millionaire.
