William Goldman: Five Screenplays with Essays

by William Goldman

A collection of five screenplays by this Academy Award-winning writer. All the President's Men • Magic • Harper • Maverick • The Great Waldo Pepper. Also features essays by “Getting Even or Creative Accounting ” “Sneak Previews, or Why Did She Have to Die? ” “Hype or A Brief History of the Future ” “Shooting from the Don't You Know Anything About Screenwriting? ” and “Nothing for Me to The Secret Life of an Adaptation.”

Genres: Film, Fiction, Writing

624 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2000

About the author

Goldman grew up in a Jewish family in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and obtained a BA degree at Oberlin College in 1952 and an MA degree at Columbia University in 1956.His brother was the late James Goldman, author and playwright.

William Goldman had published five novels and had three plays produced on Broadway before he began to write screenplays. Several of his novels he later used as the foundation for his screenplays.

In the 1980s he wrote a series of memoirs looking at his professional life on Broadway and in Hollywood (in one of these he famously remarked that "Nobody knows anything"). He then returned to writing novels. He then adapted his novel The Princess Bride to the screen, which marked his re-entry into screenwriting.

Goldman won two Academy Awards: an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for All the President's Men. He also won two Edgar Awards, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay: for Harper in 1967, and for Magic (adapted from his own 1976 novel) in 1979.

Goldman died in New York City on November 16, 2018, due to complications from colon cancer and pneumonia. He was eighty-seven years old.

Reviews

[G. Salter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The screenplays included all make for good reading, though researchers should know some are final drafts and some are early drafts. Sometimes this makes for surprising insights on what changed: the draft of All The President's Men begin with a note where Goldman calls it "the Ross McDonald draft," a reference to the mystery novelist whose novel The Moving Target Goldman adapted as Harper. It has pretty much everything the finished film has, but a touch more adventure, and less emphasis on the journalists' technical tools.

The essays swerve between interesting insights into the making of the films (why Waldo Pepper would have been a hit if they'd reshot the scene where Susan Sarandon dies) and Goldman's takes on what was going on in movie business in the 1990s (the problems of overhyping up-and-coming actors). The latter can feel a bit gossipy, but even in the most gossippy moments Goldman has an interesting point that still applies today (for example, the emphasis on blockbusters over character-driven stories has only gotten worse). The essays may not be as great as Goldman's books Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell?, but are worth sampling.

[Victoria & David Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I wish I could put down on paper what it's like - you come to Washington because you believe in something, and then you get inside and you see how things actually work and you watch your ideals disintegrate. The people inside, the people in the White House, they start to believe that they can suspend the rules because they are fulfilling a mission. That becomes the only important thing - the mission. It's so easy to lose perspective." All The President's Men

William Goldman is a self professed storyteller. And a very good one. Whether you have seen these movies or not (and I was 3 out of 5), the screenplays make for an entertaining read.

“Love is many things, none of them logical.”

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

One star for each of the screenplays I enjoyed.

[Johnnie-lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading a screenplay gave me a chance to slow down and enjoy the characters. Like eating a yummy giant chocolate cake one bite at a time.