Daily Dialogue — July 8, 2017

“What have I done?”

— The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), screenplay by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson (originally uncredited due to the Blacklist), novel by Pierre Boulle

The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Sacrifice, suggested by Denise Garcia.

Trivia: Screenwriters Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman had been blacklisted in Hollywood after having been accused of having Communist ties at the time the film was made, and went uncredited. The sole writing credit, and therefore the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, went to Pierre Boulle, who wrote the original French novel but did not speak English. Clearly he had not written the English script and this became a long-running controversy between the Academy and the actual authors to achieve recognition for their work. In 1984 the Academy retroactively awarded the Oscar to Wilson and Foreman. Sadly, Wilson did not live to see this; Foreman died the day after it was announced. When the film was restored, their names were added to the credits.

Dialogue On Dialogue: One of the greatest cinematic moments of a character’s sacrifice of all time… in one of the greatest movies of all time.