HEMINGWAY'S THE KILLERS: Introduction to My New Book
This week, I published my screenplay adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's THE KILLERS as a book on Amazon. The story, and others I've included in the script, are in the public domain. Here on Steemit, I'm publishing my introduction to the book, available only in the paperback and not posted anywhere else.
You can order a copy of the paperback here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F29CF3F4
INTRODUCTION
Adaptation
How to adapt Ernest Hemingway's classic short story The Killers in a way that has not been done before? I asked myself that question for many years. It's a perfect piece of literature but not long enough to make a whole movie. Therefore, the adaptation must add to the narrative.
It has been done twice before by Hollywood, once in 1946 with Burt Lancaster and again in 1964 with Lee Marvin (it was also adapted for TV and as short films as well). Both of the feature film versions are quite different from each other. Robert Siodmak's 40s Film Noir faithful adapts Hemingway's story and extends the narrative with an insurance investigation that leads into the Swede's backstory. Don Siegel's 60s crime film also leans on flashbacks but follows the titular killers as they explore the backstory of the man they murder in the opening. I prefer the Siegel film but it uses the source material as a departure point. You can read my reviews of both films at the end of this book.
Of course, I wanted to do something different and it always stood out to me that neither of the previous films focused on Nick Adams. Hemingway's recurring character, featured short stories, is the eyes and ears of The Killers, yet he's just a bit part of the 1946 film and doesn't appear at all in the 1964 movie. A movie was made about Nick Adams, cobbling together several of Ernest's stories about him, but the film titled Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man does not include the most famous Nick story.
Men Without Women, the short story collection that includes The Killers, recently entered the public domain and that was the push I needed to finally script my version. I had the main character, Nick, but to turn a short story into a long one, I needed more material. I decided to use other Nick Adams stories as flashbacks, taking from Men and another public domain work In Our Time, to show the young man's journey through childhood, war, and romance. For some stories, The Battler for instance, I changed the characters and situations to make even more connections to The Killers. But in general, I stayed true to the source material, especially Hemingway's dialog. Why try to improve on what was already great?
If you're a Hemingway fan, you'll also notice a few easter eggs in the script that pay homage to his writing and other adaptations of his work. I hope you have as much fun finding them as I did figuring out how they fit into the story.
The Movie
I would like to direct and produce this script into a feature film. It has always been hard to get a movie made and these days it's arguably harder than ever. For many years, I made movies with little to no budget to speak of. These days, I would like a more reasonable amount to put my vision on screen. It's not worth the hard work if the movie isn't going to be made right and it isn't worth making if I'm not going to do the script (and Hemingway) justice.
Alas, Hemingway's The Killers remains unproduced but instead of letting it collect dust on the shelf, here it is for you to read and imagine what the movie could be.