Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by rico (A) on August 24, 2004 at 08:23:18

I have been watching kinescopes of live TV dramas from the fities from a laserdisc collection called "The Golden Age of Television" All of these teleplays were then made into faeture films.
I started with "Marty", which had Rod Steiger in the original TV version and then Ernest Borgnine in the movie. They are about equal.
The same is true of "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (Jack Palance, Keenann Winn, Ed winn on TV, Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney on film. (The film has a darker ending).

Not so with "The Days of Wine and Roses". As good as the film is (Jack Lemmon, Lee remick) it is easily bested by what is probably the most riveting and disturbing piece of drama I have ever seen, the original teleplay. Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie star and the TV dram is the most harrowing portrait of alcoholism ever put on film or tape, and I'm including all the classics. I cannot find a DVD release of this (yet) but if you ever have a chance to catch the teleplay (maybe on braodcast or on the LD or maybe on a future DVD issue), don't miss it.