Movies based on plays - your recommendations?

I watched Deathtrap last night. What fun! Michael Caine was fantastic (no surprise.) Afterwards, I realized I enjoy quite a few movies based on plays: Glengarry Glen Ross, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Twelve Angry Men, etc.

Checking this wikipedia list, I see there are many more I need to see or rewatch. Any recommendations?

 

The Philadelphia Story
A Man For All Seasons
Inherit the Wind

Pygmalion and My Fair Lady were both based on G.B. Shaw's play Pygmalion, but both films deviated from the plot of Shaw's play-- at the end of the play, Eliza does not come back to Professor Higgins. Guess Hollywood needed a happy ending.

 

The recent Broadway revival with Lauren Ambrose stuck to Shaw's ending.

 

The genius of Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers is that they were out on the road working on the script with the writers, and would try different lines each night to produce the ultimate distillation of the Marx Brothers's anarchic humor.

 

Not on the list, but the 1942 film with Bette Davis, Anne Sheridan, Billie Burke, Jimmy Durante and the wonderful Monty Wooley as the title character is hysterically snarky, absurdist fun and very much worthy of your attention.

 

A Few Good Men

 

By the way, the speech recognition system in my phone had this word right, then insisted on changing it to "in our cake" which makes absolutely no sense at all. Well, maybe in a Marx Brothers movie.

 

"Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead". Mercilessly funny indeed.



Of course we could name loads of movies based on Shakespeare plays here, but I guess that's a topic for a thread on its own.

 

Hitchcock's Rope

 

Glengarry Glen Ross.

The Odd Couple

 

besides Shakespeare choices, the ones I really enjoy are Becket and The Lion In Winter.

 

Here's a recommendation:


AVOID.

 

Dial M For Murder

 

It was a play? I thought it was an original screenplay by von Trier, that just happened to look incredibly stagey.

I agree with you and should be avoided at all costs. It's visually interesting, but there's an excellent reason why no actress worked with that jerk twice.

 

The Iceman Cometh with Lee Marvin. Devastatingly played performances

 

I prefer the 1960 TV version with Jason Robards, capturing his legendary performance in the 1956 Off-Broadway revival.

Both versions have good and bad points.

Marvin, as good as he is, is not Robards, who is at his brilliant best here.

The main flaw in the TV version is Myron McCormack as Larry. He's not a bad actor, but he can't really project strength. Robert Ryan is far superior in the '73 film.

For those who care the '60 version has probably the best performance Robert Redford ever gave. That was certainly unfulfilled potential.

 

His Girl Friday would be my favourite i think.