Movies based on plays - your recommendations?

I actually prefer this radio version, produced for the NBC series Best Plays in 1952. It's taken directly from Patrick Hamilton's play. It has no connection to the film.

Jimmy Stewart was badly miscast in the film. Here, his role is played by the much more suitable Victor Jory. And I hate the the ten minute take. This version has much more tension:

 

Yea, I heard Robards defined the role. I thought Marvin had his own twist on it which gave me food for thought. Ryan was just fantastic, he had days to live. While I thought Bridges was very good, I would bet that Redford was great.

 

I’m sure this is not based on a play, despite its Brechtian influences.

 

I hated it for its' staged pompousness, not from any particular awareness of whether or not it was actually based on any specific stageplay; but, that it was adhering to the conventions of the narrative styles of not just stageplay, but of the conventions of stageplay overly-full of itself. Whatever this piece of cinema is, I hated it for what it was proposing to pass itself off as. More simply put, it rubbed me the wrong way, and when it's just you in the auditorium and the film on the screen, that's the most you can count on to make your initial, visceral opinion.

 

The Big Kahuna (Danny DeVito & Kevin Spacey)

Le Dîner de Cons (French comedy play - hilarious and nothing in common with the in-name-only US version Dinner For Schmucks)

 

Noises Off.....a play within a play within a movie

 

Brando, Vivien Leigh & Karl Malden - A Street Car Named Desire...

Hard to top that indeed

 

The Boys in the Band.

I wonder if any of Veber's films had a decent remake in Hollywood.

 

‘A Thousand Clowns,’ with Jason Robards, was a favorite film of mine for a number of years. Oddly, when I discovered it was adapted from a stage play, it took something away from the film version for me. I’ve never quite figured out why.

‘Don’t Play Us Cheap,’ by Melvin Van Peebles, was a freaky but entertaining film which I first saw on Showtime or Cinemax. I enjoyed it enough to track down the video, but it was one of those films I enjoyed in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 sort of way. When I figured out that the movie was essentially a filmed version of the Broadway show, the presentation made more sense to me.

 

"Oscar" starring Sylvester Stallone as a 20s gangster boss trying to get straight, featuring Marisa Tomei, Tim Curry, Chazz Palminteri, and Kurtwood Smith of That 70s show as the cop trying to nail him. It's hilarious! Stallone is actually great as a comedian. It's very play-like, almost completely set in one house.

 

little malcolm and his struggle against the eunuchs (produced by george harrison/handmade films)

BFI trailer

 

Elizabeth Taylor's filmography is loaded with movies based on plays.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Directed by Richard Brooks
Written by Richard Brooks & James Poe, based on the play by Tennessee Williams
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson, Jack Carson, Madeleine Sherwood, Vaughn Taylor

Suddenly, Last Summer
Directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz
Produced by Sam Spiegel
Written by Gore Vidal & Tennessee Williams, based on the play by Tennessee Williams
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Mercedes McCambridge, Albert Dekker, Mavis Villiers

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Directed by Mike Nichols
Written & produced by Ernest Lehman, based on the play by Edward Albee
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis

The Taming of the Shrew
Directed by Franco Zeffirelli
Written by Franco Zeffirelli, Paul Dehn, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, based on the play by William Shakespeare
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Michael York, Victor Spinetti

Doctor Faustus
Directed by Richard Burton & Nevill Coghill
Written by Nevill Coghill, based on the play by Christopher Marlowe
Starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor

Boom!
Directed by Joseph Losey
Written by Tennessee Williams, based on The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore by Tennessee Williams
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Noel Coward, Michael Dunn

The Only Game in Town
Directed by George Stevens
Written by Frank Gilroy, based on his play
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Warren Beatty, Charles Braswell, Hank Henry

Under Milk Wood
Directed & written by Andrew Sinclair, based on the play by Dylan Thomas
Starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter O'Toole, Sian Phillips, Glynis Johns, Vivien Merchant, Victor Spinetti, Ryan Davies, Angharad Rees, Glynn Edwards, Bridget Turner, Talfryn Thomas

The Blue Bird
Directed by George Cukor
Written by Hugh Whitemore, Alfred Hayes, Aleksei Kapler, based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, Ava Gardner, Cicely Tyson, Robert Morley, Leonid Nevedomsky, Harry Andrews, Patsy Kensit, Will Geer, Mona Washbourne, George Cole, Richard Pearson, Nadezhda Pavlova

Sweet Bird of Youth
Directed by Nicolas Roeg
Written by Gavin Lambert, based on the play Tennessee Williams
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mark Harmon, Valerie Perrine, Kevin Geer, Seymour Cassel, Rip Torn, Ronnie Claire Edwards, Cheryl Paris, Megan Blake, Ruta Lee, Tom Nolan

 

Peter O'Toole, no stranger to the theatre, made a few movies based on plays and co-directed one, Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, of which he was the original actor.

Becket
Directed by Peter Glenville
Written by Edward Anhalt, based on the play by Jean Anouilh
Produced by Hal Wallis
Starring Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, Paolo Stoppa, Donald Wolfit, Sian Phillips, Victor Spinetti

Great Catherine
Directed by Gordon Flemyng
Written by Hugh Leonard, based on the play by George Bernard Shaw
Starring Peter O'Toole, Jeanne Moreau, Zero Mostel, Jack Hawkins, Akim Tamiroff

The Ruling Class
Directed by Peter Medak
Written by Peter Barnes, based on his play
Produced by Jules Buck & Jack Hawkins
Starring Peter O'Toole, Coral Browne, William Mervyn, James Villiers, Arthur Lowe, Carolyn Seymour, Harry Andrews

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell
Directed by Tom Kinninmont & Peter O'Toole
Written by Keith Waterhouse, based on his play
Starring Peter O'Toole

 

Casablanca, of course.

 

wow! a lot surprised anyone liked this. it's number one on my list of worst movies i ever had the pain to sit through.

 

Rocky Horror Picture Show.

 

don't leave out Lion In Winter!
The Lion in Winter is a 1968 historical period drama film based on the Broadway play of the same name by James Goldman

 

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring

 

Dead End

 

Chaaaarge! Killer funny...Teddy.

 

Well, thanks for that. I don't know why I ever look at this subforum. Once I had a quick look at the "worst music related movies of all time" thread or whatever it's called. After seeing a dozen of my all-time favourites listed I gave up in disgust.

 

Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a Raisin in the Sun, Wait Until Dark, Miss Julie, and of course Cats

 

Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill
Bug by Tracy Letts

 

I read this and immediately thought, "There's no way I skipped that one." Turns out I did.