Posted on 01/30/2010 4:27:57 AM PST by JoeProBono
J.D. Salinger, who died on Wednesday of natural causes, repeatedly brushed off entreaties to bring "The Catcher in the Rye" to the big screen from producers ranging from Billy Wilder to Steven Spielberg, according to EW.com.
But a 1957 letter suggests Salinger was somewhat open to a posthumous adaptation of his classic.
"Firstly, it is possible that one day the rights will be sold. Since there's an ever-looming possibility that I won't die rich, I toy very seriously with the idea of leaving the unsold rights to my wife and daughter as a kind of insurance policy. It pleasures me no end, though, I might quickly add, to know that I won't have to see the results of the transaction," he wrote, according to EW.com.
Whether Salinger was of the same mind more than 50 years later - having been long-divorced from his wife, Claire, and having become the subject of a memoir by his daughter, Margaret, that portrayed him a disturbed man - is not known.
Salinger saw the 1951 "Catcher" as a "very novelistic novel," not easily translated to other media. Too, he had been particularly upset by Samuel Goldwyn's adaptation of his short story, "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut," into a mawkish and failed 1949 movie, "My Foolish Heart," according to EW.com.
Still, the interest from Hollywood never went away. Even Harvey Weinstein made his bid. It was rejected, of course.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
65 million copies sold and he may not die rich?
I wonder why General Motors never built a Holden Caulfield
Me either. Never understood the hype on that book. I think it’s just part of the boomer-generation self-love pathology. Celebration of alienation.
You’re right about River P. At this point they’d have to use some unknown talented 17 y/o, IMO.
I liked the novel quite a bit. As for a movie...it could work. I’m normally wary of film adaptations of novels I like, as I’m often disappointed (Dune and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas come to mind), but Catcher... could work with the right director and cast.
The film adaptation I am absolutely DREADING is the forthcoming Atlas Shrugged. No way in hell is that going to work.
funny! those words from frost only remind me of the movie, "telefon," with charles bronson, lee remick and donald pleasance.
Agree; just like the Fountainhead....awful adaptation.
What chance would the book have of being made into a movie if not for it’s links to Chapman and Lennon? For that reason alone, I wouldn’t want to see it.
The only reason I read the book in high school was because it was banned from the school library. In a way I can understand, Salinger went to the same military school.
I read it in high school. I thought it was boring... Well, beyond boring. I think that is because most of the HS English teachers were women. I guess it’s a chick book.
Asimov and Heinlein were what I read for fun. Butt... they weren’t on the HS reading list. We had to read Lord of the Flies and Silas Marner and Catcher in the Rye. Ugh!
Chick books.
His writing style is easily recognizable.
Sure there was. It was about the attitudes that a young man has to leave behind before growing up. It’s a novel of maturation.
Lord of the Flies is a ‘chick’ book?
Yes. Boring character development.
Oh ok so any literary fiction is for chicks. Next you’ll tell me that Jane Austen is for girls too!
It doesn’t celebrate alienation. Holden has a nervous breakdown and is growing up at the end. It celebrates the innocence of childhood and the poignant need to eventually leave it.
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