Own the rights?
If you have read the screenplay to this apparently completed, then deep-sixed film, you quickly comprehend there isn't anything particularly fatal on paper. It is humanist, yes, and delves into a situation so ugly and desperate that the pathos and horror should arise naturally, unforced from the material. I would venture worse-reading films have made it to the screen as star vehicles, and sometimes done pretty well-- by an alignment of miraculous chances-- as both box office and as cinema.I am merely guessing that the entire problem with the filmed version is (as Harry Shearer says in so many words) one of failing to find precisely the right tone. The tone and mounting would make or break this material, veering it toward Apocalypse Now on the one hand, or Plan Nine From Outer Space on the other. I have to confess, after reading this, that I wish someone, maybe some goth, dour euro director (maybe Bergman or Bresson) had filmed this during the late 50s or early 60s. In Lewis' hands, it had no chance to rise to its greatest potential, and now no one will likely ever touch the original material again. But with some goofy dialogue and some of the more obviously inappropriate suggestions as to where to camp it up exponged, I think it all could have worked. The results, still, might be a film no one would want to watch.
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