Doc Savage (Gold Key, 1966)

In 1966, Gold Key put out a one-shot Doc Savage comic book that was originally commissioned as a tie-in for a DOC SAVAGE movie from Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, to star Chuck Connors. Both the comic and the unproduced movie were based on the pulp hero’s seventeenth adventure, The Thousand-Headed Man, written by Lester Dent and first published in July 1934. To learn why the cast and crew that was assembled for this film ended up working on a western called RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE instead, head over to the excellent Atomic Kommie Comics, where you’ll also find the once rare and highly sought after DOC SAVAGE comic book, scanned in its entirety and posted in three parts for your enjoyment.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

DOC SAVAGE: The Movie That ALMOST Was

Books Into Films: "Big Investments in Story Values Which Have Not Yet Been Filmed" - Variety, 5/9/73

Torn from the pages of Variety -- literally! -- here's another great "Books Into Film" post from William Wilson of Video Junkie Strikes Back from Beyond the Grave!

(Variety, May 9, 1973)

Books Into Films: Announced in the Trades, Part 2

A few months back, our friend William Wilson of Video Junkie Strikes Back from Beyond the Grave sent us the following Variety ads as a response to our first installment of Books Into Films: Announced in the Trades.

In the May 1984 Cannes Film Festival issue of Variety, United Film Distribution Company (UFDC) hyped a film adaptation of Felice Picano's 1975 thriller Eyes, starring Susan Sarandon. On the same page was an ad for a film adaptation of Susan Isaacs’ Compromising Positions, also starring Sarandon. EYES was never made, but UFDC honcho Salah M. Hassanein received executive producer on Frank Perry’s COMPROMISING POSITIONS (1985), produced for Paramount with Sarandon in the lead.

The classic film noir DETOUR (1945), starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage, was adapted by Martin M. Goldsmith from his own 1939 novel. A remake by Carl Shenkel was announced in the October 19, 1992 issue of Variety, but Shenkel’s project never came to fruition. However, a different adaptation of Goldsmith’s book the same year – written, produced and directed by Wade Williams and starring Tom Neal, Jr. (in the role his father played almost a half century earlier) – was produced the same year!

British author David Ambrose wrote the screenplays for such films as THE FIFTH MUSKETEER (1979), THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980) and D.A.R.Y.L. (1985), but never had much luck with film adaptations of his novels. Above is an ad from Armada Productions that advertises movies based on two of Ambrose’s novels, The Man Who Turned into Himself and Superstition, published in 1993 and 1997, respectively. Neither film was produced. (Variety date: May 6, 1996)

Finally, in the 1996 MIFED Film Market issue of Variety (October 21-27), Imperial Entertainment and producer Steve Perry hyped an adaptation of James Ellroy's 1982 novel Clandestine, but that too was never made.

"The Most Challenging Concept You Will Ever See from Challenge Pictures Corp."

In the September 5, 1977 issue of Boxoffice, producer Robert Levine of Challenge Pictures Corporation laid out his revolutionary new distribution concept to exhibitors in a 4-page booklet you can find HERE. Included in this proposal are descriptions of the first two projects his company was promoting at the time, both of them adaptations of popular novels: CORPSE is based on John R. Feegel's Autopsy (Avon, 1975), which was awarded the Edgar® Award by the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) for Best Paperback Original in 1976, while THE REBELLION OF YALE MARRATT is from the bestseller by Robert Rimmer, author of The Harrad Experiment. Neither film was produced.

CORPSE

Dr. Jerry Leatherman was a burned-out case. He was tired of being Tampa General’s most celebrated “body butcher,” sick of his status as a nationally known pathologist, and ready to pickle his razor-sharp brain in 90 proof alcohol.

But there was just one more case to handle.

And suddenly Leatherman is plunged into a maze of murder, suicide, high-level fraud, kinky sex, and the kind of merciless soul-searching he thought he no longer believed in.

A dead tycoon, all the evidence pointing to suicide – A developing legal battle over millions – A too-curious rookie cop silenced by a strange “heart attack” – An achingly suspenseful, illegal, midnight autopsy, and another, riddle-solving autopsy the next day – A search through the shadow-world of strip joints, massage parlors, pimps, and dice-rolling hustlers for the most bizarre killer in movie history – the growing, sickening suspicion that the prime suspect is the woman Leatherman is falling in love with, the tycoon’s widow – And the final, face-to-face confrontation with the one person Jerry Leatherman has avoided for a long, long time – Himself!

Did Leatherman hate his work – really – or did he love it too much?

You’ll discover the gut-wrenching answer in – CORPSE.

Robert Levine will produce CORPSE. Discussions have been held with Ben Gazzara, who has expressed interest in the leading role. Only the highest caliber actors will be cast. CORPSE will be directed by Richard Wilson, producer-director of INVITATION TO A GUNFIGHTER starring Yul Brynner; Director of AL CAPONE with Rod Steiger; Producer-Director of THREE IN THE ATTIC (AIP).

THE REBELLION OF YALE MARRATT

From
Robert Rimmer’s novel – 3,000,000 copies sold

Author of “The
Harrad Experiment” –
$9,000,000 box-office gross

The many faces of love are explored in this explosive story. Can two women married to the same husband share his love and live in harmony? Can one man, married to two beautiful wives, shed the stallion instinct and let love flow freely? Can father and son rivalry, or a mother’s infidelity, destroy it forever?

Intertwined is a fascinating story of a young man’s financial wizardry – of doubling and redoubling each stake he gambles in the cut-throat business world till he’s richer than his rich father. It is the story of the no-holds-barred conflict with that father who turns the town against him, using his bigamous household as the lever to strip him of economic power, just as he incited an unruly mob to strip his son’s wives naked in the shopping mall.

But the young lovers fight back – all of it is THE REBELLION OF YALE MARRATT.

(Boxoffice, September 5, 1977, p. 13-16)

Books Into Films: Announced in the Trades

Here are just a few of the many book-into-film adaptations that were announced in trade papers (Variety, Boxoffice, Hollywood Reporter) but either never got made or were produced years later with different talent in front of and behind the camera.

THE CONFIDENCE MAN (1974) -- A Roger Corman production to be directed by Jonathan Demme, from a screenplay by Demme, based on the novel by Herman Melville

CULLA AND RINTHY (1971) – Stacy Keach to write and direct, based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel Outer Dark

DEADLY EDGE (1972) – Based on the novel by Richard Stark [Donald E. Westlake], to be written by Don Peterson and directed by Peter Yates

THE DEMOLISHED MAN (1977) – Based on the novel by Alfred Bester, written and directed by Brian De Palma

DIRTY LAUNDRY(1979) – Michael Mann to direct, based on a Pete Hamill book

THE EXECUTIONER (1979) – Produced by Burt Reynolds and David Gershenson for 20th Century Fox, based on the Pinnacle action paperback series by Don Pendleton

52 PICK-UP (1975) – Based on the Elmore Leonard novel, produced by Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus, directed by Menahem Golan, starring Joe Don Baker, Trish Van Devere, George Hamilton, Bruce Davison and John Marley. "Production to begin in Israel in December 1975" (Golan & Globus produced two adaptations of this a decade later: THE AMBASSADOR (1984) -- directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Rock Hudson, Robert Mitchum, Ellen Burstyn, Donald Pleasence and Fabio Testi -- was shot in Israel but doesn't credit the novel, and 52 PICKUP (1986) was directed by John Frankenheimer and stars Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, Vanity, and John Glover.)

THE FIRST DEADLY SIN (1974) – To be directed by Don Siegel, based on the novel by Lawrence Sanders (Brian Hutton directed the 1980 movie, which stars Frank Sinatra and Faye Dunaway)

THE HEADHUNTERS (1974) – Arthur Marks movie based on the Pinnacle action paperback series by Brian Boyer & John Weisman

THE HORSE IS DEAD (1978) -- Comedy based on the novel by Robert Klane, produced by Samuel W. Gelfman, directed by Ernest Pintoff

I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN (1968) – Starring Natalie Wood and directed by Sydney Pollack, from the novel by Joanne Greenberg (Kathleen Quinlan ended up starring in director Anthony Page's film, released in 1977)

LETTING GO (1965) – Based on the Philip Roth novel, to be produced by AIP and directed by Harvey Hart


LOVE'S TENDER FURY (1977) - Produced by Julie Corman, from a novel Jennifer Wilde

MOTHER HARLEM (1974) – A sequel to ACROSS 110TH STREET, but not based on a novel by Wally Ferris, to be directed by Barry Shear

THE MOVIEGOER (1978) -- A Roger Corman production starring Karen Black and Sam Waterston, based on Walker Percy's novel. Twenty years later, Avenue Pictures announced another production of this (with a screenplay by Terrence Malick), but that also never came to fruition.

NAMUGONGO (1970) – Cornel Wilde to direct, based on a book by Father A. E. Howell of the Order of the White Fathers, from a script by Clint Johnston and Don Peters

PAST ALL DISHONOR (late 1960s) – To be directed by James B. Harris, based on the novel by James M. Cain

PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW (1968) – James B. Harris signed to direct a script by William Hanley, based on the novel by Francis Pollini (The movie that was made and released in 1971 was directed by Roger Vadim, from a script by Gene Roddenberry)


SITTING PRETTY (1977) - Bill Cosby's plan to turn Al Young's novel Sitting Pretty into a feature film unfortunately never came to fruition, although Young did do uncredited rewrites on the Cosby-Poitier comedy A PIECE OF THE ACTION, also for First Artists.

STAND ON IT (1975) – Screenplay by Lukas Heller, based on the novel by Stroker Ace [William Neely & Robert K. Ottum], to be directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Burt Reynolds (Made by Hal Needham a decade later as STROKER ACE, starring Reynolds, from a script by Needham and Hugh Wilson)

VAMPIRELLA (1975-1977) - Gordon Hessler's unmade VAMPIRELLA movie was to star Barbara Leigh (JUNIOR BONNER, TERMINAL ISLAND). Ron Goulart's six Vampirella novels published by Warner Books -- Bloodstalk (#1), On Alien Wings (#2), Deadwalk (#3), Blood Wedding (#4), Deathgame (#5), and Snakegod (#6) -- all have "Soon to be a major motion picture" on their back covers.