Autorenbild.

Moss Hart (1904–1961)

Autor von Act One: An Autobiography

29+ Werke 1,742 Mitglieder 35 Rezensionen Lieblingsautor von 3 Lesern

Über den Autor

Beinhaltet den Namen: Moss Hart

Bildnachweis: Library of Congress

Werke von Moss Hart

Act One: An Autobiography (1960) 511 Exemplare
You Can't Take It With You (1936) 495 Exemplare
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939) 234 Exemplare
Six Plays by Kaufman and Hart (1942) 83 Exemplare
You Can't Take It With You [1938 film] (1938) — Writer — 77 Exemplare
Light Up the Sky. (1949) 57 Exemplare
Once in a Lifetime (1930) 53 Exemplare
George Washington Slept Here. (1940) 43 Exemplare
Merrily We Roll Along: A Play (1934) 15 Exemplare
The American Way (1939) 9 Exemplare
The Cole Porter Song Book (1959) — Einführung — 9 Exemplare
Lady in the Dark: Original 1963 Studio Cast Recording (1941) — Librettist — 8 Exemplare

Zugehörige Werke

Six Modern American Plays (1951) — Mitwirkender — 272 Exemplare
Kaufman & Co.: Broadway Comedies (2004) 251 Exemplare
Sixteen Famous American Plays (1777) — Playwright — 182 Exemplare
Three Comedies of American Family Life (1961) — Mitwirkender — 122 Exemplare
Gentleman's Agreement [1947 film] (1947) — Screenwriter — 109 Exemplare
A Star Is Born [1954 film] (1954) — Screenwriter — 98 Exemplare
Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre: Second Series (1947) — Mitwirkender — 81 Exemplare
Twenty Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre (1939) — Mitwirkender — 74 Exemplare
Hans Christian Andersen [1952 film] (1952) — Screenwriter — 58 Exemplare
Reading for Pleasure (1957) — Mitwirkender — 51 Exemplare
Nothing Sacred [1937 film] (1937) — Writer — 46 Exemplare
Comedy tonight!: Broadway picks its favorite plays (1977) — Mitwirkender — 38 Exemplare
50 Best Plays of the American Theatre [4-volume set] (1969) — Mitwirkender — 33 Exemplare
Reader's Digest Great Biographies 12 (1987) — Mitwirkender — 18 Exemplare
My Fair Lady: Original 1959 London Cast Recording (1990) — Producer — 14 Exemplare
The Fireside Treasury of Modern Humor (1963) — Mitwirkender — 5 Exemplare
Broadway Melody of 1936 [1935 film] (1935) — Original play — 5 Exemplare
50 Best Plays of the American Theatre, Volume 2 (1969) — Mitwirkender — 3 Exemplare

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https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/three-plays-by-george-s-kaufman-and-moss-hart/
rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/you-cant-take-it-with-you-1938-and-play-by-moss-...

I got this collection of 1930s plays five years ago, in the early stages of my Oscar-watching project, because the middle one of the three was the basis of a very successful film starring Lionel Barrymore. In fact all three of these plays were successfully adapted for the screen.

The scripts are prefaced by a short piece from each of the two authors, gently poking fun at each other and giving a sense of the relationship between two Broadway creators. They certainly seem to have got on with each other better than Gilbert and Sullivan.

The first play, Once in a Lifetime, is about a vaudeville trio, down on their luck because of the invention of talking movies which sucks the audience out of theatre, who go to Hollywood and try to make it big there. The dumb guy of the three ascends to huge cinematic power, and the punchline of the play is that the bad decisions he makes turn out to be very successful.

I thought it was really funny. I don’t always find it easy to read scripts, but here I had no difficulty differentiating the characters with their different voices. I noted that George Kaufman, one of the authors, also played the frustrated playwright Laurence Vail in the first Broadway cast.

The key character is Mary Daniels, the woman in the vaudeville trio, who gets the best lines and serves as the audience viewpoint character on what is happening in Hollywood. In the original Broadway production she was played by Jean Dixon.

The drunk actress Gay Wellington (and another comic turn, the Grand Duchess Olga) were among the cuts made by Riskin as he adapted You Can't Take It With You for the screen. Kirby’s background is much less developed in the play – the whole subplot involving property transactions, and the character of Mr Poppins, are inserted by Riskin into the film. The Vanderhofs have pet snakes rather than a raven. (Though I’m glad to say that the kitten is original.)

The guts of it are all the same, and one can see why the play won a Pulitzer as an uplifting tonic in depressing times. It’s a bit more misogynistic (as I said, two extra female characters who are only there as figures of fun, and Mrs Kirby gets a harder time) and more racist (Donald gets treated worse). There is a hilarious sequence during the Kirbys’ disastrous visit to the Vanderhof household, where Penny gets the Kirbys to play a word association game.

The third play, The Man Who Came to Dinner, is even more overtly a character study than the other two. A famous New York theatre critic slips on an icy patch while visiting Ohio and is immobilised in the home of his reluctant hosts for several weeks. There’s a bit of a comedy of middle-class manners here, but mainly it’s about the monstrous protagonist who is unaware of his own monstrosity.

I Imagine that this is simple to stage, in that the entire play takes place in the Ohio front room. It’s more of a one-joke story than the other two. The play was written for actor and critic Alexander Woolcott, who had behaved with abominable rudeness while visiting Hart’s family home; for some strange reason he bowed out of actually performing as the character based on himself, and it fell to Monty Woolley to do it on both stage and screen, giving his career an immense boost. The film stars him and Bette Davis.… (mehr)
½
 
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nwhyte | Feb 24, 2024 |
An absolute delightful autobiography by playwright Moss Hart. He grew up in poverty but had an early love for the theatre. He worked as a social director at summer camps, building himself up to the most in demand director for all of the camps. He had written several plays during this time, none of which were produced but finally had one called Once in a Lifetime that was produced. The book tells of his early childhood and times as a social director but more important, the collaborative effort with George S. Kaufman and getting Once in a Lifetime produced. His writing in the book describes Kaufman in such detail that you feel you know him. The work done during this collaborative effort is also discussed as well as the re-write process after out of town tryouts. The reader was so elated when the play finally turned out to be a success and his family was able to escape poverty. A great look at life on Broadway in the early part of the 20th century. My only criticism would be there are no photos in the book.… (mehr)
 
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knahs | 12 weitere Rezensionen | May 19, 2023 |
Excellent memoir of new playwright going from poverty to success. I don't know why I never read this before. Very well written and I empathized with him a lot.
 
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kslade | 12 weitere Rezensionen | Dec 8, 2022 |
The title is very informative. New York's Broadway from the nineteen thirties to the forties had at least one of these plays drawing crowds at any given moment. they are:1934 Merrily We Roll Along (Kaufman and Hart)
1936 You Can't Take It with You (Kaufman and Hart; Pulitzer Prize winner)
1937 I'd Rather Be Right (Kaufman and Hart)
1938 The Fabulous Invalid (Kaufman and Hart)
1939 The American Way (Kaufman and Hart)
1939 The Man Who Came to Dinner (Kaufman and Hart)

This was a Modern Library Anthology, and is a very buy should you find a copy. The only missing play from their collaborations is 1940's George Washington Slept Here.… (mehr)
½
 
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DinadansFriend | Mar 9, 2022 |

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