Editing Arthur Laurents (section)

=== Hollywood ===
Laurents' first Hollywood experience proved to be a frustrating disappointment. Director [[Anatole Litvak]], unhappy with the script submitted by [[Frank Partos]] and [[Millen Brand]] for ''[[The Snake Pit]]'' (1948), hired Laurents to rewrite it. Partos and Brand later insisted the bulk of the shooting script was theirs, and produced carbon copies of many of the pages Laurents actually had written to bolster their claim. Having destroyed the original script and all his notes and rewritten pages after completing the project, Laurents had no way to prove most of the work was his, and the [[WGA screenwriting credit system|Writers Guild of America]] denied him screen credit. Brand later confessed he and Partos had copied scenes written by Laurents and apologized for his role in the deception. Four decades later, Laurents learned he was ineligible for WGA health benefits because he had failed to accumulate enough credits to qualify. He was short by one, the one he failed to get for ''The Snake Pit''.<ref>Laurents, pp. 106–120.</ref>

Upon hearing [[20th Century Fox]] executives were pleased with Laurents' work on ''The Snake Pit'', [[Alfred Hitchcock]] hired him for his next project, the film ''[[Rope (film)|Rope]]'' starring [[James Stewart]]. Hitchcock wanted Laurents to Americanize the British play ''[[Rope (play)|Rope]]'' (1929) by [[Patrick Hamilton (writer)|Patrick Hamilton]] for the screen. With his then-lover [[Farley Granger]] set to star, Laurents was happy to accept the assignment. His dilemma was how to make the audience aware of the fact the three main characters were homosexual without blatantly saying so. [[United States Motion Picture Production Code of 1930|The Hays Office]] kept close tabs on his work, and the final script was so discreet that Laurents was unsure whether co-star James Stewart ever realized that his character was gay.<ref>Laurents, pp. 115–116, 124–131.</ref> In later years, Hitchcock asked him to script both ''[[Torn Curtain]]'' (1966) and ''[[Topaz (1969 film)|Topaz]]'' (1969), However, Laurents, in both cases unenthused by the material, declined the offers.<ref>Laurents, p. 136.</ref>

Laurents also scripted ''[[Anastasia (1956 film)|Anastasia]]'' (1956) and ''[[Bonjour Tristesse (1958 film)|Bonjour Tristesse]]'' (1958). ''[[The Way We Were]]'' (1973), in which he incorporated many of his own experiences, particularly those with the HUAC, reunited him with Barbra Streisand, and ''[[The Turning Point (1977 film)|The Turning Point]]'' (1977), inspired in part by his love for Nora Kaye, was directed by her husband [[Herbert Ross]]. The Fox animated feature film ''[[Anastasia (1997 film)|Anastasia]]'' (1997) was based in part on his screenplay of the live-action 1956 film of the same title.<ref>"[http://forum.bcdb.com/forum/West_Side_Story_author_Arthur_Laurents_dies_93_P112699/ "West Side Story Author Arthur Laurents Dies, 93"] {{webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20120709071003/http://forum.bcdb.com/forum/West_Side_Story_author_Arthur_Laurents_dies_93_P112699/ |date=July 9, 2012 }} forum.bcdb.com. May 4, 2011.</ref>