by Warren M. Sherk
After producing the film and adapting the music for Tchaikovsky, Dimitri Tiomkin is ready for his next project and considers a musical version of the film, The Trials of Oscar Wilde.
The Trials of Oscar Wilde
Director Ken Hughes co-wrote, directed, and co-produced with Irving Allen the 1960 film, The Trials of Oscar Wilde. Based on a John Furnell play, The Stringed Lute, Hughes’s film presents a character study of Wilde, dips into his private and family life, and presents the famous libel suit trial which resulted in Wilde’s being tried on a morals charge and sent to prison.
Speaking of the film, Hughes recalled, “When I made the Wilde picture with Peter Finch there was another one out at the same time.” The other film on Wilde in release was the 20th Century Fox property Oscar Wilde starring Robert Morley. To avoid confusion Hughes’s film was also released variously under the titles The Man with the Green Carnation and The Green Carnation.
A musical version of the film
Fast forward 10 years. In 1970, Tiomkin and Hughes pursue the proposed writing of a musical play based on the life of Oscar Wilde. At the time, taking a film and adapting it to the stage was a novel idea. The earliest example of turning a film into a stage musical may be the 1953 Broadway musical Hazel Flagg, based on the 1937 film, Nothing Sacred, directed by William A. Wellman.
Complications regarding rights arose immediately. It wouldn’t be that easy to adapt the film to the stage. As outlined by Tiomkin’s legal team, Harbottle & Lewis, in a letter dated October 19, 1970, the solicitors noted that since the owners of the film owned the rights to Ken Hughes original screenplay there would be risks involved unless the musical play adhered to factual events in Wilde’s life and avoided “scenes, incidents, or situations” which occur in the screenplay or film. The original idea of adapting the film to the stage had hit a major roadblock. Tiomkin’s attorney, Charles Levison, with that caveat, then suggests that if Tiomkin is keenly interested in this project he should proceed.
Enter the press coverage
The project appears in press interviews in December 1970. Columnist Marjory Adams, after interviewing Ken Hughes, writes, “Director Hughes, a man in his 40s, is torn between doing a film about Jesus Christ—to be based in The Day of Judgment—or Karl Marx. He is also working on a stage musical about Oscar Wilde.”
“Several plans have already been discussed regarding the stage show. (The music is being written by Dimitri Tiomkin) and ‘if we can persuade Alan J. Lerner to write the lyrics it will be the best Christmas gift I would receive,’” said Hughes.
Columnist Barbara Bladen writes, “Next on his schedule is the second treatment of the Oscar Wilde story, this time a stage musical dwelling on the author’s homosexuality. Music will be by repeated Oscar winner Dimitri Tiomkin and possibly lyrics by Alan Lerner. A recording company has already offered to finance the show for the music rights.”
Hughes imagines Paul Scofield in the role of Wilde.
Citing Tiomkin’s film on Tchaikovsky, Hughes points out, “There are two film versions now on the life of Tchaikovsky but the one about him being a homosexual [is] doing all the business.”
Hughes is referencing the Ken Russell-directed film, The Music Lovers (1970). Barry Forshaw in his book, Sex and Film: The Erotic in British, American and World, writes “Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality had been notably ignored in a much more respectful Dimitri Tiomkin film biography of the composer, but it was the perfect grist to Russell’s mill, and The Music Lovers, while always exhilarating and imaginative, was too often ratcheted up to a hysterical pitch.” Forshaw continues, “Tchaikovsky scholars were horrified by the film, but popular audiences responded well, particularly when Russell’s artistic choices on screen were accompanied by well-known pieces of the composer’s music, such as the 1812 Overture.”
For The Trial of Oscar Wilde, Hughes recounts, “When I went to Russia with my movie about Wilde, the Russians were appalled. The kept telling me: ‘How can you do what amounts to an expose of the homosexuality of one of your greatest writers of whom you should be very proud? Why can’t you just enjoy his plays and leave it at that?’” “My reply was to say that we’re so corrupted in the West, we don’t care nearly as much about his plays as we do about his sex life. I sadly fear that isn’t too far from the truth.”
Working on the book and score
Hughes was working on the book for the musical version of the film and by December Tiomkin had completed some music, as Hughes noted, “I’m extremely pleased with the progress we’ve made on the musical. Tiomkin’s score is marvelous.” “Since this will be my first effort for the stage, I’m very lucky to have a man like Tiomkin. He doesn’t write just good music; he writes hits and he has a roomful of Oscars and Emmys to prove it.”
The billiard and awards room displaying four Oscars in Dimitri Tiomkin’s London home
Movies into stage musicals
Turning movies into stage musicals was largely unheard of until the late 1980s, when the stage musical version of the film Carrie debuted. (One could perhaps argue that the 1980 Broadway musical 42ndStreet was based on the 1932 Bradford Ropes novel and not the 1933 film directed by Lloyd Bacon.) Further back, the 1909 play Liliom by Ferenc Molnár first became a Frank Borzage film in 1930 before Rodgers & Hammerstein went back and adapted the play for their 1945 stage musical, Carousel.
Carrie, a 1988 stage musical was based on the 1976 film and Sunset Boulevard, a 1993 stage musical, was based on the 1950 film. Disney picked up the idea and ran with it beginning with Beauty and the Beast, turning their animated feature film into a stage musical, and there was no looking back.
- Beauty and the Beast (stage musical, 1994; based on the 1991 film)
- The Lion King (stage musical, 1997; based on the 1994 film)
- Hairspray (stage musical, 2002; based on the 1988 film)
- Aladdin (stage musical, 2011; based on the 1992 film)
- An American In Paris (stage musical, 2014; based on the 1951 film)
MGM On Stage launched in 2004 to explore film to musical stage show opportunities and chose a Ken Hughes directed film for a stage version of their 1968 film, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It’s all history now
Cinefiles take note, the only copy of the 1960 film script for The Trials of Oscar Wilde is currently up for sale by Royal Books.
As the following letter attests, Tiomkin returned Hughes’s original script for the musical play “Oscar Wilde” in person to Hughes in London in June 1971 and that appears to be the end of this tale.
Sources
Correspondence courtesy Olivia Tiomkin
Barometer section [entry on The Green Carnation], Boxoffice, March 6, 1961
“Hughes Plans Musical on Oscar Wilde,” Pacific Daily News, December 9, 1970
“THE MARQUEE” by Barbara Bladen, San Mateo Times, December 14, 1970
“WIDESCREEN: Dubliners cheer ‘Cromwell’ but Irish Catholics boycott,” by Marjory Adams, Boston Globe, December 15, 1970
“Cromwell Becomes a Good Guy,” by Jeanne Miller, San Francisco Examiner, December 15, 1970
Sex and Film: The Erotic in British, American and World by Barry Forshaw, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
Thanks to Louise Hilton for research assistance concerning films based on plays.