1985 SPEC SCRIPT / SCREENPLAY “THE MASTER AND MARGARITA” from BULGAKOV Novel

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1985 SPEC SCRIPT / SCREENPLAY “THE MASTER AND MARGARITA” from BULGAKOV Novel:
$160.00

Rare Unproduced / Unfilmed Spec SCREENPLAY “THE MASTER AND MARGARITA”, by Mark W. Hammond, based on the great Novel by MIKHAIL BULGAKOV, written in the 1930s (exact date unknown), first published in 1967.
Accompanying the Screenplay is a TYPED, SIGNED LETTER from Mark Hammond to PAUL KOHNER / THE KOHNER AGENCY. The letter is dated 5/21/85. The letter suggests that JOHN HUSTON (represented by the Kohner Agency) direct the film, and that if he was to direct the film then Goldcrest Studios of London would be interested in producing the film. The letter also mentions that he and his partner are also exploring production possibilities with Orion Pictures and Goldwyn.
Also accompanying the film is a 2 page synopsis of the proposed film.
Simple black vinyl covers, photocopied 8.5” x 11” pages (photocopying was, and still is, how original copies of a script were distributed to agents, producers, directors, and others involved in a film), pages printed on one side only, pages 2-hole punched on their left side, bound with a metal bracket. 120 pages. The title is written in black on the bottom and back page edges.
The screenplay is in VERY GOOD condition, the accompanying letter and synopsis have some edge creasing and light signs of handling.
Rare Early Attempt to bring the renowned Mikhail Bulgakov novel to the Screen with John Huston as DirectorAbout PAUL KOHNER (from his March 19, 1988 New York Times obituary):
******Paul Kohner, a prominent Hollywood agent, died of heart failure Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center. He was 85 years old.During the 50 years that Mr. Kohner headed the Paul Kohner Agency, he represented hundreds of motion-picture actors and directors, including Ingmar Bergman, Maurice Chevalier, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, John Huston, Liv Ullmann and Billy Wilder.Mr. Kohner was born in Teplice-Sanov in what is now Czechoslovakia, and wrote for his father\'s film-industry newspaper in Prague. In 1920, he interviewed Carl Laemmle, the president of Universal Pictures, who invited Mr. Kohner to come to the United States to work for Universal. Mr. Kohner served in the company\'s publicity, distribution and production departments in New York and Los Angeles, and became head of Universal\'s European division in Berlin in the late 1920\'s.He returned to the United States in the mid-1930\'s, and produced dozens of films, including \'\'The Hunchback of Notre Dame,\'\' William Wyler\'s \'\'House Divided,\'\' \'\'The Chinese Parrot\'\' and \'\'Love Me and the World Is Mine,\'\' as well as more than 50 Spanish and other foreign-language movies. Helped Emigre ArtistsMr. Kohner opened his talent agency in 1938, and many of his early clients were European actors who had fled from the Nazis.
Mr. Kohner\'s agency expanded during the 1940\'s and 1950\'s, and his illustrious client list grew to include Yul Brynner, Henry Fonda, Walter Huston, David Niven, Marcel Pagnol, Douglas Sirk, Lana Turner and Erich von Stroheim.He also arranged American distribution for the films of Ingmar Bergman, who once said that Mr. Kohner\'s life “includes the history of the movies.” And John Huston, a client for more than 40 years, said of Mr. Kohner: “We lasted through marriages and wars and good times and disasters - nothing lasts forever except Paul and me.”******About THE MASTER AND MARGARITA and Attempts to Produce It as a Film (from the Internet):
******What do Federico Fellini, Roman Polanski, and Ray Manzarek (of The Doors) have in common? They have all tried and failed to bring The Master and Margarita, one of the greatest Russian novels of the twentieth century, to the screen.First published in 1967, twenty-seven years after the death of its author, Mikhail Bulgakov (Bibliographical Note: Мастер и Маргарита / Master i Margarita /The Master and Margarita, novel written between 1929 and 1939, first edition in Russian partially censored, Moskva / Moscow, 1966 - 1967; first complete edition in Russian, Frankfurt: 1969. Translated into English with the title The Master and Margarita, 1967.)
The Master and Margarita filled a void in Eastern Europe and Russia, where it was instantly and passionately embraced. In Russia there is a joke that seven out of ten people today will tell you it\'s their favorite book. Travel agencies offer walking tours of The Master and Margarita\'s Moscow, and the walls of the building Bulgakov lived in are scrawled with loving graffiti tributes to the novelist and his immortal characters. Phrases from the book have entered the common vernacular.To readers in the West, even those unfamiliar with the political subtext, it is a magical, fantastic tale, a bold retelling of Faust and the Bible. With its vivid, feverish, and hallucinatory descriptions - from a huge talking black cat stalking the Moscow streets on its hind legs and bloodcurdling beheadings to the climactic grand demonic ball attended by history\'s greatest villains - what filmmaker could resist the temptation to make it his own?******
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