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The Pulitzers Go to Hollywood

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Adaptation, Awards Culture, and the Value of Prestige

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture ((PSADVC))

Abstract

This chapter examines the impact of the Pulitzer Prizes for Drama and the Novel on Hollywood filmmaking. Between 1917 and 1936, the first twenty years the prizes were awarded, Pulitzer-winning plays were more likely than Pulitzer-winning novels to be filmed; they were brought to the screen more quickly; and they were more likely to be adapted repeatedly. Over the fifteen years following, between 1937 and 1952, Hollywood became significantly more receptive to Pulitzer-winning novels, evoking their scenic and often exotic regional settings while adapting their plots to a sharply focused formula traditionally associated with adaptations of plays. But dramatic adaptations continued to predominate over novelistic adaptations as late as television’s Pulitzer Prize Playhouse (1950–52).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See for example Toohey 1967, pages 93, 120, and 184.

  2. 2.

    For information on Pulitzer-winning plays and their runs, see Toohey 1967, pages 113, 123, 131, 42, 61, 69, and 78.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of Delaware, Newark, USA

    Thomas Leitch

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  1. Thomas Leitch
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Correspondence to Thomas Leitch .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication and Design, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

    Colleen Kennedy-Karpat

  2. Department of English, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Eric Sandberg

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Leitch, T. (2017). The Pulitzers Go to Hollywood. In: Kennedy-Karpat, C., Sandberg, E. (eds) Adaptation, Awards Culture, and the Value of Prestige. Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52854-0_2

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