Bringing Travis McGee to the screen

Bruce Grossman was kind enough to send me a link to this long, interesting article on the troubles John D. MacDonald and various Hollywood people had (trying) to bring Travis McGee to screens big and small.

"Eventually, MacDonald signed with Jack Reeves and Walter Seltzer of independent production company Major Pictures. They intended to have McGee appear in a new motion picture every eighteen months a la James Bond. Naturally, The Deep Blue Good-by would be a good place to start a McGee movie series, yet the first movie slated for the screen was the 7th McGee book, Darker Than Amber. MacDonald received the script on June 14, 1968 and was unimpressed to say the least. In a letter to Jack Reeves, MacDonald prophetically stated that, "I am as sure of the sun rising tomorrow that you will make just one McGee movie.

"Aside from basic structure and some good visuals, you have a dog. It has a coarse and amateurish stamp, with less class and taste and insight than many a good television script...You have got something for the third feature at Kentucky drive-ins during the mating season....If you bomb with this, you are going to put me out of business insofar as the cinematic McGee is concerned. If you go with what you sent me, you bomb. It is that easy. I did not think that you would manage to lose McGee in the very first script, and turn him into some kind of hunk of dull, swinging, ass-chasing brutality, with no humor, no lift, and no awareness."

Ed here: Other than that he loved the script.

for the rest go here:

http://www.impossiblefunky.com/archives/issue_14/14_travismcgee.asp?IshNum=14&Headline=The%20Lonely%20Silver%20Screen