Ira Levin Movies
Regarded by critics as one of the most blithely entertaining postwar American novelists, Ira Levin enjoyed decades of not merely seeing his novels hit the market as best-sellers, but of watching Hollywood turn those tomes into satisfying cinematic outings, time and again. Many observers (such as Stephen King, in his 1982 Danse Macabre) singled out Levin for his deft command of Byzantine narrative structures, in which plot elements fit together as snugly as pieces in a jigsaw puzzle and resist attempts at structural alteration. Levin was born in the Bronx, the son of a toy manufacturer, but he bucked his father's prompting to join the family business by developing and honing his own innate gift for fiction. Early on (in the mid-'40s), the blossoming 15-year-old writer won a second-place, 200-dollar prize in an NBC screenwriting competition, which reinforced his inclinations in that direction, to great effect. Indeed, his first novel, the 1953 murder mystery A Kiss Before Dying, hit bookstore shelves, sold millions of copies, and won an award as the best debut novel of its year. It received two screen adaptations, one in 1955 and a less successful remake in 1991. In the early '50s, Levin also authored the Broadway play No Time for Sergeants (adapted from Mac Hyman's novel), a military comedy starring a then-unknown Andy Griffith that ran for 700 performances, made Griffith a star, and spawned a smash film adaptation directed by Mervyn LeRoy in 1958. The film also witnessed the first pairing of Griffith and Don Knotts. Though it took Levin over a decade to generate his sophomore novel, the result -- the occult thriller Rosemary's Baby, about a young woman unwittingly lured into conceiving the Antichrist at the hands of a conspiratorial coven -- also clocked in as a number one best-seller and generated one of the most popular, well-received, and lucrative films of the late '60s, scripted and directed by Roman Polanski on a big budget at Paramount and released in 1968. Successive adaptations of Levin novels and plays also scored with critics and the public, but were seldom brought to the screen by the author himself. These included the blockbusters The Stepford Wives (1975), The Boys from Brazil (1978), and Deathtrap (1982). Levin's 1991 novel Sliver -- an erotic thriller about a diabolical apartment house -- received a big-screen adaptation under the aegis of helmer Phillip Noyce and scenarist Joe Eszterhas in 1993. Critics excoriated the film version, but it drew a considerable audience. Levin wrote his last novel, a sequel to Rosemary's Baby titled Son of Rosemary, in 1997, and died of a heart attack a decade later at age 78. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide- 2011
Director Brett Ratner teams with screenwriters Richard Potter and Matthew Stravitz for a second screen adaptation of Ira Levin's paranoid novel concerning a South American Nazi plot to revive the Third Reich. Originally filmed in 1978 with actors Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck in the leads, Levin's novel is slightly altered for this version in which the action plays out in the present day. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2009
Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes adds Roman Polanski's 1968 horror classic Rosemary's Baby to their remake plate with this Paramount Pictures production. The plot focuses on a woman who's unsuspectedly carrying the spawn of Satan due to a deal made between her husband and their sinister elderly neighbors. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Ira Levin's best-selling novel about a town where great wives aren't born but made gets a second screen adaptation in this darkly satirical comedy drama. Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) is a successful television executive until one day her career hits the glass ceiling and crashes to the ground. Looking to take some time off to start over, Joanna and her husband, Walter Kresby (Matthew Broderick), pull up stakes and move to the peaceful suburban community of Stepford. Walter takes to his new environment with real enthusiasm and joins the local men's organization, headed by one Mike Wellington. Joanna, on the other hand, finds that Stepford is just a bit too quiet and well-groomed for her taste, and is taken aback by the aggressively cheerful and servile attitude of Mike's wife, Claire (Glenn Close), and the other women of the community. A notable exception is Bobbi Markowitz (Bette Midler), a happily misanthropic writer who revels in her lack of enthusiasm for housework or exercise. Joanna and Bobbi become fast friends, but as they look closer at the all-too-perfect surfaces of Stepford and its female inhabitants, they slowly discover a terrible secret lurking beneath. Also featuring Faith Hill, Jon Lovitz, and Roger Bart, The Stepford Wives was previously adapted for the screen in 1975, with Katherine Ross in the lead; that version spawned three made-for-TV sequels. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, (more)
Adapted from an unproduced play by Ira Levin (Rosemary's Baby, et al.), the made-for-TV Footsteps stars Candice Bergen as Daisy Lowenthal, a best-selling suspense novelist who has recently "killed off" her most popular fictional character -- and who is recovering from a nervous breakdown. Determined to confront and conquer one of her most dreaded phobias, Daisy elects to spend a weekend alone at her isolated beach house, not even permitting her husband Robbie (Michael Murphy) to keep her company. As Daisy sweats out the weekend -- and an ominous storm -- she finds that she is not quite as alone as she thinks. For one, there's that curious young man named Spencer (Bug Hall), Daisy's self-proclaimed number one fan who possesses a disturbingly thorough knowledge of the writer's professional and personal life; for another, there's lawman Eddie Bruno (Bryan Brown), who has apparently been hired to keep tabs on Daisy. There's yet another player in this taut little melodrama...but to give any more away would be unthinkable. Footsteps debuted October 12, 2003, on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Candice Bergen, Bryan Brown, (more)
Phillip Noyce directed Joe Eszterhas's adaptation of Ira Levin's novel about voyeurism, starring Sharon Stone as Carly Norris, a book editor on the rebound from an emotionless seven-year marriage. Carly decides that a change of location will help her in the healing process, so she moves into a sleek Manhattan high-rise. In her new apartment, she meets a collection of curious neighbors --Vida (Polly Walker), who snorts cocaine along with ingesting all the dark secrets of the building and its tenants; Jack Landsford (Tom Berenger), a successful writer who also wants to also be successful with Carly; and Zeke Hawkins (William Baldwin), Carly's new landlord. Carly is attracted to Zeke, but she sees that he is hiding something from her. Unbeknownst to Carly, Zeke, an obsessive voyeur, watches his tenants from a bank of television screens at his headquarters. But when Carly discovers Zeke's voyeurism, she herself becomes obsessed with the daily lives of her neighbors. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sharon Stone, William Baldwin, (more)
This thriller is the second film based on the novel of the same name by Ira Levin. Matt Dillon stars as Jonathan Corliss, a lethal schemer from the wrong side of the tracks. Now a student at the University of Pennsylvania, Jonathan has been obsessed since childhood with the fortunes of a company called Carlsson Copper. Jonathan plans to ingratiate himself with the wealthy family of magnate Thor Carlsson (Max von Sydow) and has begun secretly dating Carlsson's daughter Dorothy (Sean Young). When Dorothy learns that she's pregnant and informs Jonathan that she'll be cut off without her inheritance when her father learns the truth, Jonathan murders her, making it appear to be a suicide, and moves to New York. There, he makes the acquaintance of Ellen Carlsson (also played by Young), the late Dorothy's twin sister, and begins wooing her. This time he meets with success, winning Ellen's hand in marriage and a powerful position in his new father-in-law's company. However, Ellen has long nursed suspicions about her twin's death and as she probes deeper into the alleged suicide, she uncovers alarming facts about some other murders and the identity of her sister's unknown lover. Director James Dearden also wrote Fatal Attraction (1987), which contains similar themes. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matt Dillon, Sean Young, (more)
Sidney Lumet provides another of his film adaptations of Broadway successes -- in this case Ira Levin's 1978 clever Broadway murder mystery that starred John Wood in a triumphant turn as down-on-his-luck playwright Sidney Bruhl. Wood's brittle airiness is replaced in the film version by Michael Caine's smoldering bitterness. Sidney Bruhl is a successful writer of Broadway mystery plays who was at one time considered the Neil Simon of Broadway mystery writers. Unfortunately, Bruhl is now struggling to live up to his own reputation, suffering through a series of four consecutive flops. But then Bruhl comes upon the manuscript of a brilliant suspense drama written by unknown writer Clifford Anderson (Christopher Reeve). Bruhl, desperate for a hit play, invites Clifford to come to see him, telling him that he is interested in collaborating with him on the play. Actually, Bruhl plans to murder Clifford and pass off Clifford's play as his own. What Bruhl doesn't know, however, is that Clifford has some surprise plot points of his own up his sleeve. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, (more)
- 1980
According to the NBC publicity packet, the made-for-TV Revenge of the Stepford Wives was "based on characters created by Ira Levin" -- specifically, those characters created by Levin for his fantasy-suspense novel The Stepford Wives, which was transformed into a theatrical film in 1975. On this occasion, plucky TV journalist Kay Foster (Sharon Gless) is stranded in the "idyllic" New England community of Stepford, populated exclusively by chauvinistic males and their eerily submissive and subservient wives. With the help of Megan Brady (Julie Kavner), a new arrival to the community who hasn't yet been "conditioned," Kay tries to learn the terrible secret behind the robotic Stepford wives -- and to foment a rebellion against the wicked menfolk. Revenge of the Stepford Wives first aired on October 12, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This film of Ira Levin's novel The Boys from Brazil wastes no time in establishing the fact that several seemingly unrelated men have been mysteriously murdered. Elderly Jewish Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), brought into the case when the clues seem to point to a neo-fascist plot, traces the trail of evidence to Paraguay. Here he finds an unregenerate Auschwitz doctor, patterned on Joseph Mengele and played by -- of all people -- Gregory Peck. Lieberman discovers that the murdered men had all fathered sons who were identical -- the results of a cloning experiment, designed to create a race of incipient Hitlers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, (more)
In the William Goldman-scripted, Bryan Forbes-directed adaptation of Ira Levin's savagely satiric sci-fi novel The Stepford Wives, housewife Joanna (Katharine Ross) moves with husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and their children to the "ideal" suburban community of Stepford, CT. Slowly, Joanna deduces that something is amiss; most of the other housewives are vapid creatures who speak in trivialities and live only to please their husbands. Together with new friend Bobby (Paula Prentiss), she investigates this curious status quo. When Bobby also succumbs to cloying sweetness, Joanna discovers that Stepford's husbands have conspired with male chauvinist scientists to replace all the wives with computerized android duplicates. The Stepford Wives became a massive, runaway hit, earning four million dollars domestically. Mega-producer Scott Rudin and director Frank Oz teamed up for a remake in 2004. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, (more)
- 1970
An uncharacteristic Bing Crosby plays Dr. Cook, a small town physician with a little something to hide. Outwardly gentle and compassionate, Cook is less politely inclined to those in his Vermont community whom he regards as disposable. When a young man (Frank Converse) whom Cook has raised as a son returns to the community, he begins to suspect that his father-figure is keeping secrets. The young man learns that the good Doctor has been murdering those patients whom he regards as useless, and then burying the victims in his meticulously kept garden. Made for TV, Dr. Cook's Garden was adapted from a Broadway play by Ira Levin, in which Burl Ives starred in the title role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In Roman Polanski's first American film, adapted from Ira Levin's horror bestseller, a young wife comes to believe that her offspring is not of this world. Waifish Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her struggling actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents. Neighbors Roman and Minnie Castevet (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon) soon come nosing around to welcome the Woodhouses to the building; despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, Guy starts spending time with the Castevets. Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Minnie starts showing up with homemade chocolate mousse for Rosemary. When Rosemary becomes pregnant after a mousse-provoked nightmare of being raped by a beast, the Castevets take a special interest in her welfare. As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castevets' circle is not what it seems. The diabolical truth is revealed only after Rosemary gives birth, and the baby is taken away from her. Polanski's camerawork and Richard Sylbert's production design transform the realistic setting (shot on-location in Manhattan's Dakota apartment building) into a sinister projection of Rosemary's fears, chillingly locating supernatural horror in the familiar by leaving the most grotesque frights to the viewer's imagination. This apocalyptic yet darkly comic paranoia about the hallowed institution of childbirth touched a nerve with late-'60s audiences feeling uneasy about traditional norms. Produced by B-horror maestro William Castle, Rosemary's Baby became a critically praised hit, winning Gordon an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Inspiring a wave of satanic horror from The Exorcist (1973) to The Omen (1976), Rosemary's Baby helped usher in the genre's modern era by combining a supernatural story with Alfred Hitchcock's propensity for finding normality horrific. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, (more)
Ira Levin wrote the stage comedy Critic's Choice as a good-natured retort to a comment made by critic Walter Kerr. In his essay How Not to Write a Play, Kerr noted that the worst possible scenario would involve a drama critic forced to review a play written by his wife (we should mention that Kerr's own wife was noted playwright Jean Kerr). Levin utilized this very scenario, and the result was a Broadway hit. Less successful artistically was the 1962 film version, though with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball as stars, the film couldn't help but clean up at the box office. Hope portrays theatrical critic Parker Ballantine, while Lucille Ball plays his wife Angela. Feeling "useless," Angela writes a play as a lark, then is amazed when it is optioned by a major producer. Parker does his best to get out of the responsibility of reviewing the play (which very well may be as bad as he thinks it is), but cannot escape the responsibility. Much of the verbal wit of the Levin original is sacrificed in favor of one-line quips; there is also an overabundance of gratuitous slapstick during a little-league game and the climactic "opening night" sequence. Still, Hope and Ball work together well as always. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, (more)
- 1958
Suicidal Sylvia (Ann Todd) desperately wants to be reunited with Peter, the callous fortune-hunter whom she'd married after a whirlwind courtship, and whom she was forced to divorce by her wealthy father John Leeds (John McIntire). Aware of Sylvia's ardor, Peter approaches John and offers to leave for good if he is paid off. Upon finding this out, Sylvia pulls out a gun -- but whom will she shoot, herself or Peter? This episode is based on a short story by Ira Levin, of Rosemary's Baby fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1958
Mac Hyman's hilarious barracks novel No Time for Sergeants was adapted for TV by Ira Levin in 1955, with newcomer Andy Griffith as bumptious Air Force draftee Will Stockdale. This TV version was soon afterward transformed into a Broadway play, and then a movie, again with Griffith in the lead. Brought to the Air Force base in handcuffs because his farmer father has been hiding his draft notices, good-natured Will becomes the target of ridicule for the other transcripts. Especially nasty is Private Irvin (Murray Hamilton), but Will is able to forgive him because he knows that Irvin is suffering from some mysterious disease called ROTC. Will's best pal is hot-headed private Ben (Nick Adams), who wants to be transferred to the Infantry and convinces Will to try for the same goal. Slowly becoming aware that the trusting, naïve Will may prove to be a troublemaker, career sergeant King (Myron McCormick), who wants nothing more out of life than a little peace and quiet, tries to keep Stockdale out of mischief by appointing him "PLO" -- Permanent Latrine Orderly, a dubious distinction in which Will takes enormous pride. Later on, King tries to pull strings to get Will transferred, succeeding only in losing his sergeant's stripes. The story goes off on a zany tangent when Will and Ben find themselves on a crippled plane in flight. They manage to escape with their lives, but all evidence suggests that they've been killed in the plane's crash. Imagine the dismay of newly reinstated Sergeant King when Will and Ben show up in his office -- just as the entire base is gathered for a memorial service for the two "fallen heroes." Featured in a minor role as a "coordination officer" is Griffth's future TV cohort Don Knotts, while Sammy Jackson, who played Stockdale in a 1964 sitcom version of No Time for Sergeants, shows up in an unbilled bit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andy Griffith, Myron McCormick, (more)
Budd Corliss (Robert Wagner) is an ambitious, poor boy from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks who murders his girlfriend Dorothy (Joanne Woodward) -- making the death look like a suicide -- when her pregnancy eliminates his chances of being accepted by her wealthy family. Her sister Ellen (Virginia Leith), refusing to believe that Dorothy has committed suicide, begins to investigate on her own. She meets Budd, and ignorant of his prior relationship with Dorothy begins a relationship with him. When Ellen discovers that Budd knew Dorothy, the stage is set for a final, dramatic showdown as Ellen fights to revenge her sister and save her own life. The script, adapted from the novel of the same name written by Ira Levin is excellent and tension-filled. Joanne Woodward is fine in a touching performance as the vulnerable and trusting Dorothy. A wooden performance by Robert Wagner in the pivotal central role mars the film and destroys some of its credibility, as Wagner, though handsome, lacks the charm and charisma necessary to make the character of Budd believable. Also, despite an excellent performance by Mary Astor as Budd's class-conscious, greedy mother, the film fails to achieve any sympathy for Budd or understanding of the motivations that drove him to do what he did. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, (more)
- 1955
This slapstick comedy was originally performed on live television and chronicles the exploits of Georgia hayseed Will Stockdale, after he is inducted into the army. Mayhem ensues as he tries to adjust to the sophisticated ways of military life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andy Griffith, Eddie Le Roy, (more)
