Universal City Studios

Scope and Contents Memo regarding A Thousand Dark Places. Universal City: MCA, October 29, 1971. A typed Inter-Office Memorandum addressed to George J. Santoro from Coles Trapnell on the subject of A Thousand Dark Places by Ed Brennan and Joseph Van Winkle.The memo states: 'This is an expanded screenplay version of an old horror story we have had several times before, its first submission in outline form being in 1968. It's a creaky and wildly extravagant Gothic tale with a plot so lurid that it's...

Scope and Contents Synopsis: The brightest student in Santa Catarina's high school graduating class is Gerald Stoddard. And the handsomest is Marshall Hollister, Jr., son of a lawyer now divorced and living a batchelor life. Young Marsh is the constant companion, on the beach and everywhere else, of Toby Alperson, who is also a graduate. That summer Gerald Stoddard, who has seemed one of the happiest and best-adjusted of boys, buys a rifle and kills his mother and father with it.... Synopsis...

Scope and Contents Synopsis of Come to Mother. Universal City: Universal City Studios, May 13, 1971. Typed synopsis in stapled sheets. Quarto. 17 pages. A synopsis by Dennis McCarthy of David Sale's novel Come To Mother.Listed under the category of 'Drama - Horror' the synopsis begins: 'To eighty-four year old financier Rupert Cloud's two daughters, the reason why their father should bring a young lady to take up residence with them is at first a mystery. Then the girl's identity becomes known, and...

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Paul Leserman Agency to George Santora [sic] at Universal Pictures. Dear George: Enclosed is the script, TONIGHT YOU SLEEP, about which we spoke on Friday....

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A compilation of terms used in the Dune series by Frank Herbert.

Scope and Contents Synopsis 1: Melly, a young married woman recovering from TB and the birth of a baby, finds herself transported back a hundred years to Milly, the girl who lay dying of the disease on the same chaise-longue, only this time her baby is illegitimate and she faces recriminations and scandal. She tries in vain to break out of the time trap but her death as Milly coincides with Melly's in her contemporary identity.... Synopsis by Priscilla MacNamara. Adapted from the novel by...

Scope and Contents Synopsis 2: This screenplay about a young woman of 1969, recovering from tuberculosis, who is supernaturally trapped in the body of a girl dying of the same disease a century before, is a horror story on two levels. It's creepy enough on its own ghost story plane, but it's also a study of a fatal illness in the nineteenth century, and the insistence on the appurtences of the ill-smelling Victorian sick room....The London synopsis, prepared for this submission, is excellent. ...

Scope and Contents Memo regarding The Farmers Hotel and Wax Apple. Universal City: MCA, June 9, 1971. A typed Inter-Office Memorandum addressed to George Santoro from Dan Petrie on the subjects of The Farmers Hotel and Wax Apple, with a copy of the memo cc'd to Doug Benton.Cover memo from Dan Petrie of Universal City Studios to George Santoro regarding the project "The Farmers Hotel", specifically the story, "Wax Apple".The memo states: 'I understand that you don't feel persuaded by...

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Somehow or other this got sidetracked. The author brought it in when he was visiting the studio early last month and, as I recall, you wanted it to have "courtesy coverage". Halliwell told me that he had deliberately imitated the Hitchcock films in his plot. It's a fair effort for a first try at a novel....

Scope and Contents Memo regarding Snake in the Gingerbread House. Universal City: Universal City Studios, June 4, 1970. A memo from Cole Trapnell to Sid Sheinberg on the subject of Snake In The Gingerbread House by Laird Koenig.The memo states: 'A diabolically clever exercise in sensationalism and suspense poses some formidable problems. I Plot is ridiculous but completely absorbing: I Hollywood record tycoon is murdered by wife and her lover. The slain magnate, a devout believer in Hindu...