The Great Gatsby (1949 film)
The Great Gatsby is a 1949 American historical romance drama film directed by Elliott Nugent, and produced by Richard Maibaum, from a screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Cyril Hume. The film stars Alan Ladd, Betty Field, Macdonald Carey, Ruth Hussey, and Barry Sullivan, and features Shelley Winters and Howard Da Silva, the latter of whom later returned in the 1974 version. It is based on the 1925 novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set during the raucous Jazz Age on Long Island near New York City, the plot follows the exploits of enigmatic millionaire and bootlegger Jay Gatsby who attempts to win back the affections of his former lover Daisy Buchanan with the aid of her second cousin Nick Carraway.
Original film poster
When producer Richard Maibaum attempted to make the film in the 1940s, F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel had not yet attained cultural salience.
Richard Maibaum believed that Alan Ladd's origins as an "Okie", a poor Oklahoma migrant, made him ideal for the role of Jay Gatsby.
Image: Studio publicity Gene Tierney
Cyril Hume was an American novelist and screenwriter. Hume was a graduate of Yale University, where he edited campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He was an editor of the collection The Yale Record Book of Verse: 1872–1922 (1922).
Cyril Hume wrote science fiction film Forbidden Planet in 1956.