Freud in Love

This is the second volume of a series that collects my most prominent screenplays. FREUD IN LOVE AND THREE OTHER SCREENPLAYS is, like those in the first volume, is comprised of literary screenplays; two are adaptions of noted literary works and the other two are the most literary of the screenplays I have written. One, MAID OF THE MIST, was specifically written in verse to be read-as well as to be produced. The other one, Freud in Love, though not written in verse, is a classic story about real characters involved in a universal theme. FREUD IN LOVE, the lead-off script, is based on historical accounts of not only Sigmund Freud but the fascinating psychoanalytic world of Vienna in the Victorian era. It is a love triangle focusing on Freud, his handsome but troubled young protégé, Victor Tausk, and an emancipated psychoanalyst-belle from France, Lou Andreas-Salome. NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND is one of Dostoyevski's darkest and most psychological novels. Adapting it into a screenplay was not difficult, for he wrote wonderful scenes with ironic streams of consciousness and brilliant stretches of dialog between The Mouse and Liza, the tender whore whom the Mouse uses and abuses. The title, MAID OF THE MIST, was taken from the name of the boat that for many years has taken tourists up to the Niagara Falls. The girl who was known as the Maid of the Mist was named Lelawala, daughter of Chief Eagle Eye, and it is her myth that was the source of this screenplay, based in part on the notes of French explorer LaSalle. It is a musical, written in verse and with songs. The modern version of HAMLET included here is absolutely true to Shakespeare. Old English has been changed to modern English, but otherwise it is line for line just the way Shakespeare wrote it. I have edited it a bit to adapt it for the screen. I hope this version will be produced, so modern audiences can again enjoy the vitality of this enduring tragedy.