Joseph Moncure March may not have been a (m)ad man like our current crop of unexpected poetry-lovers, but he was a poet whose book-length narrative poem became the screenplay for the 1949 Hollywood feature film, The Set Up. Read all about it in Jefferson Hunter’s fascinating article in this summer’s Hudson Review.
Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 poem tells the story of “an aging black middleweight [boxer], Pansy Jones” and “two conniving fight managers” who influence his career. By the time Art Cohn finished the screenplay (which was his very first!), our boxer has been de-ethnicized and changed from tough-as-nails fighter to a victim; and the final story has changed a great deal as well.
Surely this isn’t the only poem to become a screenplay! For 10 points, how many screenplays have been written from the plots of poems?
-J.F.