The Proud and the Beautiful

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote ten drafts for screenplays to be used by Columbia Pictures, of which only three were typed down. The other seven were sort of rejected, and one of these, 'Typhus' came to be the obvious inspiration for Les orgueilleux/Los Orgullosos, Yves Allégret's co-production with Mexico. The film won the Bronze Lion in the 1953 Venice Film Festival, ex-aequo with I Was a Parish Priest (1953), Pickup on South Street (1953), and Sinhá Moça (1953), and also a Special Prize from the same Jury. When the film was nominated for Best Writing, Motion Picure Story, for the 1957 Academy Awards - in the wake of the film's release in the USA, with promotional materials emphasizing it was "Jean-Paul Sartre's The Proud and the Beautiful", the French philosopher disowned his authorship. The film has also been said to be based on Sartre's novel, "L'amour redempteur"... which he never wrote! This myth did not end, even after its exposure as such in "Feature Cinema in the 20th Century: Volume One: 1913-1950: a Comprehensive Guide", by By Jacek Klinowski et al.

Featured in Censura: Alguns Cortes (1999)