The Prize (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Prize

Directed by	Mark Robson
Produced by	Pandro S. Berman
Written by	Ernest Lehman Irving Wallace novel
Starring	Paul Newman Edward G. Robinson Elke Sommer
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	William H. Daniels
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Release date(s)	1963
Running time	134 min.
IMDb profile

The Prize is a 1963 spy film starring Paul Newman, Elke Sommer and Edward G. Robinson. It was directed by Mark Robson, produced by Pandro S. Berman and adapted for the screen by Ernest Lehman from the novel of the same name by Irving Wallace.

[edit] Plot summary

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Andrew Craig (Paul Newman), who seems to be more interested in women and drinking than writing. When he arrives in Stockholm for the award ceremony, he is delighted to find that the Swedish Foreign Department has sent the beautiful Inger Lisa Andersson (Elke Sommer) as his personal chaperone. When Craig arrives at his hotel, he is introduced to another laureate, Dr. Max Stratman (Edward G. Robinson), a famous German-American physicist, who is accompanied by his young niece Emily (Diane Baker).

When Craig meets Stratman for the second time, at a press conference, Stratman acts as if they had never met before and also displays a change in personality, despising photographs and being less talkative. Craig then, with no time to further talk to Dr. Stratman, has to give his interview, and in short succession admits to suffering from writers block for years, having not even started his highly anticipated next novel, Return to Carthage, and having written pulp detective stories to pay the rent. He even suggests that he may have lost his talent. Further baffling the press, he then ponders the possibility that Stratman may be an imposter.

The Nobel laureates for chemistry, Dr. Denise Marceau (Micheline Presle) and Dr. Claude Marceau (Gérard Oury), as well as his "private" secretary, Monique Souvir (Jacqueline Beer) also stay at the hotel. So do Dr. Carlo Farelli (Sergio Fantoni) and Dr. John Garrett (Kevin McCarthy), the laureates for medicine.

As the ceremonies progress, Craig becomes convinced that his theory of the fake physicist has merit and pursues the case. Unfortunately, due to his reputation of heavy drinking and fiction writing, nobody believes him.

[edit] Influences and similarities

The film has an overall Hitchcock-esque mood, bearing some similarities to North by Northwest (1959).^{[citation needed]} The scene on the bridge and in the nudist club are most often mentioned, but this should not come as a surprise to anyone as Ernest Lehman wrote the screenplays for both films.