Carol Sobieski
Carol Sobieski was a screenwriter active in the late 1960’s through the 1980’s. She died in 1990, at only 51, but the work she left behind is consistently remarkable. She had a great ability for scripting dramas involving youth.
Sobieski is best remembered for her scripts to popular movies in the 1980’s including The Toy and Annie - that fit thematically with her previous scripts of kids, mature for their age, taking on more than they can handle. She also adapted several novels and short stories, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, The Bourne Identity (tv miniseries) and the critically acclaimed Fried Green Tomatoes.
Her two original scripts for television that have the biggest cult following are Sunshine and Sunshine Christmas. Both were later adapted into popular novels by one of the best selling young adult authors of the 1970’s, Norma Klein. John Denver’s music was used in the film. Sobieski also wrote the screenplay for Honeysuckle Rose that starred another country singer, popular at the time, Willie Nelson.
Sobieski’s scripted The Neon Ceiling from 1971 is a haunting drama that I’ve been obsessed with for some time. So many top Hollywood names worked on this movie yet it remains a mystery as to why it is such a discarded and forgotten film. It was never released on DVD or VHS and is rarely shown, if ever, on television. One explanation may be that a couple of years after this was releases, its star, Gig Young, murdered his wife and committed suicide. Despite these factors the movie remains a unique example of human tragedy that could be at least viewed, as of now, on YouTube. One of its many attractions is that the script follows and adds a slightly feminist edge to the criticism of the American Dream that was begun by classic mid century dramatists such as William Inge or Tennessee Williams. It’s basically the first edgy independent film that was made specifically for television. With the small cast and limited settings this film could easily be adapted into a stage play and it would work well. As it stands, filmed on location in the California desert, the cinematography adds an authenticity to this motion picture that underscores its brilliance.
Carrie Miller (mid to late 30’s) is a housewife in San Bernardino California. Her husband is a dentist, who has been having affairs with his nurse. Carrie considers herself mentally unstable and has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Yet there is no real evidence that there is something wrong with her. Mostly she is unhappy with her marriage and bored.
Neither parents pay much attention to the development of their daughter, Paula Miller. Paula, at age 13, is on the verge of adolescence. She is curious about sex in a purely analytical way - maybe it will help solve her parent’s marital difficulties. Paula seems isolated from her peers as well as her family, but is also wise beyond her years.
One desperate evening, Carrie wakes up Paula in the middle of the night. She tells her daughter to pack her bags. They are leaving, running away. Paula is not surprised. This is not the first time this has happened. Without telling the husband, they get in their Ford and leave their suburban neighborhood behind. Miller is aware that they are leaving but pretends he is sleeping and does nothing to try and stop them.
The car rides off into the mysterious night as the scattered headlights on the highway blur. Carrie asks her daughter, “Do you know who we are?” She continues, “We are nobody way out on nowhere hanging on to nothing.”
Carrie and Paula eerily sing the Halleluia chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Carries is bright eyed. Paula is fearful. It is a call for freedom and possibly the desire for something that doesn’t even exist. The titles The Neon Ceiling appear…
The next day Carrie and Paula are still driving and approaching the desert by mid morning. Paula is reading a book on marital problems and is trying to give advice to Carrie, who barely listens. When Paula suggests that she needs to use a restroom, Carrie pulls over to a dilapidated cafe that also serves as a gas station.
The place seems to be abandoned. After poking around inside for a bit, Paula decides to turn on the water to fill a glass. Enter, Jones (or Jonesy). In the script Jones is described in the following manner: “He is a filthy giant of a man, unshaven, shoeless, tough as a horned toad, imposing as a mountain, smelly as a goat.”
Gig Young plays the character with flair. He is both brutal and charming. One moment he is dancing, the other he is breaking glasses. His behavior is intriguing because it is gloriously unpredictable.
In this scene he basically scares the hell out of his visitors. Carrie and Paula run back to the car only to discover that they are out of gas and actually need to ask Jones for help. This is where the drama begins because it turns out their car is dead - leaving them stranded at the edge of the earth with this lunatic. The stage is set and the rest of the movie takes place at the service station in the California desert bordering on Nevada.
Carrie’s feelings go from hatred to love and to find out why and how, you’ll need to watch the movie because I don’t want to give it away here. Will Paula be able to get the attention and discipline from Jones that she was lacking at home? Will Carrie commit suicide? Will Jones kill everyone (just kidding), or at least show us a gentler sign; the cause of his distress?
The Neon Ceiling, if seen through Paula’s eyes could’ve been told as a coming of age story. Instead, what we get is three stories. On the one hand, we have the story of a desperate housewife attempting to break hold of the way a woman is supposed to act - almost a liberating feminist plea. Both are interesting stories, but Jones’ story overpowers them both. His is the story of a lonesome man who retreated to the desert and made a Neon Ceiling his art. Jones is the disgruntled artist, a man at odds with the world who still has a gift for simplifying the world’s complications with truth. As he states to Paula when fixing the busted jukebox: There’s nothing in this world that’s broken that old Jonesy can’t fix with his bare hands.
The Neon Ceiling was roduced by John Badham, who would go on to direct Saturday Night Fever. Directed By Frank Piersen, writer of such classics as Cool Hand Luke and Dog Day Afternoon.
The film’s small cast includes: Lee Grant, who dedicated a chapter of her autobiography to this movie. Denise Nickerson, her first film before gaining fame for her role as Violet in the classic adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, made the same year. Herb Edelman costars in a small role but most TV viewers will recognize him as the actor who later played Stanley Zbornak (Dorothy’s ex husband) in the 80s sitcom The Golden Girls.
Gig Young is really the star of this show. You might recognize Young from the classic Twilight Zone episode The Walking Distance. Young excelled at playing tragic characters and he would later win and Academy Award for his best supporting role in They Shoot Horses Don’t They. In real life, Gig Young was as troubled, if not more, than the character Jones who he plays in The Neon Ceiling. The tragedy of his own life adds another level to viewing The Neon Ceiling in retrospect. An alcoholic who suffered from depression, he murdered his own wife before committing suicide. He was also a man obsessed with youth, always marrying women nearly half his age - and this sentiment is also eerily reflected in the film The Neon Ceiling. Despite the tragedy and desperation of Gig’s life, he was a great actor that was perfect for this particular role. Perhaps this is the real reason that this film has slipped into obscurity. The darkness of Gig’s own life almost mirrors the desperation of Sobieski’s script.
Sobieski's 1974 script for Unwed Father, another made for tv drama, was directed by Jeremy Kagan. The plot revolves around the relationship of two high school students who realize, unexpectedly, that they are going to have a baby. The main character, a teenager named Peter, is suddenly presented with a very adult decision. He decides that he wants to take single custody of the child in order to prevent an adoption. This decision is based largely on the fact, that he himself is adopted. Peter’s journey to gain custody becomes not only a mission to become a father, but also one of self-discovery. In order to become an adult, he realizes that the thing he has to put behind him is his own childhood. Even when his mother finally agrees to help, the final decision and its burden rests upon Peter alone.
Peter is a high school Senior who plays soccer and works as a motorcycle mechanic after school. He lives with his adopted mother, a widow, who sits home drinking beer and watching soap operas all day long. He has a chip on his shoulder about never knowing his real parents. Other than that, he is a surprisingly well-adjusted adolescent, both good-looking, athletic and intelligent. While his mother does not offer him money or a fancy home, Peter’s future is still promising with the prospect of college and becoming an engineer.
Peter’s girlfriend is Vicky Simmons. Vicky comes from a wealthy, caring family. Her parents are very open-minded. Vicky wants to be a professional dancer and her parents support her in all her decisions.
After being unsure if she is pregnant or not, Vicky finally decides to break the news to Peter after 3 months. It is too late to get an abortion. She wants to give the baby up for adoption. Peter wants to do the right thing. They try to discuss the situation maturely. But they decide that they are not ready for marriage. Because of Peter’s insecurity over his own adoption, he decides to fight for custody of his child.
At first, no one takes Peter seriously. He is ridiculed by his peers, by his school’s administration, by family services and lawyers. When he asks his boss for a full time job, his boss humiliates him. Out of anger and frustration, Peter nearly kills himself driving recklessly on his Kawasaki. He is afraid to ask his mother for help.
Peter’s journey to gain custody becomes not only a mission to become a father, but also one of self-discovery. In order to become an adult, he realizes that the thing he has to put behind him is his own childhood. Even when his mother finally agrees to help, the final decision and its burden rests upon Peter alone.
The second half of the film brims with intensity as Peter struggles to face his future. Many films have been made prior to this on the subject of teenage pregnancy, but none have had the emotional impact and integrity of this lost classic.
I think of this movie akin to the realism portrayed in 1970’s British films such as Ken Loach’s Family Life or even earlier “kitchen sink” films such as Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life (1983) or Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962). Unwed Father, however, is strictly an American view of an angry young man, with a story distinctly set in the 1970’s. This is especially true with the supporting cast. Mr. and Mrs. Simmons, for example, are not easily shocked. When made aware of their daughters pregnancy, they are very cool about. In fact, Mr. Simmons, excellently played by Joseph Campanella, even agrees to help Peter in his mission towards becoming a father. This makes this a very forward-moving and at-the-time contemporary view of sex. Another example of this would be in the ironic view of race as portrayed in this movie. Peter’s boss at the garage is a man who belittles Peter and is appropriated named “Butler”. Sobieski is a clever writer with both a social agenda and a unique outlook.
The film was produced by David Wolper, known for his prolific documentary work and innovations with television drama.
Cinematography is by Jules Brenner who worked on many classic films from the 1970‘s such as Johnny Got His Gun and Helter Skelter.
Jeremy Kagan, who directed the movie, has a long list of credits, and made Unwed Father right after completing one of the best entries in ABC’s long line of Afterschool Specials: My Dad Lives In A Downtown Hotel (1973). Jerry Fielding, a three-time Oscar nominee wrote the haunting song “Sailboats made of Silver” for this production and it plays several times throughout the film.
Two other often overlooked gems by Sobieski are the two horse films, Casey’s Shadow and Sylvester. Both are beautifully filmed movies that never quite found a huge audience. Like The Neon Ceiling, both take place in rural settings and feature an older single man, somewhat cranky and unhappy, who is placed into a situation where his fondness for helping a younger person changes his hard attitude towards life. These films are a must for any fan of Sobieski’s work because she was paired with excellent directors who faithfully adapted her dramas. Both are often billed as family films, but as in all of Sobieski’s work, there is nothing saccharine here. She writes her adults as cold and harsh and her kids as tough and mature. Her characters are never “cute” and Disney films, these are not:
Casey’s Shadow (1978), directed by Martin Ritt. Set in Louisiana and stars Walter Matthau.
The story is about an impoverished family of three boys and their single father who work as horse trainers. Their race horse is named after the youngest son, Casey. Casey is a tough kid - he never really knew his mother, he works hard on the farm and he gambles when he has to. His father, played by Matthau is rough on him. When Matthau’s character sees a chance to be a winner with his new horse, his drive for success may be at the sacrifice for the trust he’s built with his struggling family.
Sylvester (1985), directed by Tim Hunter. Set in Marfa Texas and stars Melissa Gilbert. Around this time, Tim Hunter also wrote the classic coming of age drama Over The Edge and directed an adaptation of SE Hinton’s TEX. If you like those two films as much as I do, then Sylvester should also be a must watch on your viewing list. Melissa Gilbert plays the part of a tough tomboy perfectly. Similar to the character in Unwed Father, she has decided to take on the responsibility as a single parent (raising her two younger brothers) at an early age. Her friendship with a father figure, Foster - played by Richard Farnsworth, is also reminiscent of the relationship of Jones and Paula in The Neon Ceiling. The story centers around Charlie (played by Gilbert), a 16 year old orphan who is intent on turning a rogue horse named Sylvester into a champion despite difficult odds. It is the most lavishly shot of all Sobieski’s screenplays and all the actors are perfectly cast. For me, it’s one of her greatest films as it combines many of the thematic elements of her 1970’s movies. It’s sort of a combination of Unwed Father, The Neon Ceiling and Casey’s Shadow.