Word: budd
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Billy Budd, which as a novel is a skinny English Lit cousin of Moby Dick and as a play was drydocked after a brief Broadway run, finds itself as a beautiful, terrifying and heartbreaking film. The transformation is the more admirable for the fact that Billy Budd is essentially a morality play with an unpopular moral: absolute good and absolute evil must always destroy each other...
...Billy Budd, a handsome and guileless young sailor, steps on deck of H.M.S. Avenger one day in 1797, impressed into naval service at a time when the French threatened the British navy on one hand and the spirit of mutiny sapped it on the other. His shipmates are a sorry, ragtag lot, full of hate and fear for the sadistic master-at-arms, Mister Claggart. They find in Billy Budd's artless warmth a hope that somehow he can save them from Claggart's bullying; even the Avenger's aloof Captain Vere takes a liking...
...instrument for enforcing discipline is Claggart. As long as Claggart keeps his villainy within the bounds of the articles, Vere, though he despises him, feels compelled to keep him aboard. This is a fateful decision, for it seals a doom not only for Claggart but for Billy Budd as well...
Falsely, Claggart accuses the sailor of plotting mutiny. Vere knows that Claggart is lying and, seeing a chance to trap him, he sends for Billy Budd to deny the charge. Billy, facing Claggart in Vere's cabin, struggles to speak, but can only make the terrible sounds of stammering. Suddenly, he gives action to his horror with a lunging, double-fisted blow that sends Claggart to the deck, dead with a broken skull...
Died. Jerry Wald, 49, chunky, eclectic moviemaker whose perpetual motion picturing made him one of Hollywood's most prolific producers (The Man Who Came to Dinner, Mildred Pierce, Peyton Place, From Here to Eternity); whose detractors claimed he was the prototype for the fast-rising heel in Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run?, left a vice-presidency at Columbia Pictures in 1956 to form his own company, had as many as 24 films before the cameras at the same time, once remarking, "If I were a multimillionaire, I'd pick this business as a hobby...