The Ghost And the Darkness

by William Goldman

(Applause Books). This book includes an interesting introduction on how this film starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer based on the terrifying true story of the man-eating lions of Tsavo came to be; the complete screenplay by William Goldman; and fabulous photos from the film throughout.

Genres: Fiction, Media Tie In

192 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 1997

About the author

Goldman grew up in a Jewish family in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and obtained a BA degree at Oberlin College in 1952 and an MA degree at Columbia University in 1956.His brother was the late James Goldman, author and playwright.

William Goldman had published five novels and had three plays produced on Broadway before he began to write screenplays. Several of his novels he later used as the foundation for his screenplays.

In the 1980s he wrote a series of memoirs looking at his professional life on Broadway and in Hollywood (in one of these he famously remarked that "Nobody knows anything"). He then returned to writing novels. He then adapted his novel The Princess Bride to the screen, which marked his re-entry into screenwriting.

Goldman won two Academy Awards: an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for All the President's Men. He also won two Edgar Awards, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay: for Harper in 1967, and for Magic (adapted from his own 1976 novel) in 1979.

Goldman died in New York City on November 16, 2018, due to complications from colon cancer and pneumonia. He was eighty-seven years old.

Reviews

[Stuart Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still haven't seen the film but I know Goldman wasn't happy with the end results. But this early draft of the screenplay about a 19th century African engineering project being terrorised by a pair of man-eating lions makes for great reading.

[Ranette · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great true story about the building of a railroad and the lions that stalk people.

[S D]

I still don't like it. The begining is boring. The ending is a slog and a letdown.