Irwin ShawFilmography

The Man Who Married a French Wife

Crew: Short Story Author

The Girls in Their Summer Dresses

Crew: Short Story Author

Synopsis: In "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses," a married couple (Jeff Bridges and Carol Kane) attempt to have a pleasant Sunday afternoon until the conversation keeps turning to the husband's habit of looking at other women. The film was originally produced for PBS as part of their Great Performances Read More

The Monument

Crew: Short Story Author

The Top of the Hill

Crew: Screen Story

Synopsis: The 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid provides the setting for this drama that centers on a man's mid-life crisis. While there, he gets involved with love, sex and other diversions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Beggarman, Thief

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Jean Simmons, Glenn Ford, Lynn Redgrave, Tovah Feldshuh, Andrew Stevens

Synopsis: Beggarman, Thief is the 4-hour sequel to the ratings-busting miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man; both productions were based on the works of novelist Irwin Shaw. For the purposes of the sequel, a new member of the Jordache clan is introduced: filmmaker Gretchen Jordache Burke, played by Jean Simmons. Read More

Evening in Byzantium

Crew: Book Author

Synopsis: A piece of made-for-television hack work that suddenly became sort of topical 23 years later, with the attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Evening in Byzantium was a two-part made-for-TV feature based very loosely on Irwin Shaw's best-seller. The book Read More

Rich Man, Poor Man

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Peter Strauss, Nick Nolte, Susan Blakely, Steve Allen, Ed Asner, Bill Bixby

Synopsis: More ambitious and expensive than ABC's first "novel for television" miniseries QB VII, the eight-episode, 12-hour Rich Man, Poor Man was the one that truly put the genre on the map, its phenomenal success in the ratings making possible the even more spectacular Roots. Adapted from the mammoth Read More

Three

Crew: Screen Story, Short Story Author

Actors: Charlotte Rampling, Robie Porter, Sam Waterston, Pascale Roberts, Edina Ronay

Synopsis: Bert (Robie Porter) and Taylor (Sam Waterston) are two Americans who set out for a tour of France and Italy by auto. They meet a pretty female hitchhiker named Marty (Charlotte Rampling) and agree to allow her to travel with them. They agree not to become romantically involved with Marty to insure Read More

Survival 1967

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This color documentary vividly shows the aftermath of the Arab/Israeli Six Day War in which Israel decidedly trounced their aggressors. Israeli leaders are interviewed and give their overview of the battle in which the Israeli Army gained a well-deserved reputation as one of the world's most Read More

In the French Style

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter, Short Story Author

Actors: Jean Seberg, Stanley Baker, Addison Powell, James Leo Herlihy, Maurice Teynac, Philippe Forquet, Jack Hedley

Synopsis: Author Irwin Shaw wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of two of his short stories set in Paris. Christina James (Jean Seberg) is a footloose American girl living in the City of Lights. She becomes involved with Guy (Philippe Forquet), who tells her that he's a student at the University Read More

Two Weeks in Another Town

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Cyd Charisse, George Hamilton, Daliah Lavi

Synopsis: One of Hollywood's great directors, Vincente Minnelli, turns a jaundiced eye towards the film industry in this drama about the inner workings of the movie business. Jack Andrus (Kirk Douglas) is an actor whose career has gone into a tailspin along with his personal life; after a severe bout with Read More

The Big Gamble

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Stephen Boyd, Juliette Greco, David Wayne, Gregory Ratoff, Fernand Ledoux, Sybil Thorndike

Synopsis: This adventure melodrama concerns Vic Brennan (Stephen Boyd), who persuades his family to put up money for him to leave Dublin for the remote African town of Jebanda in order to start up a truck-hauling business. The family agrees to give Vic the money under the stipulation that his cousin Samuel (David Wayne Read More

Desire under the Elms

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, Burl Ives, Frank Overton, Pernell Roberts

Synopsis: Director Delbert Mann and screenwriter Irwin Shaw adapt Eugene O'Neill's 20th-century version of a Greek tragedy to the screen with a bit more discretion than need be. The story takes place in the New England of the 1840s. Emotionally cool but passionately hot farmer Burl Ives the smoldering Sophia Loren Read More

Playhouse 90: The 80 Yard Run

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Darryl Hickman, Robert Simon, Coach Red Sanders

Synopsis: Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward made a rare joint TV appearance in this live Playhouse 90 broadcast of 1958. Newman is cast as former college football star Christian Darling, whose legendary 80-yard run in the mid-1920s won him fame, adulation, a beautiful wife named Louise (Joanne Woodward), a Read More

The Young Lions

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin, Hope Lange, May Britt, Barbara Rush

Synopsis: Though several concessions to the censors and the box-office were made in adapting Irwin Shaw's bestseller The Young Lions to the screen, the end result is generally effective and satisfying. Set during World War 2, the film concentrates on three individuals, one German, two American. Marlon Brando Read More

Barrage Contre le Pacifique

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Anthony Perkins, Silvana Mangano, Richard Conte, Nehemiah Persoff

Synopsis: An overbearing woman is determined to force her two kids to turn her struggling rice plantation into a success. Unfortunately, it is located on the Indochinese coast and is being threatened by rough seas; all that stands between the paddies and the ocean is a small seawall. More trouble comes in Read More

Tip on a Dead Jockey

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Robert Taylor, Dorothy Malone, Gia Scala, Martin Gabel, Marcel Dalio

Synopsis: In this 1957 psychological action drama, Robert Taylor plays Lloyd Tredman, a WWII American airman plagued by guilt over the war deaths of comrades in failed missions. Living in Spain, Tredman is despondent after losing all his money betting on a horse which ends up throwing its jockey and killing Read More

Fire Down Below

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemmon, Herbert Lom, Bernard Lee, Bonar Colleano

Synopsis: Jack Lemmon and Robert Mitchum star as Tony and Felix, co-owners of a tramp-steamer service in the West Indies. Threatening their friendship is itinerant trollop Irena (Rita Hayworth). Tony seethes with jealousy as Irena gravitates towards Felix, leading to a heated confrontation. Felix retaliates Read More

War and Peace

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer, Vittorio Gassman, Anita Ekberg

Synopsis: War and Peace is a commendable attempt to boil down Tolstoy's long, difficult novel into 208 minutes' screen time. In recreating the the social and personal upheavals attending Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia, $6 million was shelled out by coproducers Carlo Ponti, Dino de Laurentiis and Read More

Ulysses

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Silvana Mangano, Anthony Quinn, Rossana Podestà, Jacques Dumesnil

Synopsis: This very expensive Italian-made adaptation of Homer's "The Odyssey" stars Kirk Douglas as seafaring hero Ulysses. The story begins, as ever, with Ulysses leaving his faithful wife Penelope (Silvano Magnano) behind as he goes off to fight in the Trojan Wars. Having the poor taste to set himself Read More

Un Acte d'Amour

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Dany Robin, Barbara Laage, Robert Strauss, Gabrielle Dorziat

Synopsis: Act of Love was based on The Girl on the Via Flamina, a novel by Alfred Hayes. Kirk Douglas plays an American soldier, participating in the 1944 liberation of France. Making the acquaintance of impoverished Parisian girl Dany Robin, Douglas takes pity on the girl, pretending to be married to her Read More

I Want You

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Dana Andrews, Dorothy McGuire, Farley Granger, Peggy Dow, Robert Keith

Synopsis: Upon beginning production on his Korean-war drama I Want You, producer Sam Goldwyn lamented "I've just brought those boys back from the war, and now I have to send them out again!" Goldwyn, of course, was referring to his Oscar-winning "homecoming" drama Best Years of Our Lives. He'd hoped that I Want You Read More

Easy Living

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Victor Mature, Lizabeth Scott, Lucille Ball, Sonny Tufts, Lloyd Nolan

Synopsis: No relation to the 1937 screwball comedy of the same name, Easy Living is a film about the world of professional sports. Victor Mature plays Pete Wilson, star halfback of the New York Chiefs. Well past his prime, Wilson would like to retire to a coaching job, but his rival Tim McCarr (Sonny Tufts) Read More

Take One False Step

Crew: Screenwriter, Short Story Author

Actors: William Powell, Shelley Winters, Marsha Hunt, Dorothy Hart, James Gleason

Synopsis: William Powell stars in Take One False Step as a happily married college professor who foolishly agrees to a reunion supper with old flame Shelley Winters. Winters later disappears, and the evidence points to murder. To allay suspicion--and to avoid losing an important financial grant to his Read More

The Commandos Strike at Dawn

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Paul Muni, Anna Lee, Lillian Gish, Cedric Hardwicke, Robert Coote, Ray Collins

Synopsis: Scripted by Irwin Shaw from a story by C. S. Forester (of "Captain Horatio Hornblower" fame), Commandos Strike at Dawn is a wartime morale-booster, largely set in coastal Norway. Paul Muni stars as Eric Toresen, an apolitical and basically pacifistic Norwegian fisherman who is galvanized into Read More

The Talk of the Town

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, Edgar Buchanan, Glenda Farrell, Charles Dingle

Synopsis: George Stevens' Talk of the Town is a quick-witted comedy driven by wonderful performances by Cary Grant, Ronald Colman and Jean Arthur. Michael Lightcap (Colman) is a stuffy law professor in line to a Supreme Court appointment, who is spending the summer at the house of schoolteacher Nora Read More

Out of the Fog

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert, George Tobias

Synopsis: Out of the Fog is the film version of the Irwin Shaw play The Gentle People, refashioned to mollify the Hollywood censors by expert wordsmiths Robert Rossen, Jerry Wald, and Richard Macaulay. Humphrey Bogart lobbied strenuously to play the leading role of charming but ruthless waterfront loan Read More

The Big Game

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Philip Huston, James Gleason, June Travis, Bruce Cabot, Andy Devine

Synopsis: Future best-selling novelist Irwin Shaw made his screenwriting bow with the modest RKO Radio sports drama The Big Game. The story revolves around the efforts by a group of crooked gamblers to fix the outcomes of college football games. When star quarterback Clark (Philip Huston) refuses to be Read More