Burning Secret with Leon Vitali, Gerald Fried and Nathan Abrams

Kubrick’s Universe - The Stanley Kubrick Podcast

Episode 17 : Burning Secret with Leon Vitali, Gerald Fried and Nathan Abrams.

In this episode, we talk about a recently discovered screenplay on July 15th this year that made the headlines.

This wasn't just any screenplay. It was a script penned by Stanley Kubrick and Paths of Glory co-writer Calder Willingham, over 62 years ago and it had only been discovered when one of Stanley's earliest collaborators, the composer Gerald Fried, brought it to the attention of Kubrick fans the world over.

The script is called Burning Secret and it's an adaptation of a 1913 novella by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, and it tells the story of a young boy who is seduced by a man in order to get to the boys' mother.

Thus far there have been three filmed versions of the original novella, the most recent being in 1988. The production was written and directed by Andrew Birkin, and it stars Klaus Maria Brandauer, David Eberts, and the legendary Faye Dunaway.

But this particular treatment of the screenplay, by Kubrick and Willingham, was discovered by our friend, Nathan Abrams, a professor in Film Studies at Bangor University, while he was just doing research for his new book about Stanley Kubrick.

Earlier in 2018, we had the pleasure of speaking with Stanley Kubrick’s long-time right-hand-man and good friend, Leon Vitali, incidentally, just a few days after this amazing news broke, so obviously we had to ask him for his take on what he knows about the screenplay.

Production Credits :

Hosted by Jason Furlong / Written by Stephen Rigg and Jason Furlong / Theme and original music written and performed by Jason Furlong / Produced and edited by Stephen Rigg