Well, the joke is on the Hollywood studios which rejected this 1973 screenplay, because just 

a few years later, writer Joel Oliansky, won the Emmy Award for it.  That happened when 

ABC TV broke his script into 4 parts, made the story a miniseries, and changed the name of 

the production to Masada, starring Peter O'Toole.

This was 1981, just a year after ABC produced Roots, which became a cultural phenomenon, 

making the miniseries a television staple. 

Joel Oliansky (1935-2002) had a long career as a writer and director.  He also wrote the 

screenplay for the Clint Eastwood movie, Bird.  The script for Masada--and The Antagonists--

was based on the 1971 novel, The Antagonists, by Ernest Gann.

The screenplay clock in at 165 pages, very long by Hollywood standards, tells a fictionalized 

account of the historical siege of the Masada citadel in Roman Palestine by legions of the 

Roman Empire in AD 73.  The fighting ended when the Roman armies entered the fortress, 

only to discover the mass suicide by the Jewish defenders when defeat became imminent.

This particular script was submitted to TWE, or Trans World Entertainment, founded by

longtime Hollywood producer, Ely Landau.  (His son, Jon, was the Oscar-wining 

producer of Titanic.)  Ely Landau's specialty was successfully turning classic 

stage plays into feature films, such as The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey 

Into Night.  

On the first page of the script, you can see that TWE's 'script reader' has praised 

the script as "first-rate, exciting, and intelligent," expressing concern not with the 

quality of the project, but with its suitability as a project specifically for Trans World 

Entertainment.

I bought this screenplay at an estate auction near San Francisco.  It was part of a group 

of 5 screenplays which I'm selling, but I know nothing about the previous owner, and 

his or her ties to Hollywood.  

DIMENSIONS:

Script measures almost 11 1/2 inches by almost 9 inches.

SHIPPING:

I will ship this via Media Mail so be patient.

     

NOTE FOR INTERNATIONAL BUYERS:

I will only ship outside of the U.S. through Ebay's Global Shipping Program.  No exceptions, please.

Thanks so much for looking.