Lem Dobbs

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
Lem Dobbs
Born Anton Lemuel Kitaj
(1959-12-24) 24 December 1959 (age 64)
Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Nationality British, American
Education American School London, England
Occupation Screenwriter
Spouse(s) Dana Kraft
Parent(s) R. B. Kitaj (father), Elsi Roessler (mother)

Lem Dobbs (born Anton Lemuel Kitaj; 24 December 1959) is a British-American screenwriter, best known for the films Dark City (1998) and The Limey (1999). He was born in Oxford, England, and is the son of the late painter, R.B. Kitaj. The nom de plume "Dobbs" was taken from the character played by Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Career

In 1979, Dobbs wrote an original screenplay entitled Edward Ford which remains unproduced as of April 2014. Critic Matthew Dessem has called the script "famously brilliant, famously unproduced", and asserts that "most of Hollywood" agrees it is a "masterpiece".[1] On the basis of another unproduced screenplay, The Marvel of the Haunted Castle, Dobbs was hired to re-write Diane Thomas' screenplay Romancing the Stone, though his contributions went uncredited.

Following that film's success, several films based on Dobbs' screenplays saw the light of day: Hider in the House, The Hard Way, Kafka (which Dobbs wrote in the 1970s), and The Limey. He was also credited as co-writer on both Dark City and The Score.

Dobbs' latest produced credit is Haywire, a 2012 action-thriller, directed again by Steven Soderbergh (director of both Kafka and The Limey).

Dobbs has spoken on DVD commentary tracks for his films Dark City and The Limey, and (as a film historian) for the unrelated The Sand Pebbles, Von Ryan's Express, and Double Indemnity (this last due to his personal friendship with the late director Billy Wilder).[citation needed]

Filmography

References

  1. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links