Stone begins his account with an extended dream, sequence-or as is specified in the description, “A BLACK AND WHITE DREAMSCAPE.” This is appropriate, as Stone’s major contribution to the material is a hallucinatory angle. …one of the most famous un-filmed screenplays in existence. Stone is reportedly a huge fan of the novel, and his reverence is evident in a script that hews quite closely to its particulars. That didn’t stop a young Oliver Stone from adapting THE DEMOLISHED MAN in this, one of the most famous unfilmed screenplays in existence. The “impossible” killing that powers the story is far too easily pulled off (all it takes to outwit the Espers, it turns out, is keeping a repetitive jingle playing continuously in one’s mind) and the things that so impressed 1950s readers, namely the complex personality of the central character (back then characterization of any sort was a rarity in science fiction), no longer seem nearly as impacting. It’s about a corrupt businessman who commits murder in a futuristic milieu policed by telepaths called Espers, and it hasn’t dated terribly well. THE DEMOLISHED MAN by Alfred Bester, initially published in 1951, is one of the most revered science fiction novels of all time.
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