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"A Strangely Strong Novel in a Queer Milieu" | 
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Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Pennsylvania | ||
 Pictorial for the Movie Carrie, 1952
 Helen Richardson
| In Dreiser's lifetime an adaptation of Sister Carrie never reached the
stage nor the silver screen. Scenarios, scripts, and plans, however, were developed
with Dreiser's full knowledge and support. In 1922, for example, Lionel Barrymore
telegramed Dreiser about being "enormously interested in possibility of playing
Heirstwend [sic] it would make a great play." In the late 1920s Dreiser met the New
York theatrical producer, H. S. Kraft, who proposed dramatizing Sister
Carrie with Paul Muni as George Hurstwood. Kraft engaged the successful
playwright John Howard Lawson, who completed a script. Dreiser, however, rejected his
work and the project was abandoned. By 1939 Dreiser was intently seeking to sell the
motion picture rights to Sister Carrie. In 1940 they were sold to RKO for
$40,000, although it was not until 1952 that a cinematic version was produced--not by
RKO--but by Paramount Pictures.
 Letter from Joseph Breen to Jack L. Warner, 11 October 1937
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