Margaret Atwood (source, screenplay), Harold Pinter (screenplay) THE HANDMAID’S TALE [1989] Revised draft film script

New York: Daniel Wilson Productions, [1989]. Vintage original film script, 11 x 8 1/2″ (28 x 22 cm), 102 pp. The name of Cynthia Greenhill is written on the title page. She worked on a couple of other films in this era, but is not included in this film’s credits. The front page notes that this draft includes revisions from 1/17/[89] on pink paper and revisions from 1/24/[89] on blue paper. This example of the script does incorporate those dated revisions, but the entire script is printed on white paper. Printed wrappers, brad bound, a few pages with light marginal spotting, overall near fine.

The completed film does not represent screenwriter Harold Pinter’s original vision for this adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel. When director Volker Schlöndorff took over the film’s direction (which had originally been assigned to Karel Reisz) and requested rewrites, Pinter suggested he enlist the original author and she, among several other people, were responsible for the final shooting script. However, only Pinter received screen credit for the script in the released film.

Thus, this original Harold Pinter screenplay draft — never published — is of tremendous value to scholars or fans of Pinter and his work. And, of course, any adaptation of Atwood’s feminist classic is of enduring interest.