N.p.[London]: N.p. [Résumés Ltd.], N.d [c. 1965]

127 mimeographed pp. bound in black wrappers and secured by two brads. Title lettered in gilt to front wrapper. A very well preserved, clean copy.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY FOR CUL-DE-SAC, ROMAN POLANSKI’S SECOND ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FILM. Winner of the Golden Bear at the 1966 Berlin Film Festival.

Despite its success at film festivals Cul-de-Sac was savaged on its US opening by critics who could see nothing funny in Polanski’s black comedy, dismissing it as ‘odious freak show’ whose only audience (according to Judith Crist) would be ‘those who can laugh while fighting off nausea and/or sheer amazement at the prodigious waste of talent on tripe’.

This copy of the screenplay still bears Polanski’s first choice title for the film -- a clear Beckettian reference, as Katelbach never arrives. The title page misspells co-writer Gerard Brach’s name as

‘Gerard Bach’. Brach was Polanski’s regular writing partner. The two met in Poland in 1959, and went on to work together on ten films, the last, Bitter Moon, released in 1992. John Sutro translated this screenplay into English, and also worked on Polanski’s first American film The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), after which, Polanski’s English having improved sufficiently, his services were no longer required.

The screenplay is laid out in double columns: scene settings and stage directions in the left hand column, dialogue in the right. It is unmarked, and the front wrapper bears the name of the company who made the copy: Résumés Ltd. of Kensington, a company often used by London film companies of the time.