Before Frances reached theaters, its production became the center of an unusually public authors' rights battle. William Arnold's 1978 book Shadowland had popularized a dark account of Frances Farmer's life, including the theory that Farmer had been subjected to a transorbital lobotomy by pioneering psychosurgeon Walter Freeman. Marie Yates, who later became an associate producer of Frances, had originally worked with Arnold on a Shadowland screenplay and had helped sell the book's screen rights to Noel Marshall, the executive producer associated with The Exorcist. Mel Brooks attempted to acquire those rights but failed; he then hired Yates and developed a separate Farmer project with writers Eric Bergren and Christopher De Vore and producer Jonathan Sanger.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1980s
The 1981 Shadowland Lawsuit That Accused Frances of Stealing Its Most Horrifying Scene
Frances / 1980s
Before Frances reached theaters, its production became the center of an unusually public authors' rights battle. William Arnold's 1978 book Shadowland had popularized a dark account of Frances Farmer's life, including the theory that Farmer had been subjected to a transorbital lobotomy by pioneering psychosurgeon Walter Freeman. Marie Yates, who later became an associate producer of Frances, had originally worked with Arnold on a Shadowland screenplay and had helped sell the book's screen rights to Noel Marshall, the executive producer associated with The Exorcist. Mel Brooks attempted to acquire those rights but failed; he then hired Yates and developed a separate Farmer project with writers Eric Bergren and Christopher De Vore and producer Jonathan Sanger.
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