Neil Jordan's Screenplay
For those interested in seeing what the original “High Spirits” might have been, the one movie director Neil Jordan steadfastly claims was altered “by the studio,” there is Jordan’s original screenplay. It is published by Faber and Faber, 3 Queen Square, London, WCIN 3AU, and with a copyright date of 1988. I purchased my copy back in 1990 here in America at the Drama Book Shop, 723 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY.
In the Introduction to the screenplay Jordan provides the background inspiration for writing the story, as well as a poem he penned to demonstrate his frustration in dealing with Hollywood and its film executives. (From a separate source, the “1988 Motion Picture Guide Annual,” which includes almost an entire page with the analysis and review of “High Spirits,” there is a sizeable paragraph providing evidence to support Jordan’s claim. Some examples provided in that analysis are, (1) “In the closing credits… Lynzee Klingman is listed as an ‘editorial consultant’-- the sort of credit that often appears on films with a troubled production history and often is an indication that the studio chiefs sent some of their own people in to tinker with the film after the director delivered his final cut”; and (2) “Another clue potentially supporting the missing footage theory is that scenes mentioned in on-the-set interviews with Jordan and others do not appear in the final cut…”)
The biggest change seems to be the opening scene where in the film the camera pans through exterior locations, such as the slime-covered swimming pool, whereas in the screenplay the camera is to pan only the interior of the castle. The opening voice-over “...pecker-head,” etc. has been added to the telephone monologue, which begins at the “postal strike,” etc. in the screenplay. There is also additional scenes and dialogue of all the American guests en route on the plane to Ireland, which provides more background for each of them. For the most part (at least 95-percent), however, what you see on screen is what is in the screenplay. Unless Neil Jordon deviated considerably from his scipt, which seems doubtful in light of his Introduction to the published edition of his screenplay, we, the viewer, pretty much get the entire film as he intended. My impression is that Jordan, like most directors, didn’t want the movie executives to tinker with his film at all.
Notwithstanding the films flaws (which can be easily overlooked), I still have a high regard for Jordan (as a writer and director), and feel “High Spirits,” in its own way, is a 1980s “Midsummer Night’s Dream”-- set instead in Ireland in October! Further, Ray McAnally’s Plunkett Senior plays exactly as Prospero in “The Tempest,” another Shakespearean story set “in the heart of an incomparably beautiful [island] countryside…” For these (and other) reasons, "High Spirits" is still one of my favorite films.