Screenplay Sale: Abbott and Costello Go To Mars

As detailed below, the original 1951 handwritten manuscript and a typewritten draft of the screenplay to the Hollywood science fiction comedy film Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) are selling for $4,500 on AbeBooks.

Despite the title of the film, the comedy duo, who stowaway on a rocketship bound for Mars, never actually make it to the Red Planet. Rather, they end up on a female-inhabited Venus.

Screenwriter D.D. Beauchamp's handwritten manuscript treatment for the 1953 Universal film comedy, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. Present in its entirety is Beachamp's original treatment, executed in pencil, with holograph corrections. Interspersed throughout are the resulting typewritten pages (also with holograph corrections). The combined pages are bradbound with green studio covers, showing a date of December 5, 1951 (two years prior to the film's release, and well before production began), and the word "Treatment" written in ink at the top right corner, along with a stamped studio reference number. All told, a complete document of the original holograph manuscript and first typewritten draft of the film's treatment. ... A superb original screen story for one of the twentieth century's most revered comedy teams, in its earliest form. ...

For a bibliography of Mars-related films, check out The Mars Movie Guide, a neat website maintained by Gerry Williams of the San Diego Chapter of The Mars Society.