The late Alvin Sargent was one of Hollywood’s finest and classiest 20th Century screenwriters, especially in the realm of adult relationship dramas. On the same level as Bo Goldman, William Goldman, Ben Hecht, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, David Rayfiel, Paul Schrader, Robert Towne, etc. Ordinary People was the peak, but the runners-up were The Sterile Cuckoo (’69), Paper Moon (’73), Julia (’77), Straight Time (’78, w/ Jeffrey Boam), Dominick and Eugene (’88), Hero (’92 w/ Laura Ziskin and David Webb Peoples) and Unfaithful (w/ William Broyles Jr. — ’02). Toward the end of his career Sargent wrote or co-wrote three or four Spider Man scripts. Alas, his kind of movie had fallen out of favor and paychecks were there for the taking.
