The Man Who Came to Dinner

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, authors of the play from which this film was adapted, were good friends with Alexander Woollcott, a famous critic, radio personality, and lecturer at the time. Woollcott requested that they write a play FOR him, but they never came up with a plot. One day Woollcott came to visit Hart unexpectedly and turned his house upside down, taking over the master bedroom, ordering Hart's staff around and making a general nuisance of himself. When Hart told Kaufman of the visit, he asked, "Imagine what would have happened if he broke his leg and had to stay?" They looked at each other and knew they had a play.

Nurse Preen said to Mr. Whiteside, "If Florence Nightingale had ever nursed YOU, Mr. Whiteside, she would have married Jack the Ripper instead of founding the Red Cross!" While Nightingale is indisputably an early leader of nursing (and supported the foundation of the British Red Cross in 1870), HenryDunant founded what became the International Red Cross.

Featured in My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988)