The French Lieutenant's Woman (film) Award for Best Actress, and Pinter for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film intercuts the stories of two affairs. One is a Victorian period drama involving the gentleman palaeontologist Charles Smithson and the complex and troubled Sarah Woodruff, known as "the French lieutenant's woman." The other story is between actors Mike and Anna, playing the lead roles in a modern filming of the story. In both segments, Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep play the lead roles. John Fowles's "The French Lieutenant's Woman" had multiple endings, and the two parallel stories in the movie have different outcomes. In
The Big Heat published as a novel in 1953. Initially, McGivern's novel was to be produced by Jerry Wald, who wanted either Paul Muni, George Raft or Edward G. Robinson (who worked with director Fritz Lang in "Woman in the Window" and "Scarlet Street") for the role of Dave Bannion. Columbia Pictures paid $40,000 for McGivern's novel. Lang directed the film while Sydney Boehm wrote it. Boehm made many changes from the novel such as name changes. Commissioner Higgins is not in the novel and Lieutenant Wilks is the corrupt policeman. An honest policeman called Cranston, who was in the novel, was also