Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies".

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

Tonight's film is the 2010 political thriller, "The Ghost Writer", directed by Roman Polanski.

Polanski also co-produced and collaborated on the screenplay with Robert Harris, who wrote the 2007 novel on which the movie is based.

"The Ghost Writer" stars Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, and Olivia Williams, with support from Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton, Jon Bernthal, David Rintoul, Robert Pugh, and Eli Wallach.

As the film begins, a ghost writer is hired to complete the revision of a politician's memoir, a job left unfinished when a previous ghostwriter, Mike McAra, died in a drowning accident.

The politician is former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, who's living in an isolated seaside compound on Martha's Vineyard along with his wife Ruth, his assistant Amelia Bly, and his aids, security detail, and household staff.

The writer, refers to himself only as the Ghost, is taken aback by the tight security arrangements surrounding both the compound and the memoir and finds lang himself distant and mercurial.

The Ghost initially stays at a local hotel, but soon, the media find out Lang is on the island and the hotel becomes their center of operations.

The Ghost then moves to a room in Lang's compound formally occupied by his predecessor and finds all the dead man's possessions and notes still there, including old photographs of Lang and an unidentified telephone number.

Meanwhile, news breaks that Lang's former foreign secretary, Richard Rycart, has accused Lang of secretly transporting suspected terrorists overseas to be interrogated under torture.

Lang faces prosecution by the International Criminal Court unless he remains in the United States which does not recognize the Court's jurisdiction.

When the Ghost goes out cycling to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere of the compound, he ends up at the beach where the body of his predecessor, McAra, washed ashore.

An old man tells him there's no way the ocean current could have carried the body there from the place where McAra supposedly fell off a ferry.

He also says a local woman had seen lights on the beach the night before the body was found, but now she's in a coma after falling down a flight of stairs.

The Ghost is left to wonder whether he might be the next one to meet with an unforeseen and unfortunate accident.

A ghostwriter is someone who produces written or spoken words, articles, speeches, fiction and non-fiction books that are presented to the public under the name of another person: their client.

Throughout most of human history, the ability to read and write has been a rare and specialized skill.

After written language first developed, apparently independently, in both Mesopotamia and Egypt around 6,000 years ago, the ability to render a spoken language into written symbols was restricted to scribes.

Scribes were usually associated with temples or government and their duties included issuing proclamations or writing down laws in the names of those who employed them, either kings or priests.

So if we define ghostwriting as writing something on someone's behalf and in their name, we could say ghostwriting is as old as writing itself.

Ghostwriting is a modern phenomenon arises from the simple fact that different people have different talents.

Although some politicians can express themselves as well as Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, or Barack Obama, countless others depend on ghostwriters to compose their speeches and assist with their memoirs.

People might want to know the inside story about their favorite celebrities, but celebrities are rarely known for their ability to express themselves well in print.

Even people who have a compelling or exciting story to tell based on their firsthand experiences don't necessarily have the skills to make those stories compelling or exciting when they're written down.

That's when a ghostwriter is called to do their important work, most often without public acknowledgement.

But their anonymity may be appropriate.

Ghostwriter Kevin Anderson said in The Washington Post in 2014, "A ghost writer is an interpreter and a translator, not an author, which is why our clients deserve full credit for authoring their books."

The Ghost Writer is based on The Ghost, a 2007 novel by Englishman Robert Harris, who collaborated on the screenplay with director and co-producer, Roman Polanski.

Harris was previously a television journalist and political analyst for the BBC.

He was dismayed when British Prime Minister Tony Blair supported George W. Bush's incursion into Iraq in 2003, a decision that led many Brits to refer to Blair as Bush's poodle, meaning a well-trained and docile lackey.

When Blair resigned from office in 2007, Harris put other work aside to write The Ghost, and published it just three months later.

The character of Adam Lang is clearly based on Blair, although there are enough differences between the two to allow Harris plausible deniability.

Similarly, the former British foreign Minister Richard Reichardt, resembles Blair's foreign minister Robin Cook, and, in a brief cameo as the American Secretary of State, German actress, Mo Asumang stands in for Bush's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice.

The old man who talks to the ghost on the beach on Martha's Vineyard is meant to be former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.

The ubiquitous and vaguely sinister Heatherton corporation, in the movie, recalls the controversial Halliburton Corporation.

Production of the Ghost Writer was a collaboration between British, German, and French movie companies.

Although the action takes place on Martha's Vineyard, with a few scenes in New York and London, the film was shot almost entirely in Germany.

Director Roman Polanski was unable to work in the United States because he had fled the country in 1978, after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

Adam Lang's beach house was built entirely in a German studio, with Cape Cod views through the windows provided by green screens.

Scenes taking place on Martha's Vineyard were filmed on the German island of Sylt in the North Sea and there are subtle indications throughout that the movie is a European product, not least the portrayal of agents of the United States government as the primary villains.

Polanski was arrested in connection with his fugitive status in September, 2009 on his way to the Zurich Film Festival, while The Ghost Writer was in post-production.

Nonetheless, he continued to oversee every aspect of the film's completion, even editing it while in a Swiss prison.

He was later released, and placed on house arrest, while Swiss authorities decided whether to extradite him to the United States.

As a result, Polanski was unable to attend the movie's premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, where he won the Silver Bear Award for Best Director.

He also won a Cesare, the National Film Award of France, a European film award and a pre lumier.

The Ghost Writer was, in fact, nominated for a host of European and other international film prizes, and won multiple awards in different categories.

These included acting awards for Ian McGregor, Olivia Williams, and Pierce Brosnan, best screenplay for Robert Harris and Roman Polanski, best musical score for composer Alexander DeSplat, production design for Albrecht Konrad, as well as multiple awards for best film and best European film.

The critical response to The Ghost Writer in the United States was generally very positive.

Most praise the film as a taut and effective political thriller, while acknowledging that it wasn't quite up to the standards of Roman Polanski's very best work.

Critic and film theorist Andrew Sarris said the movie constitutes a miracle of artistic and psychological resilience.

Roger Ebert and the Chicago Sun Times called it the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller, smooth, calm, confident.

It builds suspense instead of depending on shock and action.

Several critics put the movie on their year end 10 best lists, one describing it as what an expertly executed thriller is supposed to be.

The film grossed over $60 million worldwide, with about a quarter of that amount coming from American audiences.

Despite this, and the accolades and awards from major European film academies and leading American critics, somehow, The Ghost Writer was entirely overlooked by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.

It failed to receive an Academy Award nomination in a single category, but I'm sure the CIA had nothing at all to do with that.

Please join us again next time, for another Saturday Night at the Movies.

I'm Glenn Holland.

Goodnight.