Category: Media

Sections: Information | Research

Information

• Planned feature film of three Dahl short stories to be made by Peramco Film Corporation, Inc. in October 1953.
• What Dahl Did: wrote original stories entitled “Skin,” “The Great Automatic Grammatizator,” and “Claud’s Dog” (see Research below)
• “Skin”
  • Adapted by Jean-Philippe Carson
  • Musical treatment by Béla Dolesko
• “The Great Automatic Grammatizator”
  • Adapted by Jean-Philippe Carson
  • Musical treatment by Thomas Tycho

• Based on:
  • “Skin”
  • “The Great Automatic Grammatizator”

Research

In 2017 two Dahl-related screenplays with accompany musical scores were offered for auction via Charlton Hall Gallery in South Carolina. The works came from the estate of Arturo Peralto-Ramos II, the son of famous American socialite Millicent Rogers. Rogers had famously had an affair with Roald Dahl starting in 1944, and the two of them exchanged many gifts. My initial theory was that Dahl had gifted her with the works sometime in the 1950’s. The works were purchased at auction for $240 USD.

The auction lot consisted of a typed screenplay of “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” (adapted by Jean-Philippe Carson; a handwritten musical score (sketch) of “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” by Thomas (Tommy) Tycho; a typed screenplay of “Skin” (adapted by Jean-Philippe Carson); and a handwritten musical score (two piano scores) by Béla Dolesko. Photographs of the covers of the screenplays include the text:

One of three short stories to be filmed as one full feature by Peramco Film Corporation, Inc, in England, October, 1953.

Intriguingly, the photograph of the cover page for “Skin” shows some phantom additional text for the third screenplay titled “Claud’s Dog.” This would no doubt have been one of the four “country” stories from Someone Like You, but I’ve not been able to find out which one.

Obviously this film was never made. I have spent several hours trying to find out what happened. I haven’t been able to find any references to the film online (other than pages related to the auction) or in any of the Dahl biographies. My  current theory is that “Peramco Film Corporation, Inc.” was a company run by Arturo Peralto-Ramos out of 325 East 72nd Street in New York City. I have found a single citation for this in a now-deleted Wikipedia edit that claims in 1951 the polo player Norman Butler “became one of the Directors of the Peramco Film Corporation Inc. located in New York City at 325 East 72nd Street, alongside Millicent Rogers and Arturo Peralta Ramos Jr.” The Wikipedia editor who added that text cited the 1956 edition of Who’s Who in America, which I can’t fully access to verify. But it seems plausible that the company was run by Millicent’s son (especially given that “Peramco” combines the first syllables of “Peralta” and “Ramos”), and that he would have either asked Dahl for permission to adapt these works or hoped to parlay his mother’s relationship with Dahl into permission. That also explains how the screenplays ended up in the estate auction.

If anyone has any other information on this topic, please get in touch!