'ponzi' Movie Isn't Dunn Deal Yet, But Could Be
By Martin A. Grove
Friday, February 13 2004
Friday, February 13 2004
Published on AllBusiness.com
"Ponzi" project: In a word association game the name "Ponzi" typically triggers the reply "scheme."
Its namesake, Boston con man Charles Ponzi, found fame and fortune in 1920 through a pyramid scheme in which he stole as much as $15 million from gullible investors. Ponzi's name has lived on since then as a standard reference in news reports about today's big business scandals. At various times over the past 30 years, Ponzi's story has come close but never quite managed to reach the movie screen.
Ponzi's twists and turns as a movie project were the focus of my recent conversation with Donald Dunn, a former editor of Business Week, whose much-optioned 1975 hardcover book about Ponzi will be back in bookstores and on Internet book sales websites starting Mar. 23 as a Broadway Books paperback "Ponzi, The Incredible True Story of the King of Financial Cons." Originally published in hardcover by McGraw Hill as "Ponzi, the Boston Swindler," the book's film and television rights were optioned from Dunn by various producers over the years. Now with a paperback edition about to surface for the first time, Dunn again controls all rights to the project. Given the headlines that Ponzi-type con men have been generating lately in the business world, this could be perfect timing for a Dunn deal for a Ponzi feature or mini-series.
"The way it began is I wrote a Business Week story (in 1974) about some guy who had started with nothing and built a big company overnight," Dunn told me. "Lew Young, the editor in chief, called me into his office and said, 'This guy has shown amazing growth. Are you sure it's not a Ponzi scheme?' I said, 'Absolutely not. I've checked it out. His figures are good. Everything is fine.' He said okay and they ran the story. As I walked out of his office, I turned to another guy I met in the hall and I said, 'What the heck is a Ponzi scheme?' I had not heard the name. And the guy said, 'A Ponzi scheme is some kind of a swindle.' Within the next two weeks, every time I opened a newspaper or a magazine I saw the name Ponzi. Once you hear it, it jumps out of the page."
At that point, Dunn decided to look for a book about Ponzi to find out more about him. "Well, there wasn't," he said. "There were magazine articles. I'd already written the book 'The Making of 'No, No Nanette' (about the inside story behind the production of that hit Broadway musical). That ran in New York Magazine and was their first two-parter. Clay Felker, who started New York, said the story was too good to condense into one issue. That was in 1973. After that ran in New York Magazine, a woman called me up and said, 'Don, my name is Elizabeth McKee and I'm a literary agent. I work with the Harold Matson Company (in New York).' I could tell she was in her seventies. She said, 'I just read your wonderful piece in New York Magazine.
Its namesake, Boston con man Charles Ponzi, found fame and fortune in 1920 through a pyramid scheme in which he stole as much as $15 million from gullible investors. Ponzi's name has lived on since then as a standard reference in news reports about today's big business scandals. At various times over the past 30 years, Ponzi's story has come close but never quite managed to reach the movie screen.
Ponzi's twists and turns as a movie project were the focus of my recent conversation with Donald Dunn, a former editor of Business Week, whose much-optioned 1975 hardcover book about Ponzi will be back in bookstores and on Internet book sales websites starting Mar. 23 as a Broadway Books paperback "Ponzi, The Incredible True Story of the King of Financial Cons." Originally published in hardcover by McGraw Hill as "Ponzi, the Boston Swindler," the book's film and television rights were optioned from Dunn by various producers over the years. Now with a paperback edition about to surface for the first time, Dunn again controls all rights to the project. Given the headlines that Ponzi-type con men have been generating lately in the business world, this could be perfect timing for a Dunn deal for a Ponzi feature or mini-series.
"The way it began is I wrote a Business Week story (in 1974) about some guy who had started with nothing and built a big company overnight," Dunn told me. "Lew Young, the editor in chief, called me into his office and said, 'This guy has shown amazing growth. Are you sure it's not a Ponzi scheme?' I said, 'Absolutely not. I've checked it out. His figures are good. Everything is fine.' He said okay and they ran the story. As I walked out of his office, I turned to another guy I met in the hall and I said, 'What the heck is a Ponzi scheme?' I had not heard the name. And the guy said, 'A Ponzi scheme is some kind of a swindle.' Within the next two weeks, every time I opened a newspaper or a magazine I saw the name Ponzi. Once you hear it, it jumps out of the page."
At that point, Dunn decided to look for a book about Ponzi to find out more about him. "Well, there wasn't," he said. "There were magazine articles. I'd already written the book 'The Making of 'No, No Nanette' (about the inside story behind the production of that hit Broadway musical). That ran in New York Magazine and was their first two-parter. Clay Felker, who started New York, said the story was too good to condense into one issue. That was in 1973. After that ran in New York Magazine, a woman called me up and said, 'Don, my name is Elizabeth McKee and I'm a literary agent. I work with the Harold Matson Company (in New York).' I could tell she was in her seventies. She said, 'I just read your wonderful piece in New York Magazine.
