reported by Tanner Shorer, CyberScreenwriter.com

John Culton, Chairman of the Hollywood based entertainment portal, FilmStew.com, has purchased the screen rights to Erich Maria Remarque's novel "Spark of Life." Remarque, author of "All Quiet on the Western Front" and one of the premiere novelists of the twentieth century, wrote thirteen novels, twelve of which were made into motion pictures ("All Quiet on the Western Front" was produced for the screen three times including the classic 1930 version, and again for television in 1979). "Spark of Life", his eighth novel published in 1952, is the compelling story of starving slave laborers finding hope enough to live out the last days of World War II.

According to Culton, he has finished an award-winning adaptation of the Remarque novel. "I intend to offer the project to a select group of Producers, filmmakers that are known for their canny choices of material and quality filmmaking." Explains Culton.

Arguably the greatest war writer of the twentieth century, Remarque will be remembered most for his first gigantically influential novel "All Quiet On the Western Front."
All Quiet set the standard for writing about war in the twentieth century and its impact on people and governments is incalculable. It's the one fictional work of the era that one might say affected history. Readers and leaders alike were moved to become anti-militaristic. The soul-destroying insanity of warfare has become part of our modern response to war.

Culton acquired the rights to Spark from the estate of Paulette Goddard Remarque, the late author's widow. Attorneys Stephen Rodner and Richard Kay of Prior, Cashman, Sherman & Flynn, New York brokered the deal on behalf of the Goddard estate. Goddard, who married Remarque in 1958, was one of Hollywood's Golden Age screen sirens, with forty-four films to her credit. She is perhaps best remembered for her work opposite Charlie Chaplain in "Modern Times" and "The Great Dictator", as well as for her portrayal of a World War II nurse in "So Proudly We Hail," for which she received an Academy Award nomination.

When Spark was first published in 1952, New York Times book critic Orville Prescott wrote, "To read Spark of Life is a heartrending experience...it possesses great narrative power and authentic suspense hinging on the question: Which among the tormented will be alive to witness the certain defeat of the tormentors, the defeat of which is heralded by the sound of the approaching American artillery?"