Sword fighting, witty humor and the love of a beautiful woman are just a few of the ingredients for this classic play. Cyrano de Bergerac was written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand and is originally a French play. Edmond Rostand created his play based off of a real character name Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, who lived from 1619-1655. Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac was a French duelist and satirist. He was quoted having said, "A large nose is the mark of a witty, courteous, affable, generous, and liberal man"(Dunn). This dramatic play has been performed in the original sense as a tragedy, and in the comical view in more modern renditions. The two film versions of this play are the classic 1950's Black and white rendition, starring Jose Ferrer, and the modern 1980's rendition Roxanne, starring Steve Martin. This comparison of film to play, and film to film will indicate the validity and exigency of the 1950's Edmond Rostand play text of Cyrano de Bergerac.
             In the 1950 version of Cyrano de Bergerac the movie setting takes place in the French war with Spain. Cyrano is a soldier with an enormous nose that is fairly poor, but he is very witty and very quick with his tongue in tight situations. Roxanne is Cyrano's independently wealthy cousin and he is madly in love with her. She does not see him in this light because at the time she is fixated on outward appearance. She is after Christian who is another soldier that was recently put under Cyrano's command. This movie is filmed in black and white and has a great quality in the acting that fits for the movies age. The three scenes from this movie compared with the three text scenes, act 1 scene 1, act 2 scene 2, and act 3 scene 2 will let us discern what type of person Cyrano de Bergerac is and how his character is portrayed.
             In the first scene is the event of a confrontation between Cyrano and a wealthy noble at the playhouse. This scene is able to show the ch...