The film won only one award - Best Director.The Oscar-nominated screen adaptation by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry (who appears as the hotel""s desk clerk) was based on the novel of the same name by Charles Webb (a recent graduate of the East Coast""s Williams College when he wrote his first novel).Mitch: Yes, I suppose that""s important, especially during the moulting season.Melanie: That""s a particularly dangerous time.Mitch: Are they moulting now?Melanie: Some of them are.Mitch: How can you tell?Melanie: Well, they get a sort of hang-dog expression.When he asks to "see" a canary and outstretches his hand, she obliges him, but accidentally releases the bird into he air - a foreshadowing of the unleashing of birds later in the film.Again, Helen sees only his "tremendous imagination.Lately you""ve begun to imagine in Cinemascope, with stereophonic sound."Then, Sherman offers himself some reassurance about how his wife and women in general age differently than men:She probably figures she isn""t as young as she used o be.The phone lines were cut, and he suspected something was amiss.On his rounds throughout the school, Will checked on Molly and Sarah (watchingScream 2 (1997)on TV as Cici (Sarah Michelle Gellar) was told on the phone: "Do you want to die tonight, Cici?"), and then joined Miss Tate for company in her home, to carve a jack-o-lantern together.