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).As the aliens converge, a round beam of light dances on the wall of the stairway - he follows it down as it leads him out to the screen door of the porch.Deciding that the top-hatted stranger""s feelings and behaviors are evidence of fixation and a "love impulse," Susan directly and candidly confronts David:Susan: Do you know why you""re following me? You""re a fixation.Back at the lodge, Rosa implied that her affair with Latimer was ongoing whenever he visited: "Here today and gone tomorrow.