In 1951, Dore Schary replaced Louis B. Mayer as head of MGM but when Schary himself was ousted from that job in 1956, he went to New York and produced the highly successful play, Sunrise at Campobello. He then formed his own production company, and as his first film, chose the Nathanael West novella, Miss Lonelyhearts. It had been filmed before, as Advice to the Lovelorn (1933), which played the story for laughs. West's works are notoriously difficult to translate to film, both because they are laden with symbolism, and because they are so relentlessly grim and downbeat. Yet Lonelyhearts (1959) is considered by many to be the best film adaptation of a West work.