"The book is always better than the movie"

A Hitchcock's "The Birds" was based on a novella, "The Birds," written by Daphne du Maurier [author also of the novel "Rebecca"]. Hitch's "The Birds" bears very little resemblance to du Maurier's story.

I do not believe Edna Ferber, author of the novels "Giant" [R Hudson/J Dean/E Taylor film ] and "Show Boat" ["Old Man River" musical] ever wrote anything about the 60's British pop group...

On topic: "Rosemary's Baby" is famously one of the most faithful novel to screen adaptations in cinema history. Both book and film are equally excellent.

Regarding your theory – I disagree; books may indeed be read less and less, but I think all who do read will continue to discover that, for the most part, the original source novels made into films are usually superior to the screen version. As you correctly point out, people will always be more familiar with the movies than the books.

Two terrible adaptations: "Catch-22" and "Ragtime."

The Horse Whisperer was such a fantastic book, but the movie was so damn boring.

Barry Lyndon is a classic and a great read. Clockwork Orange is unreadable . They should have made a movie of “Earthly Powers” , my favorite Burgess novel.

[quote] No one reads the novels "Psycho" by Robert Bloch or "The Byrds" by Edna Ferber anymore, but the movies are seen as two of Hitchcock's best.

Wait.

What the fucking fuck?!

The B DePalma/S Spacek version of Stephen King's "Carrie" was very well done.

Name the author of the novel that "The Graduate" was based on. Time's up! Literally no one has read it. The screenplay (by Gore Vidal) of Tennessee Williams's "Suddenly Last Summer" took massive liberties with the original play, but was (in my opinion) excellent in its own right.

Actually, Mario Puzo's The Godfather *is* better than the movie. The Godfather Part II, now that's another story.

R7, I read the novel The Graduate by Charles Webb.

OP, Hitchcock adapted his movie The Birds from a novella by Daphne Du Maurier. What's Edna Ferber got to do with it? The story for Giant is pretty good, btw. I haven't read the book but am willing to bet it is better than the movie. The movie wasn't bad, maybe a bit long.

R7, I read the novel The Graduate in 1999.

R7 I saw Tennessee William's play performed on stage three years ago and found it vastly superior to the film.

A great book will always lose something in transition to the screen. That is not to say that it isn't worth making the attempt. I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the adaptations of Proust I've seen.

However, it is possible to make a great film out of an average book/story. They are different art forms, film is more surface than depth and will not capture the complexity of a great novel. However, film is also more immediate and more impactful than the written word and achieves its artistic effect in a different way.

It's not *that* surprising that Daphne du Maurier or Stephen King are the authors of the source texts for the great movies cited above.

[quote]while the novels that inspired them likely to be read less and less.

Whether something is read or not doesn't correlate to it being inferior to a film version.

Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides is superior to the schmaltzy film version.

I agree with the others here that The Godfather is better.

I adore Barry Lyndon, but The Luck of Barry Lyndon is wonderful - and the same holds true for The Grapes of Wrath.

The '50s film versions of Moby Dick & The Brothers Karamazov pale in comparison to the novels.

Roman Polanski seemed to have missed what Thomas Hardy was saying in Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

The film version of Pet Semetary is awful.

I could go on.

David Cronenberg's film version of "Naked Lunch" had almost nothing to do with Burroughs's novel, but still succeeded (in my opinion) as a loving hommage and reinterpretation in another medium of a book that could never have been "adapted" for film in any case. No one saw it.

Jaws the movie is far better than Jaws the book.

R15 I wanted to see it, but never did. Burrough's books make me want to vomit. Or maybe just Junkie does.

This thread is making it rather clear that cheap thrill books make for much better movies, while literary books end up with movie adaptations that can never live up to the original, when they're not downright bad.

The jury is out on The Godfather.

J Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs" is great. I read Thomas Harris's original novel first, and loved it – the ultimate "page-turner." But I read the book so long ago, I can't remember how accurately the film follows Harris's story, or how faithful the film is to the novel. [I do recall the scene where semen hits Clarice in the face as she walks past the prison cells appears in both book and movie.]

Anyone know how faithful an adaptation?

Both versions are terrifying.

Jurassic Park the book is better than the movie, but The Exorcist the movie is better than the book.

The film "Silence of the Lambs" is relatively faithful to the novel. But although in the novel her appearance is never described in any detail (is she blonde? Brunette? A redhead? Blue eyes? Green eyes? Brown eyes?Busty?Tall?) Clarice Starling was portrayed as an absolutely gorgeous babe, which Jodie Foster most definitely was not. And of course the ending in the film differs from the one in the book; the ending in the movie is much more stagey. At the end of the novel Lecter has gone on his merry way and Clarice is vacationing in a big house on the Chesapeake; she's sleeping sweetly "in the silence of the lambs" and may or may not be sleeping with (it's hard to tell in the "ambient light" of a fireplace) Noble Pilcher, the cross eyed buy expert who immediately fell in love with her at first sight.

I liked the book “Call me by your Name “, but the film had a magic the book lacked.

The movie version of The Poseidon Adventure may be slightly better than Paul Gallico's novel. The movie The Towering Inferno is far better than the two books (The Tower and The Glass Inferno) that were collapsed into it.

Just because a book isn't read as much as the movie has been seen, doesn't mean it is inferior.

Sorry, OP, but The Shining (the book) is a FAR superior to the movie.

[quote]...but I believe this is a discredited truism.

Smell you.

Perhaps it would be better to shut this bullshit down and say:

[quote]A written text obviously is different from a film, and versions of the same story inevitably differ in many regards. In some cases either a film or the written text may appear to represent a "better" rendition of the common story, characters, themes, plot, setting and point of view. However, only an overreaching fool would attempt to make a thread based on a false statement of the matter on the DataLounge. Veteran DLers would expect simply to discuss examples of their preferences for text or film versions of a story.

R25: If they make a film version of what [italic]you've[/italic] written, the perfect title: "[bold]BONER KILLER[/bold]."

Queen Bees and Wannabes, a self-help book for parents, became Mean Girls.

Jaws the movie is superior to the book by far.

Carrie was a better movie than novel. It's become pretty obvious with each re-adaptation. The De Palma film got it right the first time.

Well, the 1984 film version of Dune wasn't well received and avid Dune book fans. We shall see if Dune 2020 will do better than its predecessor. (Perhaps they should have delayed the release date until 2021 - given the mess that 2020 is turning out to be.)

R29 I agree Carrie was better as a film. I also think Rosemary’s Baby is a better film than novel. Ira Levin is not a great writer, he does tell good stories. Polanski may be a sick individual but he made some brilliant movies.

A Clockwork Orange was good as both.

Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. Terrific, hilarious book.

Ridiculous, badly miscast, moronic movie.

"Carrie was a better movie than novel."

I didn't think so. I liked the film version but the novel was much more affecting. It showed you in depth the total despair of Carrie's life. Her death was more heartbreaking in the novel, too.

[quote] "The Byrds" by Edna Ferber anymore

Edna wrote a biography of the guys who sang "Turn, Turn, Turn?" She was awfully prescient.

I really liked the written version of “The Birds,” but the Hitchcock version was just as good in my view, though completely different.

In the original, a man that lives in a small stone cottage in the English countryside with his wife and two small kids are the main characters. The house is really old so the windows are small and there’s a fireplace. Farms are nearby, also some newer postwar built houses with big windows. But not close enough to see from their house.

He realizes the schoolchildren who went home to the newer houses must all be dead. The picture windows would have broken. There isn’t much nearby, so when he goes out to get supplies, he’s looting dead people’s houses. At the end, there’s no solution in sight and it appears it’s happening everywhere. The government tries some desperate measures in London but nothing works. He realizes help isn’t coming.

He tries to hide everything from his wife and the young kids, and glosses over the truth with her because she’s immature and prove to hysterics. Typical postwar attitude of women as overgrown children that can’t face up to reality. You see some of that in Hitchcock’s movie, with Mitch’s mother and some of the other women, the woman in the restaurant that gets slapped especially.

In reality, when the men were away at the war, the women ran everything and kept their families together. But postwar, there was this cultural backlash of putting them back in the “helpless” box. The whole story smells immediately postwar.

There’s mentions of the British public overcoming wartime problems, as if this is another problem that can be overcome by sacrifice. But it isn’t at all. They’re deluding people because there’s no solution. News reports on the radio sound more and more futile. Things are tried that don’t work at all. The family doesn’t have a television.

I could see this being done as a low budget black and white British movie filmed on cheap sets. Hitchcock is lucky he got to do it in Hollywood. I’d love to see it done now, more accurately to the story. They plainly didn’t do it that way because it was a very English lower class, blue collar family. Frumpy couple in their thirties looking much older than they were. They were brilliantly drawn though.

Setting it in San Francisco and Bodega Bay was much more glamorous and gave an excuse for beautiful actresses, sets and clothes. But I’ll never forget the last line, the husband had looted a pack of cigarettes from a dead man’s house. When he smoked the last cigarette, he threw the empty pack in the fireplace and let it burn. The future, after the story ends, was just a blank. I think Hitchcock tried to capture that dead end, but had to soften it a bit because movie audiences of the era didn’t want to see that. The way the movie ended, there was hope they would be safe. Not so in the story.

Not sure if it's better than the book, but Sydney Pollack's adaptation of "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" still holds up.

A thousand apologies for screwing up the author of "The Birds." Many pardons, Dame(?) du Maurier!

More importantly -- sorry, gays!

Orlando by Virginia Woolf, mainly because the lead Tilda Swinton made a very unattractive man.

Ordinary People was a better movie, though I enjoyed the book too. Even the author thought the movie elevated the book.

Mainly due to casting.

If you’d like to read the story The Birds, it’s here.

Speaking of Hitchcock, his adaptation of The Lady Vanishes (and the 1979 remake even) were better than The Wheel Spins, by Ethel Lina White.

It's not a movie I particularly like, but The Devil Wears Prada is much better than the novel.

I read Edna Ferber and so should many.

That said, reading southern white authors from olden times is always problematic.

“The Wizard of Oz” is certainly more famous on film than its book counterpart. I don’t know it’s “better” in every sense of the word, but I certainly find it easier to get through. Baum’s book was clearly designed to be read out loud to children, and doesn’t make a great read if you’re by yourself. I also feel the film did a good job streamlining the story and ditching some of the bizarre fantasy excess of the novel.

GWTW

“Blazing Saddles”, the book, was much better than the stupid movie they made out of it.

I read A Clockwork Orange as a teen, but I was really disappointed by the movie.

The Oz books were very successful in their day - that's why they made the movie.

R49 Oh of course. I wasn’t meaning to imply otherwise. But the film has certainly outlived the book in terms of popularity, and some consider its changes to be improvements. I doubt many today are familiar with any of the sequels, and probably not even the first book.

Excellent post r35

'Gone Girl' the book was a gripping summer thriller, which did more than enough to overcome one's plot qualms.

'Gone Girl' the film was an overwritten disappointment, lacking one iota of the narrative skill which made the book such a page-turner.

Has anyone mentioned The Princess Bride?

There's nothing wrong with the PB novel, but the sheer alchemy of the screen version surpasses it in every way.

Heh, r52. I hated the Gone Girl book, so I never saw the movie, even though much-adored-by-me NPH was in it. I feel the exact opposite about Ben Affleck, which also contributed to my ignoring the film. I shall continue not to see it. Thank you.

James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential might have been an example, but the film is so beautifully done and captures both Ed Exley and Officer White's motives. And Ed, how well we knew ya is the only difference...

To Kill a Mockingbird. IMO novel and film are equal, one of the few examples I can think of in which that is true. I can't read the novel now without seeing and hearing the cast of the film. I hope they never remake it.

RED DRAGON.

The book was very disturbing, the films made from it sucked.

I saw Naked Lunch, R15. I was all of 14 and it was bizarre to me then.

R18 It depends on the filmmakers as well as the source material. ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ is a great movie but the literary novel it was based on is monotonous and trite.

Mommie Dearest was a camp classic on film but the book is worth a read. Not as excessive as the movie regarding violence and generally nutty behavior but doesn’t let Joan off the hook for child abuse. Also love the descriptions of celebrity parties “Mommie” would have when Judy Garland sang for everyone.

Also the book of “Valley if the Dolls” has little connection to the campy film. The book starts in the 1940’s and Helen Lawson and Bellamy are in a long term relationship

Probably no one here remembers the 80s French film, Diva which was a stylish thriller with two intersecting storylines. I tracked down a translation of the original French novel and it was just...basic, cliched. The movie script was much more complex and clever.

Maybe there should be an Oscar that really spells out Best Adapted Screenplay from a Crap Original.

Quote, R61? I read that book a hundred times as a teen, and I have no memory of that relationship.

[quote]“Blazing Saddles”, the book, was much better than the stupid movie they made out of it.

What book?

The 1969 film "The Magic Christian" brilliantly captures the ferocious subversive humor of 1960s counterculture. The Terry Southern novel it's based on is garbage.

I thought it was based on “Ulysses”, R64, no?

[quote] I do not believe Edna Ferber, author of the novels "Giant" [R Hudson/J Dean/E Taylor film ] and "Show Boat" ["Old Man River" musical] ever wrote anything about the 60's British pop group...

They weren’t British.

Overall, I liked Elia Kazan's "East of Eden", with its script by the playwright Paul Osborn, more than Steinbeck's novel. It excised some of the heavy-handed biblical allusions and cornball humor, and concentrated on the intense family drama at the end of the book.

Clockwork Orange was a really good book. I didn’t like the movie, except for the soundtrack. If you have noisy neighbors, just blast the soundtrack of Clockwork Orange. They will conclude you are a psychopath.

I personally thought Malcolm McDowell was terrible as Alex. He sounded like he was just reciting his lines. Also, in the film Alex picks up two schoolgirls at a music store & has fun, speeded up consensual sex with them. In the book, the girls are 10 years old & he lures then to his house & rapes them. The girls are crying in pain and bleeding when he kicks them out of his house. He’s a rotten little bastard.

One thing Kubrick got right, though - much of the book takes place at night in darkness. But in Kubrick’s future, things are overly lit. He anticipated the lit up colors of shopping malls & all-night supermarkets artificial brightness erasing the darkness of night, even if he didn’t quite predict strip malls. When the book was written I used to go to my friend’s house, a 15 minute ride on a lonely thighway surrounded by pine barrens. Today, there isn’t a tree left standing on that route. It’s all strip malls, casinos, big box stores, condo developments, supermarkets & they're lit up 24 hours a day.

I read Koji Suzuki's novel "Ringu," which is the source material for the famous 1998 film. Even allowing for the probability that it comes across better in the original Japanese than the English translation I read, it's all over the place in terms of story. The film improves on it in every way.

A Clockwork Orange, the movie, is memorable but stilted. Kubrick struggles mightily but can’t capture the hyper, punked-up feel of the novel. R69, someone, perhaps the screenwriter, explained that he and Kubrick changed that particular episode because Alex in the film is an adult and they weren’t willing to show him assaulting children. In the book, of course, Alex himself is underaged.

I think you have to be a Brit with a cockney background to read Clockwork Orange. As a non-native speaker I never got into it. As I said above, Earthly Powers is a masterpiece. It’s fascinating how he captured this particular segment of gay life and history as a straight man. He really got it right. I was howling with laughter at some scenes.

R72. I taught it to my honors first-year college students in NYS for many years. They typically liked the book a lot, even if the violence made some of them since.

R73 which book? There is violence in both.

Scott Spencer's novel "Endless Love" got good reviews. But not one but two dreadful movies were made out of it, the first one being an "unspeakable (as one critic called it)" starring vehicle for Brooke Shields in 1981. Scott Spencer said he "could not resist the money" when he signed away not only the movie rights in 1980 but the remake rights as well, but was truly dismayed at how awful both movies were.. Spencer wrote that his novel "has been even more egregiously and ridiculously misunderstood" in the remake than in the 1981 film. Well, what did he expect? He did get it right when he said:

"Here’s what happens when Hollywood makes a really bad movie out of your novel. You cringe, you pretend you don’t care, you laugh when they play the bad movie’s theme song at weddings you attend, and you wait for the whole thing to pass. And when it finally has, when your book has at last outlived the bad memories and associations of the first movie and it is making its leisurely literary way out in the world, without any connection to the bad movie, someone decides to make an even worse movie out of it."

Stephen King's The Stand was so much better as a book. I don't care how many TV movies they do about it. And Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire was another one. Was never really impressed with Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise.

The name of the musical is Showboat. It has the same name as the novel. There is no musical named Old Man River. It is just a song from the show. And if people don't know that Old Man River comes from Showboat they have no right to live.

A lot of Stephen King's books have been made into bad or mediocre movies. I heard there's another version of "Salem's Lot" in the works. There have already been two. There was three versions of "Carrie.," Two versions of "Pet Sematary." TV and movie versions of "It." A tv and movie version of "The Shining." It's getting damned ridiculous, all this redoing of Stephen King's shit.

The films of “It” were a vast improvement on the miniseries, which didn’t age well. But I agree the remakes are getting excessive.

Richard Condon's "The Manchurian Candidate" is pretty good, but I thought the John Frankenheimer film was more suspenseful and shocking, marred only by the casting of Frank Sinatra as Marco.

[quote] I read Edna Ferber and so should many.

[quote] That said, reading southern white authors from olden times is always problematic.

Then there's no problem. Edna Ferber is a Midwestern white author from olden times.

She was born in Michigan, and grew up in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

I think The Bridges of Madison County owns this thread. The novella was very popular but also poorly written and the subject of ridicule by literary critics. The movie elevated the book. Yeah it was schmaltzy, but it still had good performances. and it had a 90% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

R75 I’ve never seen the films but the novel is essentially about deep mental illness and the main characters total descent. Mixed in there were some hardcore sex scenes. Did the movies make it a sappy love story?

[quote]Polanski may be a sick individual but he made some brilliant movies.

Kate Winslet is reporting she's rethought things and is now sorry she watched "Rosemary's Baby" on cable years ago.....

Carrie made for both an interesting novel and interesting film. Not sure why none of the remakes could get it right. It's like the magic was gone.

The first Pet Sematery film has its moments and got more right than the crappy remake from a few years ago. That movie was the definition of beige. Nothing stood out at all.

The It movies probably read better in screenplay form than they played on screen. The CGI was awful and distracting and, even worse, lessened the scariness of the movie. There's a great scene in the 2nd movie where they simply let the actor playing Pennywise act and don't give him any computer enhancements and it's wonderful. It's the scene where he's talking to the little girl under the bleachers and it's bone chilling. Makes you wonder how much better it would have been if they'd handled more scenes like that instead of filling it with silly computer stuff.

I'm fully with r24 and r78: nearly all Stephen King's books have been butchered in movies. I was enraged when I saw Kubrick's version of The Shining: it's not a bad movie, but it vandalized the book, which is a scary and yet involving ghost story. Kubrick's version was just Nicholson tearing up the screen to emote his descent into insanity. Apparently King nearly strangled Kubrick when he saw the final print, and had to be physically restrained.

Stephen King may be a genre writer, but he knows what he's doing, and he actually writes in very cinematic style. The book Carrie was actually written in the form of a 60 Minutes-style TV documentary, complete with narrator voiceovers. If filmmakers stuck closer to King's books, IMO the movies would be better. That's why, although I consider it one of his weaker books, the movie version of The Dead Zone was one of the best made out of King's stories -- it was very faithful to the book, and that worked on the screen.

Interview With The Vampire is exhibit A for the destruction of a book by a misbegotten movie. Tom Cruise as Lestat! It's an abomination.

I don't like Anne Rice, so. But I didn't like the movie either, and I usually like Neil Jordan.

"Did the movies make it a sappy love story?"

The movie versions of "Endless Love" made the tale into just some dumb teen love drama. But a lot of people who read the book get the wrong idea about it. They think it's a "love story" but it really was a mental illness story. David Axelrod is a nut case; his 'endless love" is frightening and destructive; his love (and ability to fuck for hours at a time) is nothing to swoon over.

The Sweet Hereafter is a rare double perfect. Both the film and book are excellent.

R74. Clockwork Orange

I loved Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle and I also enjoyed the 1st movie with Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, etc., It was camp for sure but also interesting.

Loved the movie Carrie. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie were absolutely brilliant

R77 Comprehend much? Putting the words "Old Man River" in brackets after the title "Show Boat" was referencing and describing the film and stage production "Show Boat" as the musical that contained the song "Old Man River," not calling the show "Old Man River." Jeez.

Shut the fuck up, remove the baseball bat-sized stick from your ass, and go eat another muffin. You smell.

The way you set it up that's exactly how you made it appear. As if Old Man River were the name of the musical adaptation. There is no reference to Old Man River as one of the songs that came from Showboat. Put a brain in your head where one should have been. And stick a flame thrower up your ass and turn it up high.

[quote]I was enraged when I saw Kubrick's version of The Shining: it's not a bad movie...

What? It's a terrible movie, overwrought, yet still half-baked and on top of everything obvious and one-note. I think it's a complete fail.

I recall upon its release most people were severely disappointed, with many hating it. It was also hyped to death, with the famous "elevator of blood" teaser playing in theaters for a whole year before the film's release!

R89, but he had such a cute butt.

The '76 version of Carrie wisely omitted the opening rain of stones scene. Apparently, they shot the scene, but the gravel that fell on the house looked like rain, so it was useless. The TV version used bad CGI to make it happen and the theatrical remake also shot the scene, but deleted it before it hit theaters.

That scene is just cursed and doesn't belong in the story.

[quote] I think you have to be a Brit with a cockney background to read Clockwork Orange

No, you didn’t. I’m American & had no problem reading it. Most of the language Alex used was just Russian vocabulary words. In fact, his slang was called “nadsat” and in Russian “nadsat” means “teen.” There were only a few words of Cockney rhyming slang & there was a glossary in the back.

R89 how could any reader make that mistake? At best it’s about an obsession that ruins lives but really even the narrator makes it clear that he’s lost his mind and is utterly miserable

The Wizard of Oz is far better than the books by Frank Baum.

R96 - as a teen I was so looking forward to The Shining based on the "blood elevator" trailer and damn did that movie disappoint; as did Eyes Wide Shut, and I usually love Kubrick. I've never read The Shining, or rewatched the movie, I think I'll give the film another go.

"how could any reader make that mistake? At best it’s about an obsession that ruins lives but really even the narrator makes it clear that he’s lost his mind and is utterly miserable."

Judging from a lot of comments on the book, it's obvious a lot of people thought it was a very intense love story and that David was NOT "crazy" but truly, passionately in love. I didn't get impression that David makes it clear he's "lost his mind." He believes he's acting the way he does because of true, encompassing love and if that makes him crazy, well so be it. He's quite full of himself; he thinks the rest of the population would give anything to be like he is, crazy in love. Indeed Jade's parents ARE jealous of how into each other David and their daughter are. And he's "utterly miserable" because he's separated from his endless love Jade. Once they reunite he's back to his old ecstatic, sexually indefatigable self again.

I like the film of Looking for Mr. Goodbar better than the book.

All the President's Men

r98 Did they film the scene where Amy Irving's character comes to Carrie's house to confront her after the prom?

I've heard conflicting things about whether that was shot.

(how does it play out in the book? I forget.)

From memory in the book Sue comes across Carrie dying somewhere outside in the town, so I don't think she ever got to Carrie's house. I can't even remember to be honest if that was her intention, or whether she was just going out to see if she could find Carrie wherever she may be.

To be fair, R103, that sounds crazy.

Spencer also makes it pretty clear that Jade is an asshole, something David doesn't quite notice.

[quote]I think you have to be a Brit with a cockney background to read Clockwork Orange

Fun fact for DL is that Burgess took his title from the phrase 'Queer as a Clockwork Orange.'

[quote]...as did Eyes Wide Shut, and I usually love Kubrick. I've never read The Shining, or rewatched the movie, I think I'll give the film another go.

I recently watched 'The Shining' again, and it was interesting to see some of the subtler linking scenes in addition to the money shots we all recall. But once again, it seemed to me finally less than the sum of its parts.

The link with 'Eyes Wide Shut' (also from a novel) feels apt. Both that film and 'The Shining' seem in the end to be mostly about Kubrick's masterful technique. They can be enjoyed on that aesthetic level, while leaving us wanting more in terms of human engagement.

[quote]I think The Bridges of Madison County owns this thread. The novella was very popular but also poorly written and the subject of ridicule by literary critics. The movie elevated the book. Yeah it was schmaltzy, but it still had good performances. and it had a 90% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Co-signing this post.

The movie of Bridges Of Madison Country isn't schmaltzy, really. The producers were canny enough to reshape the bones of it and make an old-fashioned doomed romance from Warner Bros between a lovely, vaguely lost woman and a taciturn man's man and it's one of the best examples of the genre from that era.

"Did they film the scene where Amy Irving's character comes to Carrie's house to confront her after the prom?"

There was no scene like that in the novel. Carrie, with a butcher knife buried in her shoulder, drags herself across town to destroy a roadhouse, perhaps the one where "the doom of her creation" began (her father got very drunk, maybe at a roadhouse, came back home, and fucked Carrie's mother, impregnating her). Chris and Billy, who'd gotten a room there to fuck, are just leaving when Carrie shows up. Carrie runs their car into the side of the roadhouse, where it crashes and burns. Carrie then passes out on the asphalt of the parking lot. Sue, who can feel Carrie's presence and goes looking for her, finds her bleeding and dying. They share a moment where through telepathy Carrie goes into Sue's mind and sees that Sue never meant any harm and was only trying to help by getting Tommy to take her to the prom. Carrie then dies, and Sue feels her die because Carrie is still in Sue's mind. Her death is like "watching a candle flame disappear down a long, black tunnel at a tremendous speed." Sue stumbles away, trips over a guard rail and falls down the embankment, and lands in a field. She stands there, taking deep breaths and realizes something has started to happen: "her rapid breathing slowed, slowed, caught suddenly as if on a thorn....and suddenly vented itself in one howling cheated scream. As she felt the slow course of dark menstrual blood down her thighs."

"The Shawshank Redemption" is probably the best adaption of Stephen King's works. I loved the novella, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" on which it was based. I was anxious about seeing the movie because, as others have already mentioned, most of King's work has been made into terrible films. Fortunately, it did not disappoint and I think it's one of the greatest films of the 90's.

Also, King sold the rights to screenwriter/director Frank Darabont for $5,000 but never cashed the check. He later had it framed and sent back to Darabont with a note which read, "In case you ever need bail money."

King has been known to sell the rights to many of his short stories for $1 so that film students can make them into movies. I think that's pretty cool. I've not heard of any other authors doing something like that.

I love the original Carrie film but I do wish dePalma had had the budget and the tech to destroy the town the way she does in the book. I saw the movie years before I read the book and that part was...a surprise.

Jumanji was far better than the book. Hah.

I think Sue coming to Carrie's house is in the original script. I think I read it once online. Carrie confronts her about why she did this to her and Sue tries to explain. I forget how it is resolved.

In the TV remake Sue shows up at the house and helps Carrie escape the town to somehow clear her name. (they wanted to make it a series, wouldn't have worked!)

A "Carrie" tv series...what brain dead tv executive thought THAT would be a good idea? But I guess they never learn. Supposedly FX is FX is readying a new TV series based on Carrie with some "changes in store." According to Collider, FX’s Carrie will likely cast “a trans performer or an actress of color” to play the title role of Carrie White. A trans Carrie? Oh my God.

You will see more trans women of color on tv in a week this season than you'll meet in your whole life, in the real world. I can't believe my fellow lefties have decided THIS is the progressive hill we must all die on!

I've started correcting people (all straight) who insist on calling me "cis", "queer", or "LGTBQ+"!

"No, I'm a gay man, actually, please stop MISGENDERING ME!", usually shuts them up!

How can you have a Carrie TV series? Each week she gets bullied and destroys a different high school?

And a Trans star? They'll have to drop the plug it up plug it up plug it up.

Why can't they just accept that the original film is a classic and let it go at that?

Non of the subsequent incarnations (the musical, the sequel, the Tv remake, the film remake) have worked.

But the Riverdale Carrie episode was really, really good!

The Shinning was a great movie, I never read the book.

Dolores Claiborne was better as a film than the book.

I liked both r122. The only time I liked Steven King.

The book of Dolores was kind of gross.

[quote] A "Carrie" tv series...what brain dead tv executive thought THAT would be a good idea? But I guess they never learn. Supposedly FX is FX is readying a new TV series based on Carrie with some "changes in store." According to Collider, FX’s Carrie will likely cast “a trans performer or an actress of color” to play the title role of Carrie White. A trans Carrie? Oh my God.

If Stephen King signs off on this, then he is fucking dead to me. Casting a trans “woman“ as Carrie would turn her actions into male violence against women.

[quote]The Shinning was a great movie, I never read the book.

Especially all the dinning room scenes!

I liked the Deloris movie.

Which would be better? A book titled "Trump Is a Loser" or a movie titled "Trump Is a Loser"

[quote] Putting the words "Old Man River" in brackets after the title "Show Boat" was referencing and describing the film and stage production "Show Boat" as the musical that contained the song "Old Man River," not calling the show "Old Man River."

You're still wrong. The song is called "Ol' Man River," not "Old Man River."

The English Patient as a movie was much better than the book. And this is mildly obscure, but Disclosure, by Michael Crichton was a great book, and the movie was even better.

I don't think many people are reading Puzo's "The Godfather" any more, unless it's out of devotion to the movie.

Movies that were as good or maybe even better than the book:

The Andromeda Strain

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Princess Bride

Lord Love a Duck

Family Plot (from the novel The Rainbird Pattern)

Nasty Habits (from the novel The Abbess of Crewe)

Auntie Mame

Movies that absolutely ruined a good book:

Raise the Titanic

My Side of the Mountain

Escape to Witch Mountain

Does it make a difference if the book was adapted for the stage prior to becoming a movie?

R132 The child actors of Witch Mountain make it unwatchable.

Kim Richards ruined [italic]Hello, Larry[/italic].

[quote] The child actors of Witch Mountain make it unwatchable.

How the FUCK dare you, slut pig!? I was a real star in my day. Hey Paris. Hey, hey Paris? Hello??

The attempted 1982 TV pilot [italic]Beyond Witch Mountain[/italic] was the worst of the three because it contradicted the first two movies and replaced Ike Eisenmann (who got a death scene in [italic]Star Trek II[/italic] to compensate) with Kirk fucking Cameron. Alexander Key should have sued for that alone.

The Goldfinch.

I loved this book but the reviews seemed so bad, I didn't bother to watch it. Hope it's adapted as a mini-series in the future.

[quote]Alexander Key should have sued for that alone.

My mistake: he died in 1979. His estate would have to be the one to undertake such a mousercise in futility.

Joseph Wambaugh's "The Choirboys", a novel about a group of Los Angeles policemen who deal with the stress and horrors of their job by drinking and screwing police groupies at gatherings that they call "choir practice" is quite a gread read, very funny and dark. It was made into a execrable movie. Wambaugh refused to have his name associated with the film and for that reason he's uncredited. Apparently the film erased the humanity of all the characters and made them out to be unsympathetic, stupid, boorish jerks. What a shame, the book is really great, one of my favorite novels.

R131, I remember picking it up off my parents shelf when I was a kid and opening it up and there was a whole section about some girl who's vagina was so big that she couldn't find a dick big enough to satisfy her. Was that actually in the movie?! It seemed sort of cringe-inducing.

I love that novel too R140. And yes, the movie is a colossal piece of shit.

Those two Dr. Seuss movies Jim Carrey and Mike Myers made should be burned for the good of society, especially the latter. Mrs. Seuss is burning in Hell for authorizing them.

I was at a used bookstore yesterday and picked up a beautiful Vintage Contemporaries paperback of Michael Tolkin's "The Player" from 1988, the basis for the Altman movie. I'm going to read it soon and then re-watch the movie. I'll report back.

R141, the whole Lucy-and-her-giant-vagina subplot is mercifully excised from the movies. Lucy only appears in a couple of scenes of the film--in fact, I think she disappears after the wedding sequence. Of course, her illegitimate son by Sonny reappears in Godfather III.

R145, Lucy goes appear once more after the wedding. She's seen when Sonny is leaving her apartment. I thought the actress who played her was a very odd choice; she was not very attractive.

In the novel Lucy rates a whole chapter about what happens to her after Sonny's death. She tried to commit suicide after he's killed but is found in time; the Corleone family, taking pity on her, set her up in Las Vegas as a receptionist in a hotel. They also help her financially in other shady ways. She gets a lump on her arm and goes to the hotel doctor, a young jerk named Jules Siegel. Siegel was once a promising young surgeon but was blackballed for doing abortions; a friend pulled some strings and got him a gig in Las Vegas, primarily giving abortions to showgirls and treating them for VD. He smashes a book on her lump, flattening it out, so she can avoid the time and expense of surgery. He sees her somewhere and asks her out; they start dating but she won't have sex with him, ashamed of her big vagina, which only Sonny would fill with his huge oenis. Finally he wears her down and they fuck. She starts to cry in shame but he tells her her problem is simple; she has a pelvic malformation and surgery will fix her right up. He arranges for an operation to have her vagina tightened up, free of charge of course (he and other sleazy doctors in Las Vegas do each other favors). She gets her cunt tightened up and can now have orgasms with Jules, who fucks her as soon as her pussy gets healed up. Presumably they live happily ever after, fucking their brains out. Bleah. I thought the saga of Lucy Mancini and her big vagina and her love affair with the asshole abortionist Jules Siegel was one of the more gross plotlines in the novel.

Lucy wanted to play Lucy, but Gary talked her out of it.

"Casino Royale" the book surpasses either movie version.

Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" compared to the Sinise/Malkovich/Fenn movie = TIE. Both brilliant.

The Ustinov "Evil Under the Sun" was more entertaining than the novel.

Sorry, Henry James, but the DeHavilland/Clift/Richardson film is transcendent.

Gotta say, I disagree with R148 about Evil Under the Sun. That movie is a campy mess that completely misses the point of the character of Arlena Marshall in the novel, in my opinion. Arlena is a very interesting creation and the resolution hinges on discovering what type of woman she really is, not how she is portrayed to be. I'm not even sure I can see it purely in terms of entertainment, it's just too over the top. Death on the Nile got the right balance, I thought. Every time Sylvia Miles comes onto the screen in Evil Under the Sun, I feel nauseous.

(I love that we disagree though, I'm always interested in hearing the opposite view 😊)

Of course, I meant "The Heiress" ("Washington Square").

R149, You have inspired me to re-read the book! I haven't in a long while.

I hope you enjoy it! And if you still find you prefer the movie, I'd genuinely love to hear your opinions!

A trans actress on Carrie doesn't make sense. One of the most important scenes, what make all the rest happening, it's the bullying after the menstruation. You can't do that scene with a trans actress.

The less bloody is the novel the better adaptation, That's what generally happens with Stephen King's novels.

One example of better film than the novel is L A Confidential. I don't like Ellroy's style (or Ellroy himself to be honest) but the main problem of the novel is the final which is extremelly weird and confuse and has a lot of thing happening. On the other hand the film work perfectly from the beginning to the end.

A lot of novels are simply not material for a film. Better example, Cloud atlas, great novel but the whole concept make it extremelly difficult to adapt. At least the Wachoski's made a great trailer.

The you have cases like The name of the rose where the film only adapts the plot of the novel but not all the rest (which is practically impossible). Not a bad film but way better novel

The Shining was excellent as a novel. So many people were disappointed with the film, one of the main reasons as Kubrick decided to take the whole lawn creatures section out and turned Wendy into a nut case that the audience wanted Jack to kill her. I think the whole excitement of Kubrick making a horror movie, combined with Jack Nicholson, and King together was bound to disappoint. It's interesting that nowadays it's considered a classic.

Remake [italic]Cujo[/italic] instead. Danny Pintauro ruined the original with his awful acting and constant whining. If you end up rooting for the dog, then you have failed as a filmmaker.

James M. Cain novel Double Indemnity is better than the movie made from it although Stanwyck and MacMurray were excellent. The movie cuts out a couple great sub-stories and a totally different ending.

The closest book-to-movie I ever saw was "Lonesome Dove" which was made into a mini-series. Most of the dialogue was taken directly from the book.

They’ve probably been 20,000 movies made that were adapted from books and you chose three of the top critically acclaimed films ever to discuss the point?

R155 Is that he he got the rabies?

He is AIDS in human form and I hate him more than the Lisa Whelchel hater troll hates her. At least her show holds up better.

Jaws. Spielberg changed the ending to make it a 'happy ending' and ignored the substory about the Sheriff's wife. I realize trying to put books on screen means some aspects of the book have to be cut but maybe those books should be made as two or three part mini-series. Trying to adapt a novel with all it's nuances would result in a four or five hour movie; too much to sit through. A short mini-series could cover it.

The truest book-to-movie lately was the Coen brothers True Grit. The Charles Portis novel read like a Coen brothers movie and they were able to transfer the dialogue from the book straight to the screen. Also, they stayed true to the book rather than the earlier John Wayne version.

"Wuthering Heights" will always be better than any movie adaptation (although the Olivier version is pretty darn good!).

Field of Dreams (which I think is an American classic; others will disagree) is based on a terrible novel titled Shoeless Joe.

John Irving's books are hit or miss with movie adaptations. Probably the best are Cider House Rules and World According to Garp, with the former almost as good as the novel. Simon Birch is a travesty of an adaptation of a great book.

R140, on the other hand, I thought The Onion Field, book and film, were great. Also, The New Centurians with George C. Scott--I didn't read the book, though.

To everything, turn, turn, turn... there is a season, turn, turn, turn...

My mother always says, "No book is as good as the novel, excepting of course 'Gone with the Wind' and 'Rebecca.'"

I think that's a pretty good rule of thumb.

[quote] Sorry, Henry James, but the DeHavilland/Clift/Richardson film is transcendent.

The point of the Henry James novel is that revenge is meaningless--that the only way to overcome other monsters is to transcend their values and nto stoop to their level. The point of the Goetz play (made into the William Wyler film) is that taking revenge is deeply satisfying.

The Goetz/Wyler version is emotionally satisfying, and the film is spectacularly done and absolutely enjoyable; even so, it's not nearly as profound as the Henry James novel on which it is based (and is probably more morally true).

R165's grandmother had an alcohol problem during her pregnancy...

R166, Heaven forced that I have implicitly criticized The Master, but if you think the final shot of Catherine Sloper grimly climbing the stairs; never to embroider again (her one talent, according to her father); never to set eyes upon Morris again; never, she knows now, to marry at all---shows that "taking revenge is deeply satisfying," then I fear you may have "misread" the "point" of the movie.

WE the viewing audience ARE "deeply satisfied" to see Morris foiled, but as he loses the world behind the front door, Catherine loses the world outside it.

"Heaven forfend...."

My vote is for "Random Harvest." I saw the movie when I was young and a big fan of Ronald Colman (and soapy stories!). A few years ago I found the book by James Hilton and read it. The movie cuts the first half of the book out and does not suffer at all for it.

I remember a huge disappointment reading A Town Like Alice, after having seen the movie - because the movie only focuses on 2 chapters from the novel, those dealing with the POW experience. I've always been fascinated by those stories and that part of history (loved Tenko), and wasn't that interested to read the rest of the story outside of that. I was only a teen when I picked it up, maybe I should try it again. If it's basically a romance story though, I don't really have a lot of interest.

[quote]"No book is as good as the novel, excepting of course 'Gone with the Wind' and 'Rebecca.'"

R165 I'm sure you meant no book is as good as the movie.

The movie "Midnight Cowboy" is much better than the book by James Leo Herlihy. The movie is the second half of the book with backflashes to the confusing first half. Very well done.

"Timeline" by Michael Crichton is a terrific read. The movie, however, is a mess.

On the other hand, Doctor Zhivago might be a classic, but David Lean managed to capture the epic sweep of the novel for the big screen and it is one of my favorite films.

Terms of Endearment

"The movie "Midnight Cowboy" is much better than the book by James Leo Herlihy."

Not really. I thought the movie was well done, but the book is better;. It's well written and gives the reader the heartbreaking details of the life of Joe Buck, who was abandoned and neglected as a child amd grows to adulthood completely clueless on how to form relationships with people. Henceforth he's used for sex by various nasty characters and he gets the insane notion that if he goes to New York he can get rich by selling himself to rich women. Of course he ends up totally destitute, but along the way he meets the only friend he's ever had, a crippled misfit named Ricco Rizzo aka Ratso. Their stories are much more fleshed out in the book. "Midnight Cowboy" is really a good read.

Winter's Tale - I watched the movie first, because I love Colin Farrell. It did not do well, earning $30 million against a $60 million budget, and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 13%. I think people were repelled by the weirdness of the characters and that so much is left unexplained. The weirdness of the story mixed with good actors (Farrell, Russell Crowe, Wm Hurt, Eva Marie Saint), enduring love and old New York enchanted me. So, I read the book, which is no mean feat (is editing dead?). The author mythologized New York and New Jersey to come up with the story, explaining a bit too much. The screenplay omitted the middle section of the book, a good choice, and added the Devil, forcing a magical story into an Abrahamic mythos, which was not helpful, though Will Smith did a decent job. Here the movie is a bit better than the book. I doubt I've convinced anyone to watch this, though I'd like to see it again now.