doebag

This post may ramble a little but.......

Having recently watched both 'Guns at Batasi' and 'The League of Gentlemen' it started me thinking of books that have been made into films, and if forum users prefer to read the book before they see the film or vice/versa.

I am glad that I read 'Bonfire of the Vanities' by Tom Wolfe before I saw the film, and also 'The Tommy Knockers' by Stephen King before the film version, as both films do not do the books justice in my opinion.
I read the Harry Palmer books by Len Deighton after I had seen the films, and though the books were very enjoyable, I found my view of the characters were coloured by the film versions.

With some of the classic British movies [such as the two I mention] has any one bothered to dig out the book version and read it ? and how did it compare to the film version ?

Are there any films that are actually an improvement on the book in people's opinion.?

'Dying a'int much of a living, boy'
Outlaw Josey Wales

will.15

The Godfather movie is better than the novel.

Jonathan Smith

I have mentioned this before, but another good comparison is The War of the Worlds. The H.G.Wells novel is atonishing, compared to the film versions that have been released. The 1953 version is good as a sci-fi film, but not as a faithful adaptation. The Steven Speilberg/Tom Cruise production is terrible. Even Speilberg commented later that he did it as a favour to Paramount because they had "so much money" set aside to blow on a movie, so War of the Worlds was choosen. Before that version, there were a couple of even worse versions made by small independent studios. One was War of the Worlds, later renamed Invasion which was done by 'Asylum Pictures'. It featured, of all things, 6 legged tripods. Yes, 6 legs. The worst of the lot is 'Pendragon Pictures' version, which they still proudly claim to be the only authentic adaptation, even though the acting, editing, FX are megatomically worse than those seen in Plan 9 From Outer Space. Actually, Plan 9 is a Oscar winning film compared to Pendragons hugely laughable contraption.

I keep hoping that one day, someone bites the bullet and produces a film version of The War of the Worlds as envisioned by H.G.Wells, set in 1901 Britain with tripods raging across the country. The only work that is close is Jeff Wayne's 1978 musical version. Incidently, in 1981, Speilberg did show interest in a film version of Jeff Waynes album, but nothing ever came of it. He did present Jeff Wayne with a sci-fi award in 1981. Jeff Wayne has said that he is currently working on a film version of his album. No year has been set for release, I did hear there were problems between Wayne and Paramount due to Paramount owning the film rights, but it is interesting news non-the-less. Hope we don't get Dick Van Dyke on rooftops singing "come'on martians, step in time"

(I use to work for Jeff Wayne)

Titanic Historian/Researcher & Collector - www.titanic-model.com

penfold

The League of Gentlemen novel I can recommend...and its sequels !! It is somewhat different to the film, which is of itself interesting in what was altered; and it does give interesting extra details, for instance, the novel posted out to lure the League members to the meeting is named not as "The Golden Fleece" as per the film, but "Clean Break".....one of the characters mentions seeing and enjoying the film version. I looked this up....."Clean Break" was the source novel of Kubrick's The Killing (1956)....anyway, go and find a copy...not better, not worse, just a bit different.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Steve Crook

It's often the case that a lot of the book is altered when it's made into a film, or the other way around. The different mediums lend themselves to different aspects of telling a story.

J. Storer Clouston's novel The Spy in Black was quite successful as a novel. The first attempts to make it into a film weren't working too well so Alexander Korda brought in a Hungarian writer he had on staff by the name of Emeric Pressburger. He also brought in a young director who he also had on staff by the name of Michael Powell. That's how they first met.

Pressburger changed the story quite dramatically, changing the gender of some characters, merging a few characters, changing the emphasis of the story. The film is really very different to the book in many ways. They are both very good, but very different. The above link details a lot of the changes that were made.


This can also go the other way. In 1978, Powell & Pressburger published a novelisation of their classic film The Red Shoes (1948). Their novel was able to give a lot more background to a lot of the characters than was possible in the film.

Similarly with Powell's novelisation of The Battle of the River Plate (1956), published under various titles in different countries - Graf Spee, Death in the South Atlantic, The Last Voyage of the Graf Spee. In this novelisation he was able to include a lot more of the technical details of the battle that he'd discovered in his and Pressburger's extensive research. Lots of things that they couldn't include in the film like the way that the three British cruisers could work together as one huge gun platform. Their differing angles on the Graf Spee could be fed into the analogue computer and gave them much better ranging and positioning information that the Graf Spee could get on them.

If I like a film enough and someone's written a book based on it then I will often read that book. If a film is based on a book and I like it enough, whether I read the book or see the film first, then I will often check out the other one. I don't expect them to be exactly the same. They are different ways of telling a story

Steve

Torquemada

The Third Man was like reading the film.

Gary Barker Illustration

WarFilmBuff

I would never read a book just because I liked the film or vice versa. To me they are totally separate art-forms and in my mind I treat them as such. Somehow I don't connect Ian Fleming's literary Band with the film version. I realise that's probably me being weird but nevertheless that's how I am.

Off the top of my head I can think of three other examples of books/films where I like both but don't consider them alternate versions of the same work. Pierre Boulles' Planet of the Apes, Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and Paul Brickhill's The Great Escape.

I suppose that means that I actually prefer a film to be very different to a book version of the same story. Whereas most negative comments on forums about books made into films is how "they don't stick to the plot."

If I think about it, the films I particularly adore are ones where the visuals are everything - Lawrence of Arabia, Shawshank Redemption, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Zulu to name but a few.

Sorry I've rambled somewhat, and strayed from the topic, but it's an interesting subject

billy bentley

A while back I read James Curtis' novel "They Drive By Night" and then watched the British film (courtesy of a Brtitmoive regular). I wish it had been the other way around. The novel is a much more unflinching affair than any British film would have been allowed to be at the time and I found myself disappointed in the "watered down" flick. I loaned both to a pal and suggested he watch first and read later. But i do think one should approach the issue on a case by case basis.

penfold

Mentioning Paul Brickhill, having read his book on the Dambusters (on which the film is based) as a kid, I've been itching ever since to see a film made on the second half of the book, what 617 did after the dams raid....if anything, more impressive.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Mr Sloane

The only film and book that meld together perfectly for me is To Kill A Mockingbird. There are other excellent adaptations of favourite books of mine ( Brighton Rock and Fahrenheit 451 to name but two) but I can't think of another example which manages to capture the story,atmosphere, ethos and characters so well.

taffy1967

The Cement Garden was a very good read (more of a novella than a novel though). But the film is even better still due to the fantastic musical score, the camera-work and the young actors involved.

Okay it won't be everyone's cup of tea (it's a bit like 'Our Mothers House' only with incest), but it's definitely worth a watch because it's fantastic.

elanortook

HOW did I miss this page last year when writing my dissertation!

Steve Crook

You should have come to me earlier
I've acted as an advisor and source of information on quite a few dissertations as well as articles, books and other things

Was the dissertation just about The Spy in Black? Has it been published?

There's a new edition of the book available which has additional background information and location research.

Steve

CaptainWaggett

I have to say that if you're doing any Powell and Pressburger-related research, Steve's site is quite hard to miss

You can safely skip The Wheel Spins and just watch The Lady Vanishes as the book doesn't have the main characters

will.15

The 1941 Maltese Falcon is pretty much the book except for the scene where the Fatman accuses Brigid of stealing money. In the movie Spade takes her word for it when she shakes her head. In the novel, he takes her into the other room and makes her strip naked.