mel walton

NOTICE if you haven't read or seen 'Lost Horizen' this could be a spoiler.
Any thoughts about novels made into movies? which was better the book or the movie? Here's a start: Two of James Hilton's novels.
'Random Harvest' the book was so much better than the movie.Fortuneatly, I read the book BEFORE I saw the movie, seeing the movie first would have spoiled the book. I didn't guess the ending until the last couple of pages.
;Lost Horizon; the other way around. the movie had to be better ( and was) because of the subject matter. Seeing Margo turned into an old woman= well, words couldn't describe that as well'

Ted Holmes

If I buy a DVD and it's based on a quality novel, I'll always buy the novel and read that first, assuming it's not one I already know. Often enough I don't bother watching the film for months, if ever. I'm afraid that great writers are generally not successfully adapted for the screen, though it's certainly true that wonderful films can derive from their books.

One director who seems to translate great literature to the screen sjupremely well is Vladimir Bortko, whose adaptions of Bulgakov's 'Heart of a Dog' and Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot' are almost worthy of the originals.

Harleybloke

Great novel, rubbish film.

.....You couldn't hear it, if they were shooting at me with howitzers!