Great Adaptations - Book To Films

[Dr. Otis Lansa]

My personal favourite book adaptations are A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...

Dang! Took my first two (Cuckoo's Nest is good too..).

Fight Club is one rare movie that's BETTER than the book. I really want Choke to get put to movie form. Chuck's sold options on all his novels, so we'll see.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a good movie, if nothing on the book... I can't wait for The Rum Diary to hit theaters.

[Qwertyuiopasd]

people say movies are usually worse than the books they are based on.

but they never realize that books based on movies are even MORE worse (than the movies they are based on) than the movies are worse than the books they're based on.

that was probably confusing...

like on a scale of 0-20 of worseness, 0 being not worse, 20 being extremely worse.

movies based on books are 10 worse than the books.

but books based on movies are 20 worse than the movies.

[Rex-Imperator]

Great Adaptations (no particular order):

Fight Club
Lord of the Rings
Thinner
The Shinning (the old one, not the new one)
The Fountainhead

[beagle]

Great adaptions IMHO (from plays or books)

Goodbye Mr Chips (Donat version)
Rebecca
The Graduate
The Winslow Boy
Das Boot
Another Country
2001

[Griffin]

Dont Look Now (for sheer scariness) (Yay! another Daphne du M)

Napoleon (the 8 hour version)

[The Black Spot]

"Christine" by Stephen King was a dreadful overblown mess of a book. At least the film was entertaining.

[Swatopluk]

Definitely on Das Boot. Excellent.

The author hates that adaption. He is fascinated about the technical parts (esp. the boats and the bunker pens) but says that the acting had not much to to with the reality.
The original plan was a totally US-ified version with Robert Redford as commander of the sub and with every possible cliche in it.
Buchheim says that sometimes he wishes that this version had been made because nobody sane outside the US would have taken it seriously but now this film is taken for a completely accurate description of the real thing.
I hear the English dub removed a lot of spoken obscenities.
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The Cruel Sea was very well made in my opinion. The movie left out some of the nastier parts of the book but without compromising the whole.

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Complete agreement on Goodbye Mr. Chips. I was originally interested in it because of the Addinsell score and John Mills (not yet Sir) playing a part. It may be pure nostalgia but it brings tears even to this cynic's eyes.

[beagle]

The Das Boot mini series was on BBC2 here in the 80s (German with subtitles). Did read the book at the time and can't remember it jarring with the series in any way, perhaps I should re-read it.

If nothing else it corrects the older view of the U-Boat service (as portrayed in the British wartime propaganda newsreels) as evil pirates who could slaughter the civilians of the unarmed merchant navy at no risk to themselves (true at the start, but very untrue later of course).

[StormTrooperVII]

Sadly i havent seen any of those top 5.

A few people are probably going to laugh and/or roll their eyes, but the only one of my favorites that no one has mentioned here yet is Jurassic Park. Just the first one, though. They totally botched the second, and there wasn't even a third book.

[Swatopluk]

If nothing else it corrects the older view of the U-Boat service (as portrayed in the British wartime propaganda newsreels) as evil pirates who could slaughter the civilians of the unarmed merchant navy at no risk to themselves (true at the start, but very untrue later of course).

Interestingly the British war movies made at the time painted a far more balanced picture (and I have seen a lot). I would even say that in some cases the German opponents are actually portrayed too neutral (though not as very bright usually).
The 49th Parallel is an exception (even more so for Powell and Pressburger) but was obviously aimed at the USA (better let's not talk about their war movies/documentaries).
To put it this way: I rarely feel insulted as a German (and a person owning a brain) by British war movies but quite often by American (and German for that matter) ones.

[oscartheaussiedog]

to kill a mocking bird was pretty good

[The Black Spot]

Fail-Safe (the 1964 version) was a superb translation from the book. I may be in the minority, but I preferred it to the other big cold war film "Dr Strangelove".

[Swatopluk]

I had the chance to see Fail Safe once. Quite impressive. The only problem was the crappy stock footage they had to use.

[The Black Spot]

The only problem was the crappy stock footage they had to use.

Yes the planes were poor. Apparently, when the US military discovered what "Fail-Safe" was about, they refused to co-operate in any way. Lumet had to make the same stock clip look like several bombers. The film's one low point.

It didn't matter in the end; Fail-Safe was driven by the acting, not visual effects.

[Swatopluk]

No disagreement on that. Sorry, that the film is not available over here on DVD.