BOOKS VS FILMS

Norm has been pondering those very rare cases where screen adaptations outclass the original novels. There's got to be space somewhere for Goldfinger, which makes a much more gripping yarn on celluloid than on the page. The movie adds the A-bomb in Fort Knox, the high-voltage showdown with Odd Job and (as far as I recall, though my memory may be playing tricks) the Aston Martin car chase. Besides, blustering Gert Frobe makes a much more convincing villain than Ian Fleming's little man with the oversized head.

And how about Orson Welles's and Booth Tarkington's Magnificent Ambersons? A very close contest, I reckon.

MORE: Neo goes weak at the knees as she recalls the first time she saw William Wyler's version of Wuthering Heights. (Talking of things Gothic, have you noticed that no movie adaptation has ever come close to matching the glories of Bram Stoker's Dracula? Yet I hardly ever meet anyone who's read it. What a ridiculously under-rated novel.)

Comments

[Martin Adamson]

A bit surprised that Norm didn't come up with the most obvious examples of films that were better than the books - Jaws, The Godfather, The Shining.

[slickdpdx]

Election. Alex Payne is pretty good at making "better than the book" films. (About Schmidt, Sideways)

[Johnathan Pearce]

Goldfinger is indeed a rare case of where a Bond story is improved, not worsened by the film. Mind you, some aspects of the film are mad, such as the scene where the crop-dusting aircraft fly over Fort Knox and loads of soldiers suddenly keel over in perfect formation. That always makes me laugh.

But yes, Goldfinger is a great film and I always thought it sad that Fleming, a much under-rated writer by the snobbish literary types, died before the movie came out. He also missed out on earning a fortune. J.K. Rowling has been a lot luckier.

Most Bond films, alas, are travesties of the books, though the early Connery ones - from Russia with Love, Dr No and Thunderball - are pretty good. OHMSS is also one of the best films, although Lazenby was not in Connery's class.

[Glenn Sutherland]

If one was to include TV mini-series adaptations of books, I would have to rate Lonesome Dove as at least close to being as good as the novel. It's almost as if McMurtry wrote the book with Tommy Lee Jones and especially Robert Duvall in mind for the parts.