I THINK everyone here has read a book or comic books that has transformed into movies
davnici code
cirque du freak (will be released 2008)
transformers
wat is urs??
Neither of these would qualify as my favorite book, but the two occasions where the movie turned out to be better than the book were: "The Authentic Death of Henry Jones" (or some similar title) that got changed into
One-Eyed Jacks (all they kept from the book was the California setting); Also the film
Paint Your Wagon was different and much funnier than the "book" of the original Broadway musical. Again, all they kept was the California setting.
Books that were faithfully reproduced into great movies:
The Maltese Falcon (faithfully follows Dashelle Hammet's story and dialogue);
Out of the Past (great film noir);
Gone With the Wind (leaves out Scarlett's children by her first two marriages, but otherwise faithfully follows the book);
His Girl Friday (improves on the very funny original play
Front Page by changing the male reporter to a female role for Rosalind Russell);
Witness for the Prosecution, (the film was improved by adding the role of the nurse, played by Elsa Lanchester, Charles Laughton's wife);
The Killers and its subsequent remake of the same name some 20 years later. Both were based on a short story--some 12-15 pages--by Ernest Hemmingway about two hitmen who come to a small town to kill a local nondescript character. Warned that the killers are on their way to his apartment, the victim doesn't even try to escape but waits to be gunned down. End of story. This was fleshed out into a film noir in the 1940s that made a star of Burt Lancaster and helped boost the career of Ava Gardner. In the original film, an insurance investigator (Edmund O'Brien) hunts down the answer as to why the victim didn't run. In the 1960s remake, its the killers (Lee Marvin, Clu Gulager) who track down the mystery. Also stars Angie Dickson, John Cassavettes, and Ronald Reagan in the last movie he made. Another great film based accurately on a Hemmingway book,
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
One of the funniest, most interesting books ever written,
Catch 22, was turned into a gawd-awful film by Buck Henry's heavy handed, potty humor script!
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