I think the title speaks for itself, but let me elaborate.
What piece of literature has undergone the most radical changes from its published format to its film version?
Four come to mind for me:
The Lawnmower Man. Originally a Stephen King story about a guy whose lawn-care worker strips nude, eats grass, and then eventually eats the guy. The movie was about a simple man who’s turned into a genius by a scientist. So different that King sued to have his name removed from the credits.
The Running Man. Another Stephen King story, this one’s closer to the source material. The story is about a desperate man who signs up for a game show in which his family receives money for every hour that he avoids capture. The movie gets into some apparent revolutionary-type warfare (admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it).
Exit to Eden. In the Anne Rice (as Anne Rampling) novel, the plot involving the cops and diamond thieves (the main point of the movie) does not exist. The book is about the island, and the relationships between Lisa (Dana Delaney) and Elliot (Paul Mercurio).
I, Robot. I haven’t seen this one, but my understanding (from reading about it on this board) is that it really only shares the title as the Asimov story, not any plot points.
I’ve neither seen the movie nor read the original novel, but The Scarlet Letter (Demi Moore version) was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title.
God, let’s hope not. The book was god-awful; I haven’t seen the movie, but even *Chevy Chase * looks to be an improvement. He’s not as stupid as the narrator of the book.
Back to the OP:
The champ is Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (but Were Afraid to Ask. About all Allen took from the book was the title and a few of the questions as titles for the skits.
“Ooh! I have an idea! Let’s get the scribbler who wrote Grumpy Old Men to rewrite one of the best efforts by one of America’s greatest contemporary novelists! What could go wrong?”
The Scarlet Letter is a great high in the history of low. The book begins with Hester standing with her baby and being pilloried before the community; in the movie she’s not even pregnant until halfway through (you get to see the conception), there’s a huge witchcraft trial/Crucible ripoff sideplot (including a slave named Tituba with a gratuitous nude dancing scene), the ending is completely changed (there’s now a “happy one”) and the dialogue is a masterpiece. Among other things Hester jokes about “maybe I’m using powers to bewitch you” with a Calvinist minister (yeah, cause women in 17th century Massachusetts loved to joke about practicing witchcraft on ministers) and is later considered a heretic for saying that people can pray to God directly and didn’t have to use a priest (evidently Hester started the Protestant Reformation… though it’s kind of odd that she started it in America… among Protestants). Absofreakinglutely godawful.
I know the movie has its fans and was written by John Irving, but I didn’t like Cider House Rules. It skipped 90% of the great book.
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil was a horrible transition as well. The book was quirky and odd and a bit Gothic but its beauty and charms and success came from the rich character studies, atmosphere and interwoven narratives of the fringe of Savannah high society. The movie was a swampy mess of melodrama and horrendously fake southern accents, hack writing and sensationalism. The Lady Chablis’s part was grossly overwritten (I couldn’t believe they had her testifying at the murder trial in the movie!), the wrong parts were cut, totally unnecessary subplots added (mainly to give Eastwood’s daughter a big role) and worst of all it turned from a character driven snapshot of time and place to a paint by the numbers murder mystery where 1) you already knew from Jump St. who did it [no suspense] and 2) the most interesting thing about the Jim-Williams-on-trial affair (the fact that it lasted for a decade and he was tried for the same murder four times) was completely skipped. I don’t think Clint had a clue what made that book so successful.
I’d say the last faithful adaptation was On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, with Lazenby. Connery would return for Diamonds are Forever, which was a bad adaptation and a crappy movie, and every movie since has had just scraps of Fleming.
I slogged my way through the Hunchback of Notre Dame when I was a kid, and I’ll be damned if I was going to sit through the Disney retelling, complete with singing gargoyles and a happy ending where Esmerelda lives happily ever after. I could be off base about this…I didn’t actually see the movie and refused to rent it for my kids because of the bastardization. If I’m wrong, somebody please tell me.
As good as the Karloff FRANKENSTEIN was, it wasn’t exactly accurate with the book.
Recently, FORREST GUMP- a total change in tone from the book (thank God, I loved the movie & hated the little of the book I could stand to read)
Interestingly, Jerzy Kosinski’s BEING THERE was almost slavishly adapted by him to the screen UNTIL the very end when he changes Chance’s whole identity from being human vegetation to being a Christ figure.
Oh, they tried, but the versions I’ve seen couldn’t resist slapping on happy endings or spoon-feeding the audience (“Hey! Look at this part! This is important! Did you see it? Well, let’s see it again! Let’s explain what it means! Got it? This is important!”)
I think every version except the Anthony Quinn one of the 1950s (which I haven’t seen) has Esmerelda surviving (including the Anthony Hopkins one in which I misremembered her dying).
Except that in the Disney one, everyone does die, her body vanishes off the pile of criminals corpses along with Quasimodo, and almost a century later, workmen in the Cathedral find their skeletons embracing in a remote corner. And when the
workmen try to separate them…
the skeletons leap up and sing a happy tune about how no one will ever keep them apart again!
