I searched but didn’t see any previous topic here (surprised), so here goes. I recently finished reading “farewell my lovely” by Raymond Chandler and why the books ending is right, I started remembering the movie. I think their expanding the Mallow shooting was more dramatic, more leadup to scene, and in keeping with leitmotif of book. Not better per se but more enjoyable. What thoughts? Other books improved by movie?
I think we just had one of these, but 3 easy ones:
The Godfather
Gump
Jaws
I think “The Expanse” tv series was better than the books. The drama was better. The characters were more fleshed out than the book and production design did a lot better job of fleshing out and giving depth to the setting than the books.
my bad, guess my search criterion wasn’t right
Modhat on: It is fine, this is innocuous and we can start a fresh one.
Going back a bit, I think Mildred Pierce is a better movie than the book. In the book, there’s no murder and Veda just runs off with Monty Berrigan. Shocking, I guess, in the Forties, but not much more than a Doctor Phil Show these days.
PS. How do the spoiler tabs work again? I couldn’t spoiler the above reveal, so I’m just relying on the age of the book/movie as an excuse not to spoiler hide.
“The Last of the Mohicans”.
I remember going to our local Borders to buy a copy of the book after having seen the movie a couple of times. The girl at the register said something like “Oh my god that’s the worst book I’ve ever read in my entire life.” I should have listened to her.
Sadly James Fenimore Cooper had even worse books. The Water-Witch comes to mind.
I don’t believe that one got a movie though.
I haven’t read them but I suspect that Stanley Kubrick raised the bar a bit on The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and Red Alert (Dr. Strangelove).
https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html
“Bridges of Madison County”. It’s the book that taught me you don’t have to finish a book you hate.
I read the Shining, it is different and probably better. But Kubrik took a lot of liberties. To me they’re just barely related.
I really like Hunt for Red October but the I like the movie even more. So excellent book making a better movie.
Jurassic Park was a very readable book that was improved to a Great Movie. I did read the book first before someone asks.
Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas TV special is better than the book it is based on.
And I would add the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz as well.
Though I would say in both cases the books were both very good the movie adaptions were just better IMHO
I love the Princess Bride book, but I do think the movie(same author) really was the best medium for that story. The cast and director really nailed it.
I have always heard that Silence of the Lambs is better than its book.
Jurassic Park is up there with Jaws in terms of “I don’t even think the book is very good at all”…but the movie is amazing.
Probably a controversial opinion: To me, the Lord of the rings movies are better than the books. Denser storytelling, less obscure poetry and to leave out Tom Bombadil was good choice.
The Books fans almost always prefer the books, I’m one. My kids prefer the movies and in fact my daughter never completed the Lord of the Rings, though my son did. I get it though. Great movies. To me it is between LotR and To Kill a Mockingbird for best choice of where both Book and Movies are damn near perfect.
The Hobbit however remains far better than those movies. It is not even close.
William Goldman adapted his own book for the screen (same with Marathon Man and a couple other of his own books), he adapted All the President’s Men, and he wrote the original screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. If you’re at all interested in screenwriting (even, like me, as an observer), his books Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell? are fascinating.
I’m not sure if this should even count, since the film bears precisely zero resemblance to the original novel, but I nominate The Spy Who Loved Me.
Fleming’s novel is written from the perspective of a female French Canadian character called Vivienne Michel, with a structure in 3 parts consisting of a biography of her early life, how a couple of thugs turn up at the motel she is housesitting during the off season, and the appearance of a certain James Bond, who deals with said thugs. It is fairly dreary.
The film features Roger Moore at his eyebrow-raising peak, an epic ski-off-a-cliff-with-a-parachute stunt, a Lotus that turns into a submarine and a 7 foot tall henchman with metal teeth.
(bolding mine) A Clockwork Orange is an extraordinary book – it forces the reader to learn a completely alien English dialect and slang on the fly and builds genuine empathy for an initially loathsome narrator. Kubrick’s movie is awesome in its own right.
You heard wrong. It’s a great movie, no question, but Silence and its predecessor Red Dragon are two of the best horror/thrillers I’ve ever read.
LOL, me, too.