# Successful Movie Adaptations of Books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 20, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280 "2003-06-20T21:06:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/1 "2003-06-20T21:06:22Z")
Two that immediately come to mind are: **The Maltese Falcon** :[ul]Everything about the movie simply reeks of the original content of the book. Lorre’s portrayal of Joe Cairo is so spot on as to be miraculous. The overall tenor is accurate and the scenery is intensely true to the story and location. There are so few gaps or deviations from the book’s plot that it seems like not much of the shooting landed on the cutting room floor.[/ul] **A Town Like Alice** :[ul]However lengthy the film is for the viewer, it is utterly faithful to Neville Shute’s original story. I find this completely forgivable in light of the excellent acting and beautiful scenery. This film deftly captures the underlying tension as its female protagonist grapples with the parochialism and ubiquitous Australian chauvinism that she must overcome. Bryan Brown strikes me as a modern day Humphrey Bogart with his taciturn delivery and constrained emoting. While researching this post, I’ve noted that what I saw may have been a PBS miniseries adaptation. I’m including this nonetheless because of the fantastic quality of work demonstrated by the producers.[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/2 "2003-06-20T23:04:31Z")
**The Right Stuff** by Tom Wolfe Did the almost impossible job of adapting a long, dense _great_ non-fiction book into a kick-ass movie. The few times it strayed from the book were pretty forgiveable. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2003, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/3 "2003-06-20T23:20:16Z")
Not all of them were equally sucessful, but a number of the Jeremy Brett versions of the Sherlock Holmes stories were terrific. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/4 "2003-06-20T23:46:24Z")
_To Kill a Mockingbird_, both book and movie, were great. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/5 "2003-06-21T00:11:39Z")
_The Godfather_ is the only book that I recall reading where it seemed that the movie was a word-for-word translation. I guess that’s successful. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/6 "2003-06-21T00:49:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ShibbOleth \* > \*\*_The Godfather_ is the only book that I recall reading where it seemed that the movie was a word-for-word translation. I guess that’s successful. \*\* Actually, the movie of _The Godfather_ was even better then the book, IMHO. The book lost points because of the seemingly pointless section about Johnny Fontaine and his buddy in Hollywoodland. That and the movie did an excellant job with the Baptism sequence, which wasn’t as neatly juxtaposited in the book(but the movie left out the death of the bodyguard from Sicily.) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/7 "2003-06-21T01:11:50Z")
Day of the Jackal (close enough for me anyway) NOT the “Jackal” of recent vintage with Bruce Willis!! This one came out in the 60’s maybe. One of the Fox English actors. Edward or James. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/8 "2003-06-21T02:27:33Z")
**A Clockwork Orange**. I was a big fan of the book (the American edition) years before I got to see the film version, which remains one of my all-time favorite movies. It wasn’t until some time after that that I got my hands on an English edition of the book with the ending that Burgess intended. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/9 "2003-06-21T03:28:08Z")
**Hannibal**. Now hear me out. True, the movie is far inferior to **Silence of the Lambs** , but it is WAY better than the book by Thomas Harris, I think. Although they should have left in the Margot plotline. ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/10 "2003-06-21T04:10:36Z")
I think I went into Hannibal with such a distaste for the book that I could never have liked the movie. I’m surprised noone has mentioned Lord of the Rings yet, seeing as how recent and popular they have been. In fact, IMO, the fight scenes in The Two Towers were much more exciting than in the book. Also, most of Alfred Hitchcock’s films were based on books, but he took great liberties with most of them. Of course, most of the time they came out far superior. In fact, when he hit his popularity, people would write books in his genre hoping he would make a movie out of them. ---
**Author:** ![TheRealJohnPeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TheRealJohnPeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheRealJohnPeat)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/11 "2003-06-21T11:17:04Z")
**Fight Club** is another ‘word for word’ translation - and a successful one well if you ignore the slight rejigging of the ending… TTFN JP ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/12 "2003-06-21T12:03:28Z")
The most obvious answer: Jaws. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/13 "2003-06-21T12:15:19Z")
**The Princess Bride** **The Shawshank Redemption** **The Green Mile** All three of these are great books and great movies that (surpise) stuck close to the books, both in plot, language, and feel. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/14 "2003-06-21T12:23:07Z")
\*\* Rosemary’s Baby \*\*. In his book \*\* Danse Macabre \*\* Stephen King describes how Roman Polanski shot the movie to fit exactly with the book. ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/15 "2003-06-21T14:42:13Z")
I’m going to say **Adaptation**. The scenes where it tries a traditional adaptation of the book work well enough, and then it goes a step further, saying not only, “This is what the book says,” but “This is how the book made me feel.” ---
**Author:** ![Orange\_Skinner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3be4f8/32.png) [@Orange\_Skinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orange_Skinner)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/16 "2003-06-21T19:07:49Z")
The only new one I can think of off the top of my head is **High Fidelity**. The film stayed very close to the book, and I love the way Rob Gordon addresses the audience, which helped, I think, make the cross over from first-person novel to film even smoother. The characters were almost identical to how I’d pictured them in reading, especially Jack Black’s role. ---
**Author:** ![Marlow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Marlow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlow)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/17 "2003-06-21T19:39:58Z")
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas was an excellent adaptation. When I first heard of a movie being made of it, I couldn’t conceive what it would be like, but once I saw it, it felt just like the book. ---
**Author:** ![Gail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Gail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gail)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/18 "2003-06-21T19:47:18Z")
I thought they did a good job with “Holes”. I teach 5th grade and I must say, I’ve read that book aloud to my students several times. I felt the movie was effective at showing the themes of the book. As I watched the film, I kept thinking to myself, “yep, that happened in the book.” Also, one of my favorite books is “Lonesome Dove”. I know it was done as a mini-series, but it was very good. Sometimes with a long book, a TV mini-series is the best way to go, because there is so much in the book. It seems to me that nowadays, more and more authors are writing books that will adapt well to film. Novels have become more visual… I’m in a book group and most of the time, I think, while I’m reading, “a film will be made of this book”. The most recent being, “The Secret Life of Bees”. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/19 "2003-06-21T22:53:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RikWriter \* > \*\*The most obvious answer: Jaws. \*\* IMHO “Jaws” was a great movie and a roundly terrible book. “Slaughterhouse-5” made a surprisingly smooth transition from book to movie. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280/20 "2003-06-21T23:03:58Z")
They did a good job with **Black Hawk Down**. Although they weren’t able to get into the characters more, you went away feeling for what those guys went through. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-movie-adaptations-of-books/183280.md?page=2)