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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 1:42 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
I know that Ang Lee has now been deified because of Brokeback Mountain, but I thought Pride & Prejudice was far, far superior to Sense and Sensibility, which was good but nowhere near as charming or memorable as P&P.
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mo_flixx
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:24 am Reply with quote
Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533
I need to join the seriously challenged Jane Austen Club. I can't keep all the different versions of P&P and S&S straight. I am thinking of making flash cards that I can carry with me to help.
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ehle64
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 4:12 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A
billyweeds wrote:
I know that Ang Lee has now been deified because of Brokeback Mountain, but I thought Pride & Prejudice was far, far superior to Sense and Sensibility, which was good but nowhere near as charming or memorable as P&P.


There is just SO many things wrong with this post, mostly the bassackwards feeling of the two films in question. Then the fact that I've loved Ang Lee WAY before he ever even read, yet alone was offered Brokeback Mountain and to have to put that into a conversation where Sense & Sensibility is being talked about is completely ABSURD!

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 4:20 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Everytime I look at this forum's title, I hear Catherine Zeta-Jone singing "Right up here is where I store the juice."

Just felt like sharing that.

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tirebiter
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 7:47 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4011 Location: not far away
I looked over a list of books I've read, and I was surprised at how few there were that turned out better onscreen. Here's what I came up with:



Bridge on the River Kwai (Pierre Boulle)
Carrie (Stephen King)
The Virginian (Owen Wister)
Island of Lost Souls (based on HG Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau)
The Other (Tom Tryon)
Re-Animator (based on HP Lovecraft's Herbert West: Re-Animator)
Psycho (Robert Bloch)
The Godfather (Mario Puzo)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (John Godey)
The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Straw Dogs (based on Gordon Williams' The Siege of Trencher's Farm)
Jaws (Peter Benchley)

96.7 of the time, the book's better than the movie.
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dlhavard
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 8:33 am Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 1352 Location: Detroit (where the slow are run over)
It's a joy to see such great discussions of books and movies but for the first movie, I'd like to start with an oldie but goodie.

Adapted from a book written by C.S. Forester (who also wrote the Hornblower series), it was published in 1935. It tells the tale of love and adventure set in Central South Africa during WWI. The script was written by James Agee and John Huston, and directed by John Huston in 1951 I present to you our first film - THE AFRICAN QUEEN.

STARRING
Humphrey Bogart
Katharine Hepburn
Robert Morley
Peter Bull
Theodore Bikel

Rose: Don't be worried, Mr. Allnut.
Charlie: Oh, I ain't worried, Miss. Gave myself up for dead back where we started.


German East Africa, 1914: At the beginning of WWI, Charlie Allnut is running a little steamer, "The African Queen", with supplies to small villages. He comes to a village that is run by a stuffy British missionary, Rev. Samuel Sayer and his sister, Rose Sayer. When German troops destroy the village and take the natives as slaves, Rev. Sayer is injured and later dies. Charlie returns and offers to take Rose back to civilization.

Some trivia:
- The first choices for the roles were Bette Davis and John Mills.
- There were three other endings considered:
1. Rose and Charlie were saved by a British Warship after an epic sea battle,
2. Rose proposes marriage before the British Consul,
3. (And this was the real ending of the book) Charlie remembers a wife he left in England 22 years ago (and never divorced), even though he marries Rose.

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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 10:51 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
tirebiter wrote:
I looked over a list of books I've read, and I was surprised at how few there were that turned out better onscreen. Here's what I came up with:



Bridge on the River Kwai (Pierre Boulle)
Carrie (Stephen King)
The Virginian (Owen Wister)
Island of Lost Souls (based on HG Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau)
The Other (Tom Tryon)
Re-Animator (based on HP Lovecraft's Herbert West: Re-Animator)
Psycho (Robert Bloch)
The Godfather (Mario Puzo)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (John Godey)
The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Straw Dogs (based on Gordon Williams' The Siege of Trencher's Farm)
Jaws (Peter Benchley)

96.7 of the time, the book's better than the movie.


Most of your choices are on the money. I would substitute Peyton Place for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (which was an excellent trash novel whiuch became an only so-so movie elevated by Matthau's performance), but otherwise excellent list. Particuarly good calls with Carrie and Psycho, the latter a sensationalistic gorefest (note how Hitchcock changed the specifics of Mary/Marion's murder), the former a simply terrible book which the movie helped make a "classic." It's King's worst book ever and one of his most famous.

Peyton Place, meanwhile, may top even The Godfather as most-improved movie. It changed from a totally trashy sex novel to the classiest, best-photographed-and-scored soap opera in movie history.
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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 10:58 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
dl--I have no comment on the adaptation of The African Queen. What I can say is that it's one of my all-time favorite movies, adaptation or no. There has never been better chemistry than Bogart and Hepburn. He equals his chemistry with Bergman in Casablanca and she hers with Tracy in any of their movies. Just be grateful someone didn't suggest Tracy for Charlie. ST was not the all-purpose actor he's often said to be. Should I whisper this? I don't think Spencer Tracy is all that great.
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dlhavard
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 11:18 am Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 1352 Location: Detroit (where the slow are run over)
You're DOOMED Billy- DOOMED! Laughing There were a couple of Tracy movies I enjoy but on the whole I rather concur.

Charlie was a lot "scuzzier" in the book than Bogart, though his onscreen chemistry with Hepburn was sublime.

Been trying to think who would make a "closer to the book" Charlie than Bogart. I'm thinking Ben Kingsley (Sexy Beast) or perhaps Bob Hoskins. Not sure who would make a good Rosie - Judi Dench?

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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 11:52 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Been trying to think who would make a "closer to the book" Charlie than Bogart. I'm thinking Ben Kingsley (Sexy Beast) or perhaps Bob Hoskins. Not sure who would make a good Rosie - Judi Dench?

So glad it wasn't Bette Davis as Rosie (or John Mills as Charlie, for that matter, but Davis would have been unbearable. I like Bette in the right roles, but they were few and far between.)
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mo_flixx
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:44 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533
tirebiter wrote:
I looked over a list of books I've read, and I was surprised at how few there were that turned out better onscreen. Here's what I came up with:



Bridge on the River Kwai (Pierre Boulle)
Carrie (Stephen King)
The Virginian (Owen Wister)
Island of Lost Souls (based on HG Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau)
The Other (Tom Tryon)
Re-Animator (based on HP Lovecraft's Herbert West: Re-Animator)
Psycho (Robert Bloch)
The Godfather (Mario Puzo)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (John Godey)
The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Straw Dogs (based on Gordon Williams' The Siege of Trencher's Farm)
Jaws (Peter Benchley)

96.7 of the time, the book's better than the movie.


How about "The French Lieutenant's Woman?" "A Clockwork Orange?"
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mo_flixx
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:46 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533
billyweeds wrote:
Been trying to think who would make a "closer to the book" Charlie than Bogart. I'm thinking Ben Kingsley (Sexy Beast) or perhaps Bob Hoskins. Not sure who would make a good Rosie - Judi Dench?

So glad it wasn't Bette Davis as Rosie (or John Mills as Charlie, for that matter, but Davis would have been unbearable. I like Bette in the right roles, but they were few and far between.)


Horrors. I'm totally grossed out by all these choices.
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mo_flixx
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:48 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533
dl -

Can you please post how the Mary/Marion murder is handled in the book of PSYCHO?
This sounds very interesting...and something I wasn't aware of.
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mo_flixx
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:52 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533
Here's a bit of well-known trivia on this book theme regarding LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

Welles was on the phone to the studio at a train stn.(?). He was being asked about his next project. At a loss, he glanced at the newsstand nearby and saw a book called _The Lady From Shanghai_. That's where he got the title of that film.
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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 1:07 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
mo_flixx wrote:
dl -

Can you please post how the Mary/Marion murder is handled in the book of PSYCHO?
This sounds very interesting...and something I wasn't aware of.


First, as I guess you've surmised, Mary is the character's name in the book, renamed "Marion" for the movie. In any case, SPOILER AHEAD FOR THE BOOK OF "PSYCHO"--

Interestingly, it was Robert Bloch's idea that she be in the shower--a surprising revelation to me and one which makes me respect Bloch a lot. But then he writes something that Hitchcock (to put it mildly) improved. The text reads pretty much verbatim:

"The knife cut off her scream. And her head."
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