Movies very loosely 'based' on novels...

I'm already fearing the worst for "The Human Stain" based on Philip Roth's novel. The casting is curious, to say the least. Anthony Hopkins as a light-skinned African American who passes for white? Nicole Kidman as a washed-out illiterate cleaning woman?

Hooray for Hollywood, I guess, but I liked that novel...

Still ticked at the inept job done to Starship Troopers. And Dune.

I thought the mini-series of "Children of Dune" to be well done but I always question whether the novels were really ever fimmable. They had to leave out a lot of the drug subtext of the "spice" and it made the whole thing look like an abbreviation of the novel.

Some good novels ruined on screen:

The Bonfire of the Vanities
The Name of the Rose
Histoire d'O

Let's not forget the all-time howler To Have and Have Not. Bogie and Bacall are fine and the movie actually isnt half bad. But Hollywood paid Hemingway for the right to use the title of his book and to mention, in the credits, that the film was 'based' on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. The film has nothing whatever to do with the plot of the book apart from the fact that name of the main character, played by Bogart, is the same in the book as in the movie. It's a totally original flick.

After the first few movies, the James Bond series had NOTHING to do with the original books by the same name.

A book called 11 Harrowhouse by Gerald A. Browne was a terrific diamond heist novel that was ruined for me in the movie by giving it a happy ending.

And I don't remember the name of it, but there was a novel I enjoyed a couple of decades ago where the 'maguffin' was an alleged letter from George Washington offering to surrender to the British. The novel was suspenseful and serious, but Hollywood turned it into a comedy.

On the other hand, I think filmdom has done an A-minus job of converting The Lord of the Rings to the screen. Some things are missing and some things are fiddled around, but in general it keeps the right tone and story line (so far).

Seal, would Starship Troopers have appealed to a 1990s audience who had never read Heinlein, though?

Sanctuary made an interesting movie, but it had nothing to do with Faulkner's novel, on which it was supposedly based.

M.A., an even worse example is Tropic of Capricorn--it used Miller's title only, and bore not the slightest resemblance to the book--which with its "obscenity" would never have made it to the screen anyway--and in fact, was some kind of Hollywood pot boiler about early Australia. That one really threw me for a loop, because i saw the movie on tv as a kid, THEN i read the book . . . whoa, Nelly ! ! !

"Tropic of Capricorn" and "Tropic of Cancer" could both be made today with very little censorship but it would be difficult to get an R rating. Did you see "Henry and June," Setanta? "Henry and June" at IMDB There is a way to film the raw scenes and not go over the line into X rated. "Last Tango In Paris" is an example of an erotic movie that is honest and yet isn't totally graphic.

X rated Midnight Cowboy seems pretty mild by today's standards.

I wonder what they would do with Miller's Under the Roofs of Paris?

I'd like to see Philip Kaufman tackle any of Miller's novels -- if he can come up with a film of the quality of "Henry and June," it would be worth watching.

Imagine a remake of "Last Tango in Paris" starring Brando again, as he looks now....that would demand an X-rating in my book. I think he would EAT the butter....

Freeze the butter, then dredge it (as with a wiener schnitzel), the deep fry it and serve it to the bloated oaf. He would eat it, of that i have no doubt. A friend of mine who is a successful chef, and now has her own restaurant, actually did exactly that for a former employer who annoyed the hell out of her. He ate, and love it.

Why do film makers constantly do this? this example is not of a novel ruined, but of a gross miscarriage of justice in real life.

The "guilford four served 16 years for a crime which they were clearly not guilty of, the hollywood version of this story was a bigger travesty than the trial itself, there is nothing in the film that is anyway representative of the truth.

Why is hollywood so incapable of telling the truth about anything?

I haven't seen the film of the decoding of nazi "correspondence" during WW2 but the facts are clear, the "enigma" code was cracked by British Intelligence.

Hollywoods version: it was cracked by the americans.

We should be able to sue, for our childrens sakes who gain their "knowledge" from the media.

Actually, the French acquired an enigma machine in the late 1920's from the German industrial firm which had invented the device. Later, Polish intelligence, prompted by the French, engineered an "accident" in the "Polish corridor" between East Prussia and Danzig (Gdansk), during which they spirited away a newer, military version of the Enigma machine. While i would agree that it is absurd to contend that the Americans were responsible for the Enigma coup in intelligence, the English efforts were not possible without the French Sureté and the Polish security services. Important efforts such as this are usually never accomplished by one group acting alone--alliances have always been important for precisely such eventualities as this.

Hollywood types are interested in making movies that make money. Historical accuracy isn't a key concern, and when pushed on this, they'll admit it. Happens all the time with biographical films, too. There was a fair amount of controversy over "A Beautiful Mind" in that the film cleaned up the hero considerably.

Unfortunately, kev, far more people see the film than read the book...