September Film Challenge 🎬

Day 13: A movie that's better than the book it's adapted from

99.9% of the time, the book is always better. I'm kinda cheating here with my answer. This movie was based on three short stories which are great, but the movie just made them better. It's 3/4 perfect and stuck with me after I saw it. I think about certain scenes often.

Supertoys Last All Summer Long, Supertoys When Winter Comes and Supertoys in Other Seasons

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

 
Day 13: A movie that's better than the book it's adapted from.

In 1937, Earnest Hemingway published To Have and Have Not, a novel supposedly about a depression era fishman in Key West, Florida, but more social commentary based deeply in the Marxism he was exposed to during his time supporting the Loyalist faction during the Spanish Civil War. It is considered Hemingway's worst published work. During a fishing trip, Howard Hawks convinced Hemingway that he could make it into a great movie. Hawks hired Jules Furthman to write the screenplay, which he then gave to his friend, author William Faulkner, who completely revised it, changing the setting, the characters, removing the social commentary, and focusing on the romance between the American fisherman, Harry Morgan, and the young drifter, Marie Browning. (This makes To Have and Have Not the only film to have two winners of The Nobel Prize for Literature work on the screenplay.) It changed the meaning of the title from a basic description of the book (The "haves" and the "have nots" of economic inequality) to something more vague and romantic. Much of Browning's personality was based on Hawk's wife, Nancy "Slim" Keith, even as far as giving her Keith's nickname and having her bestow Keith's nickname for Hawks, "Steve," on Morgan. Keith did so much writing of Marie's dialog, Hawks tried (unsuccessfully) to giver her a writing credit. Hawks cast Humphry Bogart as Morgan and the 19-year-old Lauren Bacall, in her first role, as Browning, and cinematic history was carved.

The movie is a classic war-era action romance, with Bogart as an American expatriate living in Martinique as a sports fisherman who wants nothing more than to charter his boat and avoid politics. He gets involved with Marie, a drifter and thief, which leads to complications in his hands-off policy. Walter Brennan play's Eddie, Morgan's alcoholic deck hand; and Hoagy Carmichael plays Sam...er...Cricket, the local bar's piano player. (There were some obvious similarities between this movie and Bogart's previous hit, Casablanca.) The chemistry between the Bogie, 45 at the time, and Bacall, less than half his age, was scorching, leading off-screen to a quiet affair, then a marriage that lasted until Bogart's death. And Bogie wasn't the only one who fell for Bacall -- he and Hawks almost came to blows over her during the filming.

The scene below was originally the screen test that won Bacall the role, over the original objections of the studio. It was not in the orignal screenplay, but was written in, for obvious reasons.


Everyone loves the "whistle line." I love "It's even better when you help," which Bacall threw in. (And cemented my love for husky voiced women.)

In the end, Hawks won the bet. The film, which other than the title and a bit of the first few chapters, bore no resemblance to Hemingway's novel, was far better than the book it was based on.

To Have and Have Not (1944)

If you have any questions, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you?
 
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Day 13: A movie that's better than the book it's adapted from.
I already did the Godfather and Shawshank this month so I have to go another direction. I love me some Philip K Dick and the universe he builds but this movie is so much more enjoyable to watch than the book was to read. Plus Harrison Ford and Sean Young are amazing in it




 
Day 12: Best film to watch on a flight
For me, there is no question.

"Airplane" 1980


The white zone is for loading and unloading only...
Day 12: Best film to watch on a flight

Airplane

This is the best choice. Whenever I dribble my drink down my chin I always quote, "I have a drinking problem..."
 
Day 13: A movie that's better than the book it's adapted from.
I already did the Godfather and Shawshank this month so I have to go another direction. I love me some Philip K Dick and the universe he builds but this movie is so much more enjoyable to watch than the book was to read. Plus Harrison Ford and Sean Young are amazing in it




I remember watching Bladerunner in the theater for the first time. More than any other movie up to that time, it changed my life in how I saw film. Opened my world up, and introduced me to cyberpunk. I rushed out to get the novel. Let's just say at twelve, I was not quite ready for Philip K. Dick ...
 
Day 13: A movie that's better than the book it's adapted from

I was wracking my brain cos every time a book I love is adapted it's never good enough even when it is good. But then I thought, if the bar is already low, that gives a lot of room for improvement. The amount of cringe in Twilight is actually admirable, rarely seen levels. The seemingly unintentional comedy makes it better than the book which bored me to tears.

 
Day 13: A movie that's better than the book it's adapted from

I was wracking my brain cos every time a book I love is adapted it's never good enough even when it is good. But then I thought, if the bar is already low, that gives a lot of room for improvement. The amount of cringe in Twilight is actually admirable, rarely seen levels. The seemingly unintentional comedy makes it better than the book which bored me to tears.

"Doesn't he own a shirt?" was pretty funny.
 
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