Read a Book, then Watch Its Movie!

[mkaroly]

I will probably pick up more Christie books in the future; for now I don't want to overdo it and burn out on her stuff. I think that Kenneth Branagh is releasing a version of Death on the Nile next year...hard pass for me based on his version of MOTOE!

[AndyDursin]

That Death on the Nile was supposed to come out a year ago and has been plagued by allegedly "expensive reshoots" and the fact that leading costar Armie Hammer has been "canceled". That's the hold up as Disney apparently doesn't know what to do with it now. He's in so much of the movie that he can't be replaced.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/dis ... ie-hammer/

[Eric Paddon]

To Catch A King by Jack Higgins

-A few years after his big success with "The Eagle Has Landed", Jack Higgins (writing this time under his real name, Harry Patterson) came back with a similarly themed WW2 novel involving a German plot to kidnap an important British political figure. This time, in 1940 prior to the Battle of Britain, the Germans hatch a scheme to try and coax the exiled Duke and Duchess of Windsor (staying in netural Portugal at this time) into coming to Germany with a promise of restoring the former Edward VIII to the throne as part of a peace deal following the anticipated German invasion of England. But if he doesn't agree, then the plan is to kidnap them and force them to come to Germany as a bargaining chip. Walter Schellenberg, a Nazi General with deep ambivalence about the party and the Nazi philosophy while still being a loyal German, is put in charge of the plot by Heinrich Himmler.

-German born, but American citizen Hannah Winter is performing as a jazz singer in her Uncle Max Winter's Berlin nightclub. Her Uncle Max is also working with German communists to undermine the Nazis and along the way one of his friends comes into possession of the document outlining the Schellenberg plot against the Duke and Duchess. The SS kills Max, but Hannah escapes with the document and is told to get to Lisbon to try and get the document passed on to contacts so the Duke can know of the German plot. While being pursued by the SS she ends up killing two of her pursuers in self-defense which makes her wanted by the Germans and compounds the difficulties in preventing the German plot. She comes into contact with American expatriate Joe Jackson, who runs an "American bar" in Lisbon (yeah, shades of "Casablanca!") and they must work together.

-HBO made a cable film from the novel in 1983. It was a British production filmed in Lisbon and starred Robert Wagner as Joe Jackson and Teri Garr as Hannah. The film version I have to say is a very poor, pedestrian production and devoid of all the great nuance of the original Higgins novel. In fact, the film version of this Higgins novel repeats a cardinal sin the movie version of "The Eagle Has Landed" did in that it takes away the nuance of the main German character (I'd have to give away the endings of both novel and film of "Eagle Has Landed" to explain what they did there so I won't do that) in this case Schellenberg. In the novel, Walter Schellenberg is a conflicted man who has fallen in love with Hannah Winter because he's captivated by her singing. And what further makes this a moral complication for Schellenberg is that in the novel, Hannah Winter is a Jew who had come to Berlin to try to persuade her Uncle Max to finally leave Germany. Schellenberg's feelings for Hannah leads him more than once to deliberately set her free from German custody and to prevent his own SS henchmen from trying to kill her later on, and this sets up a climactic moment when Schellenberg saves her life once again even as the broader plot against the Duke has collapsed.

-The dull cable film though, in order to make Wagner's character the big hero of the tale, takes away all the nuance from Schellenberg. While it shows Schellenberg attracted at first to Hannah the singer, eventually he falls back into conventional villain mode of just wanting to use Hannah and letting her go at one point so she can lead him and his goon to the man she's trying to contact. And the film also removes Hannah's Jewish identity as well. Another big change is that the novel gives the Duke a heroic moment at the climax by turning the tables on the Germans by pretending to go along with their offer at first so he can get information on when the planned German invasion of England will be. That's out in the film, as the Duke and Duchess are totally ignorant up to the end when Wagner and Garr save the day.

-Wagner did this while on hiatus from "Hart To Hart" and the problem is he was still in total Jonathan Hart mode and doesn't make the Jackson character interesting (it doesn't help that because the film makes him an old buddy of Max Winter, that means we're seeing him refer to "Max" and when early 80s Wagner utters that name you automatically think he means Lionel Stander!). Garr isn't much better because she's totally miscast in the part (the Hannah Winter of the book is a woman in her early 20s) and while she gets to sing she hardly justifies the assertion of Schellenberg that she sings like Billie Holliday!

-"To Catch A King" isn't considered to be one of Higgins' better works, but the novel is a lot better than this forgettable cable pic because of the extra nuance and ambiguity Higgins put in the characters.

[mkaroly]

IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE by Sherwood King (1938). Laurence Planter, chauffer for wealthy and famous lawyer Mark Bannister, finds himself in a big complicated mess when Bannister’s partner Lewis Grisby convinces him to take part in a “perfect crime” of murder. Grisby wants Planter to make it look like Planter killed him while Grisby himself leaves behind his unhappy marriage to live out his life in the South Seas. Grisby promises Planter $5000 to commit the crime, say it was an accident and take the rap but promises that no jury would convict him since there would not be a body to discover. However, Planter is not sure he wants to go through with it, especially when Grisby tells him the real reason why he wants Planter to pretend to kill him. Planter decides to run away but things get really complicated when Bannister’s young, attractive red-haired wife Elsa gives him a reason to stick around. Unfortunately for Planter, he soon discovers that there is no such thing as the “perfect crime.”

King’s noir novel is short (I read it in only a couple of days) but quite gripping and suspenseful with several plot twists. The chapters are, for the most part, short and economical…not much time is spent detailing the surroundings. The story is told from Planter’s perspective, which puts the reader in Planter’s shoes – we find things out when he does. It is an effective way of amping up the suspense and surprise of the story and, in my opinion, it is what makes the book so fun to read. It begins with a harmless conversation and then, before you know it, it escalates to a criminal act, a trial, and an unexpected ending. In all honesty it was very difficult for me to put down once I started reading it, so I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

In 1948 Orson Welles directed an adaptation of King’s novel called THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI starring himself and his soon-to-be ex-wife Rita Hayworth (as beautiful as ever) as Elsa Bannister. Of note was Welles’ decision to dye Rita’s red hair blonde (the Elsa character in the book, interestingly, had red hair), a decision that Columbia’s studio head Harry Cohn abhorred. In the film version of the book Welles plays Michael O’Hara, an Irish sailor with a dark past who ends up meeting Elsa Bannister in the park. He saves her from some hoodlums, and ends up employed by the Bannisters on their yacht. On a trip to Mexico O’Hara gets to see the dysfunctionality between Bannister (Everett Sloane), Elsa, and Grisby (Glenn Anders), and it is in Mexico that Grisby offers O’Hara $5000 to kill him. The fly in the ointment is Broome (Ted de Corsia), the steward of the yacht who is also a private detective working for Mr. Bannister. From that point on the story takes the meat and main points of King’s narrative to propel the action on the screen forward. The film was extensively re-shot and edited before its release.

The biggest issue I have with the film is how “bipolar” it seems to be – on the one hand there are the Orson Welles bits which are very noticeable; on the other hand there are bits that seem out-of-place and very un-Wellesian. In addition, on the one hand King’s story is very much there and central in the film adaptation; on the other hand it seems like Welles just took the main bits out of King’s story and then tried to construct a film around those main bits with puzzle pieces that end up not fitting well together and not making a whole lot of sense with King’s story. There are moments that stand out (the Hall of Mirrors sequence, the Aquarium sequence, and the beautiful location shots) and moments that seem visually out of place by comparison (backscreen projections and continuity errors) which can make the film look “sloppy.” Thus, the film tends to be convoluted for me and it does not quite gel together. Among many things that stood out in the film are the following few bullet points:

-Michael’s character is not as sympathetic of a character as he is in the book. In the book Laurence comes across as a drifter of sorts, one who is criticized for not “seizing the day” and one who is not the smartest person in the world. He finds himself in a huge mess and reasons things out the best he can, only to discover in the end that he was wrong. In the film Michael comes across as much more wise even though he considers himself stupid for falling in love with Elsa. He is able to lecture Elsa, Bannister, and Grisby on their dysfunctional relationships (the “shark monologue”) as if he was wise beyond his years, and he manages to figure out who the real murderer is, but his situation in the film is not as tragic as it was in the book. Also, Welles’ faux-Irish accent is not very consistent, which was a bit annoying.

-Bannister and Grisby in the film are more obnoxious than their book characters, though they do stand out more in the film than they do in the book.

-The courtroom scene from the book is hyper-sensationalized for the film, and to be honest I did not like it much. I felt as if the book did a great job ramping up the suspense and tension; at one point Laurence is allowed to state to the court his belief that Mr. Bannister was the killer (as far as he could figure it out). The reader gets to hear the verdict of the jury, and the story moves to its conclusion while Laurence waits on death row for a reprieve. In the film these moments are lost and replaced with action: Michael takes some of Bannister’s pills and is whisked away to the judge’s chambers where he manages to escape and hide out in Chinatown; Elsa (having lived and learned in Shanghai) tracks him down; Michael figures out she is the murderer but then passes out from the pills he took; Elsa has her Chinese chauffer drive him to the abandoned amusement park for safe keeping; he wakes up disoriented (visually I am sure the Hall of Mirrors represented his subconscious, the duplicity of people, the twisted story he was entangled in, etc.) and has his final confrontation with Elsa and her husband. While the film does build tension and gives the viewer a memorable climax in its choices, for me it gets too bizarre and goofy, and I am not sure that it really fits the overall story well at all.

-Another couple of major changes in the book have to do with who killed Broome and how Planter/O’Hara discover Grisby’s true intentions. In the book Broome is a gardener but Planter discovers through Elsa that Broome is really a detective. He dies in the book at the hands of someone; at first one thinks it is Planter who killed him, for when the police arrive at the Bannister house to arrest him he escapes out a window by punching Broome (who is pursuing him). In addition, Planter learns Grisby’s true intentions from Grisby himself. In the film Grisby kills Broome, and it is Broome who reveals Grisby’s true intentions to O’Hara. In the book the big revelation of the real murderer is saved until the very end, so the reader is guessing along with the main character (Planter) through the whole story; in the film there are quick swaths of exposition which reveal the twists in the plot, culminating in O’Hara realizing that Elsa is the real murderer. I much prefer the way the book built its narrative and then dropped the surprise twist ending; I did not find the film’s approach to be as effective.

I am not a Wellesian scholar by any stretch; I would like to read some good analyses of his films in their appropriate historical contexts. Welles was such a fascinating person in many ways with such a unique view of drama. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not work so well; I do find his work visually very interesting. To me THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI is a mixed bag – some things work and some things don’t. Personally I feel King’s book is much better than this film adaptation, though I cannot deny that despite the film’s flaws and inconsistencies I still do enjoy watching it.

[Eric Paddon]

The Swarm by Arthur Herzog (1974)

-So why did Irwin Allen think the subject of killer bees would make for a "serious" disaster film? It was this bestselling novel that tapped into all the fears of the African killer bees approaching America, which like so many other enviro warning messages of the 1970s (Paul Ehrlich and the population explosion; and then before there was global warming there were the warnings about the impending Ice Age from the same people!) turned out to be a lot of hot air. Several TV-movies and low-budget movies on the subject of killer bee swarms had already been made, but Irwin evidently thought that by utilizing the formula that had worked so well in "Poseidon Adventure" and "Towering Inferno", he could top them all once again and hit box office paydirt.

-When reading the original novel, it soon becomes evident that Irwin never bothered to read it for himself, and was just bowled over by the premise on the cover and figured he had the basis for a big-budget disaster movie. The novel is in fact a very complex "tech-thriller" more in the tradition of Michael Crichton's "Andromeda Strain". It doesn't give us non-stop action but rather a lot of scientific exposition and scientific study of how to address a growing crisis that is punctuated by a couple big moments and ultimately a climactic "battle" scene in New York. The book's principal protagonist is scientist John Wood who emerges as the head of a determined group of scientists from the fields of entomology, toxicology, genetics etc. to try and combat this deepening crisis that is first exposed after a bee attack on the small community of Maryville, New York. (naturally one of the scientists is a beautiful female one from Brazil, Maria Amaral who of course will become romantically involved with Wood, but that doesn't take up much time).

-The background to the bee crisis is that beekeepers have been unwittingly importing Africans (these are basically amateur beekeepers who don't know what they're doing) and because this is a strain of African bee that has become immune to normal pesticides and bred with the American honeybee the ensuing result is a more potent hybrid African-American bee (yes, this 1970s book is using at one point that terminology!) that is bigger in size and impervious to usual methods of destructions! Ultimately the manner in which the bees are defeated is a bit anti-climactic and more like something out of the end of "War Of The Worlds" in terms of what causes humanity to escape final destruction.

-I suspect that when Irwin turned over the book to Stirling Silliphant having not read it, Silliphant clearly understood that he was going to be forced to throw out the entire novel and start from scratch if Irwin was going to demand on action and scenes for big stars, because unlike the source novels for "Poseidon Adventure" and "Towering Inferno" the book simply doesn't have that kind of action and doesn't have those kind of parts. In the end, very little of the actual novel ended up in Silliphant's script and only two named characters from the book are in the film. Henry Fonda's Dr. Krim (but in the book he's a geneticist and a younger man, not an immunologist) and the General Slater character (and he is a very minor figure who simply coordinates the efforts to have our scientists be able to do their work at Fort Detrick, MD, former site of the military's chemical weapons research, and then at the climax is in charge of trying to hold things in New York but again, a very minor character in the book). There is a scientist named Hubbard, who is John Wood's boss and who meets with death during the research but not because he's at a nuclear plant in the path of a swarm but simply when a stray bee gets inside a damaged suit and stings him (and he doesn't look anything like Richard Chamberlain!)

-As for plot elements, Silliphant only kept the premise of an initial attack on a family having a picnic outside a town called Marysville, though the novel had a case of three children escaping, a second attack on the town (which kills the surviving children), and Henry Fonda's death scene where he makes himself a guinea pig for an experimental antidote to bee stings (this wasn't the Krim character in the novel, but another scientist George Fine). Everything else was completely different and you get the sense that Sillilphant knew that Allen had saddled him with an impossible task and so he decided to write a campy riff on 1950s sci-fi giant monster films, but Irwin didn't get the joke and treated it like a serious thriller. Combine that with Irwin's foolish insistence on directing, all the embarrassing and pointless star turns that by this point resembled more of what you'd see on "The Love Boat" and also the fact that the emergence of "Star Wars" during the time "The Swarm" was in development had suddenly made the disaster films seem passe, and the end result was a Murphy's Law scenario where EVERYTHING that could go wrong, did and it cost Irwin's reputation mightily.

-If you can handle a lot of scientific discussion on bees (there are times when Herzog is writing more like he's doing a disssertation!), the original novel works as a tech-thriller. But it was simply the wrong type of source material for Irwin Allen to utilize if he thought he could get a good "disaster" movie out of it, because if a film version could have been made from the book, it would have had to be a more cerebral horror type of story which Irwin had zero affinity for.

[Eric Paddon]

The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico (1969)

-Very few people I think have actually read the original novel that spawned the whole disaster film genre. And honestly, that's probably just as well. The original novel came up with a great premise that thankfully was turned into something far better when it reached the big screen.

-Paul Gallico wrote the novel when he was in his early 70s. In a far distant era of the 1920s and 1930s, he had been one of the premiere sportswriters of all time, covering the outsized personalities of the 20s and 30s like Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones etc. Then in 1937, he abruptly quit the world of sports forever to turn to fiction writing and spent the final decades of his life living in Europe and having considerable success though the only fiction of his I'm familiar with besides this is that he wrote a short story that became the basis for the 1955 MGM film "Lili" which in turn beget the 1961 musical "Carnival." He got the inspiration for "Poseidon Adventure" because of a harrowing crossing on the Queen Mary which led him to envision the potential nightmare scenario of a luxury liner being overturned and the horror of trying to escape from the trapped hell on Earth.

-In Gallico's novel, the Poseidon is an aging liner, having once done North Atlantic crossings as the "Atlantis" but now cruises the South American coast and then goes up the South Atlantic where she's due to dock in Lisbon. She is not carrying proper ballast on the crossing because of delays caused by the weather while in the South Atlantic. The unnamed Captain is no Leslie Nielsen type, but a rather incompetent Greek who is solely to blame for the ship not being properly heavy which is why when the giant tidal wave hits, the Poseidon turns upside down. He dies immediately on the bridge.

-The familiar outline of passengers trapped in the dining room (but not all since this is only several days after Christmas and not yet New Year's Eve) trying to effect an escape then plays itself out. Reverend Frank "Buzz" Scott decides that going up is the only way to escape and he gets an assorted group of passengers to accompany him. Detective Rogo and his foul-mouthed washed-up actress wife Linda. James Martin, a haberdasher from Evanston, IL who has a wife back home but who has been getting on with a blonde widow who didn't come down to the party and thus drowned in her cabin. Hubie Muller, a jetsetting freeloader type. Richard and Jane Shelby, upstanding citizens from Detroit and their two children Susan and Robin. The British spinster Miss Kinsale. Manny Rosen and his wife Belle, an elderly Jewish couple from New York (who know Rogo from New York as well as they own a deli he frequents) And finally the perpetually drunk Tony Bates known as "The Beamer" and his tag-along girlfriend Pamela. They climb up the Christmas tree to the next level but most passengers elect to stay behind. We do not see any sudden destruction of the dining room after they leave. Steward Acre (not Acres) and his fellow Steward Peters point them to where they can access the lower decks (and make their way up) but because Acre has a bad leg, he can't follow and Peters refuses to leave him. They are never seen again. Reverend Scott, who is a former Princeton football star and powerful athlete, has no use for being slowed up by the injured and seems to view the whole attempt to escape as an athletic contest of trying to win. This earns him the dislike of Rogo for being a 'Rah-rah" type, and he's also viewed with a mixture of suspicion and hostility by the others in the group save for the prim and devout Miss Kinsale who reveres him as a man of the cloth.

-The journey toward the propeller shaft results in encounters with other terrified passengers and crew along the way including Nonnie Parry, a dancer in the entertainment show the ship put on who had been in her cabin when disaster struck. She joins their group, and along the way "The Beamer" and Pamela find the liquor storage room, get smashed and eventually stay put. Robin then disappears while trying to find a bathroom to relieve himself in private. And in the most disturbing part of the novel, Susan, while looking for her brother is raped by a frightened member of the crew, a boy barely 18 named Herbert who upon realizing he's done this to a passenger and not one of the stewardesses, runs off in a panic. If all of that isn't disturbing the journey to the Engine Room soon loosens the tongues of the other members of the group and we learn all kinds of unpleasant secrets about everyone, though incredibly Scott remains a cipher that no one can seem to figure out.

-Some scenes familiar to fans of the movie do play out in a partly recognized form. The fat and overweight Mrs. Rosen was a swimming champ in her youth and gets to show it again, though not to save a trapped Scott. As in the film it eventually proves too much for her heart, though not until much later in the action. Mrs. Rogo, who remains a one-note, foul-mouthed character with no humanity at all falls to he death again and only THEN do we hear Rogo's tongue loosened about her tragic backstory (though honestly it's much too late for us to be learning this). And Scott eventually cracks and sacrifices himself but not as part of an effort to make the final way clear, but because he has genuinely flipped out and is suddenly mad at God for throwing up barriers to his ability to "win". This leads to all kinds of ruminating by the passengers about God and religion that come off as negative (and downright irritating). Other than the Rosens, none of the characters we have left are in the slightest way positive. A story that should be about a tale of survival for people we can identify with never becomes that. But Gallico saves his cruelest twist for the end. When the remaining survivors of the group (12 all told; along the way a Turkish crewman from the Engine Room joins them) are cut free and emerge having gone through these terrifying ordeals that have stripped them of all their dignity (as they have been forced to lose all their clothes along the way), we then discover 30 other passengers and crew were rescued from the bow after all and most are still well-dressed (perhaps the purser had been right? We never learn! And we learn that "The Beamer" and girlfriend Pamela have made it too with no explanation how) This means Scott's actions are less heroic and shows he was perhaps wrong to have been trusted. He clearly led them down a path they may not have had to travel to get rescued. And if that isn't enough, as the Poseidon finally sinks, the last scene goes to Susan, who has told no one about her being raped by the crewman Herbert, who ran away in tears and was never seen again but not before mentioning where in England he came from and what his parents did. It literally ends with Susan hoping she's become pregnant from this encounter so she can give a child to Herbert's parents. The novel ends on a joyless note rather than a triumphal one.

-Irwin Allen thankfully recognized the novel's potential for a great action tale. He knew that instead of the slow march upward through dreary terrifying moments in the dark, a cinematic treatment would require more action and pyrotechnics and that is what the film gave us. But more importantly he got a script that retained only the basic outlines of many of the characters and fashioned them into more sympathetic characters the audience could pull for. But that did take some time. The first draft of the screenplay was written by Wendell Mayes who did the scripts for such films as "Anatomy of A Murder" and "Advise and Consent." I have only seen a few pages of his draft, but it was more faithful to the novel evidently in that it still had the character of the spinster Miss Kinsale (who has become infatuated with Reverend Scott) and also the Shelby parents (though they become an Italian couple!). Apparently he also kept the Susan rape scene as well. Allen though ended up rejecting Mayes's script and had Stirling Silliphant basically start over, though Mayes still received co-script credit. Silliphant took all the cruel edges off the characters of Scott, Rogo and Linda and made them better. Scott (never called Frank or "Buzz" like in the book) is a true believer in his philosophy of "God helps those who help themselves" rather than the rah-rah self-indulgent fake of the novel (Gene Hackman's Scott is no ex-football star, but someone who's been "banished to a new country in Africa"). The James Martin character is a bachelor and inherits some of the traits of the discarded Hubie Muller character (in particular his bonding with Nonnie, redone as the traveling singer here). The Rosens are pretty much the only unchanged characters from the novel. And of course we have the change in destination (with the action taking place in the Mediterranean Sea) and also the undercurrent of the Greek shipping owner representative responsible for the Poseidon's dangerous condition that explains why the wave was able to turn her upside down. The end result is much better and entertaining, and the final triumphal note of the six survivors who make it to the strains of John Williams's first great score of the 1970s lets "Poseidon Adventure" the movie end on a happier note for audiences than Gallico's novel did for readers.

-Interestingly, unlike most book authors who would resent the changes made by Hollywood to their work, Gallico recognized that the changes that Allen made for the film did work. That was why he was willing to write a sequel novel "Beyond The Poseidon Adventure" that Allen could conceivably use as a vehicle for a sequel novel (since the film did not end with the ship sinking as it did in Gallico's book). But in the end, the only aspect of Gallico's sequel novel (published just before the author's death in 1976) that was used by Allen in his wretched movie was an element of smugglers out to get valuable cargo off the ship before she sinks. The rest, which has Rogo, Martin and Manny implausibly returning to the wreck just after being rescued, is equally as absurd as what we saw in the movie with a different ensemble of characters.

-"Poseidon Adventure", much like "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" is a classic case of how a novel can be dramatically improved in its story on the big screen. "Pelham" though was a case of improvement made by trimming away all the unnecessary literary fat and retaining everything good in the novel ("Pelham" has a good chunk of the novel's dialogue left intact). "Poseidon" is a case of recognizing a great concept but rebuilding it from the keel up and fashioning a better story. For that, give Allen credit for letting Silliphant write a good script and also getting a good director in Ronald Neame to get some great performances of a kind you seldom to never saw in disaster movies after that.

[Paul MacLean]

Thanks Eric -- Interesting post; I knew nothing whatsoever of the Poseidon Adventure's literary source.

[Eric Paddon]

I have an addendum to my post. I just came into possession of a copy of the first draft script for the movie which was written entirely by Wendell Mayes. As I suspected, it sticks closely to Gallico's book and the end result, had Allen gone with it, would have been an unmitigated disaster of another kind. What made for occasionally unpleasant reading as a novel, becomes a ludicrous unpleasant drag in script form and ends up proving just how much Stirling Silliphant *really* saved the movie. Had Allen gone with this script we would have had a film on the order of "When Time Ran Out" for badness.

Mayes' script eliminates the characters of Muller, Nonnie, "The Beamer" and Pamela while retaining Miss Kinsale. The Shelby family is now the Italian family of Marc, Anna and daughter Suzanne (there is no Robin counterpart). Steward Acre is now Acres and his part is expanded significantly into something closer to the final film version (though in this one, he gets trampled to death by panicky passengers in Broadway they encounter when the lights go out and they all rush forward). There is still no big moment of the sea rushing in on the dining room after the ascent of the Christmas tree. Belle survives her swim through to the Engine Room (but not to save Scott) but dies of a heart attack on the cat walk near the shaft *before* Scott flips out and throws himself to his death in a moment that is still not a true act of self-sacrifice (though in ludicrous fashion the ship stops tilting once he jumps in and disappears). Linda is still a one-note foul-mouthed character. The dysfunctional Mr. and Mrs. Raimondi have their falling out in which she pegs him for being a closeted homosexual all along and that's why he speaks so admiringly of Scott (who is still the big egotistical ex-athlete of the book), while he pegs her for alternating between loathing and lusting for Scott. And yes, as I feared, the Susan rape sequence is still in place, but even more disturbing than in Gallico's novel. Suzanne's rapist in the dark is none other than.....James Martin! Who has been making eyes at the 17 year old the whole voyage while trying to hide him impulses but which then let loose at this one moment. She wards him off and later, when he won't come back to the survivors when they prepare to move on, she goes back to get him and is willing to forgive him. She never tells. He is apologetic with the very hollow excuse of "I'm really a decent person." It's subtly implied that Suzanne is beginning to admire him by the end of the script which makes this even more distasteful than how the incident played out in the novel. It was one thing for Susan Shelby to later feel sorry for the frightened 18 year old crewman "Herbert", but for the 40 year old Martin? Ugh.

And then if all of that hasn't been enough to make you shake your head, guess what happens at the climax in the shaft when they know there's a rescue crew outside. They can't find something to bang against the shaft, so Miss Kinsale (whose infatuation with Scott is toned down from the book) has them all start singing loudly a chorus of "Roll Out the Barrel!" By this point we've crossed over into territory that not even the screenplay for "The Swarm" sunk to for ludicrousness.

Once you read Gallico's book and this first draft script of Mayes that was largely following the book, you really come away with a greater appreciation for Silliphant's role in making the film a success. Silliphant knew exactly what Allen wanted for action and he also had the intelligence to see the potentials of the characters Gallico created while removing their worst features and making them people we care about, and by not letting himself be rigidly bound by Gallico's dialogue and structure he succeeded just as Spielberg succeeded by making "Jaws" a great film without being weighed down by the unpleasant aspects of Benchley's novel.

As to why Mayes still ended up with a co-screenplay credit in the film, I counted only three things in the script that made it to the final film. The expansion of the Acres character, a climb through the shaft, and when they have to swim to the engine room, it's Martin who gives the "I can't swim!" line (since there is no Nonnie in this version. It's the now willing to forgive Suzanne who is willing to help her rapist along there). I suspect contractually, Allen was also obliged to give Mayes credit, but in the end it's a totally undeserved one. "Poseidon Adventure" was ultimately Silliphant's voice reimagining and reinterpreting Gallico's work.

[mkaroly]

Just a head's up - it is impossible to talk about all this stuff without giving spoilers. So just know for the Bond book/movie reviews, there are book spoilers ahead.

CASINO ROYALE by Ian Fleming (1953, 181 pages). With this novel the world was introduced to James Bond 007, spy for the British government. He is given an assignment by M, the head of the British Secret Service: Bond is to enter into a high stakes baccarat game against the notorious Le Chiffre and beat him. Le Chiffre (the treasurer for a French union under the control of SMERSH, a Russian counter-intelligence organization) has been sloppy with the union’s money and is currently bankrupt; SMERSH is on to him, and he hopes to win the money back before SMERSH executes him. Bond is given help in this task by Felix Leiter from the CIA, a French agent named Mathis, and the very beautiful Vesper Lynd, personal assistant to the head of Section S. Bond is set up to win, but his growing attraction to Vesper leaves him open to more danger than he can see.

Fleming’s novel characterizes Bond as a very cold and serious person; he is also someone who likes to work alone and does not like complications (relationally or otherwise). He is something of an enigma, and someone you don’t want to cross. Despite being methodical and weighing the risks, Bond is also human which means he is imperfect and capable of misjudgment and error. Fleming’s book is a quick read – he demonstrates his knowledge and worldliness in his use of French dialogue as well as his narrative descriptiveness. Fleming is decent at building tension (the baccarat game between Le Chiffre and Bond) and in making the reader uncomfortable (the very uncomfortable torture scene); I felt he also did a good job with the relationship between Bond and Lynd. CASINO ROYALE is, in my opinion, the story that shows how Bond really became Bond. Despite being an agent with a license to kill (ironically, he kills no one in this novel), after his experience with Le Chiffre and SMERSH he philosophically questions good and evil (who is really good and who is really evil) which enables him to make the decision to leave the service and dedicate himself to Vesper. The events that follow (moving in their own ways) resolve all the tensions within Bond and ‘forge’ him into who he is. While it is impossible for me to read this novel objectively for the ‘first time’, I still find it interesting, exciting, and moving. Not a bad start to the creation of what would become an iconic literary character and movie hero to so many.

In 2006 Martin Campbell directed a film version of CASINO ROYALE; it was a series reboot after Pierce Brosnan stepped down from portraying James Bond. Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson attained the rights to the novel, and the team decided to go back to Bond’s beginnings, right at the time he earned his ‘license to kill’ status. Daniel Craig took over the role as Bond; the filmmakers used Fleming’s novel as a foundation and expanded the film’s narrative around it. It remains for me one of the best Bond films ever made. It is extremely faithful to the text and the spirit of the original novel, though there were of course some additions and changes made. Bond is portrayed as the cold, calculating, and serious person that he is in the novel. Watching the film again recently, the one-liner humorous quips coming from this iteration of Bond just do not seem to fit with the material or his character. I also really love David Arnold’s score. His action music is fantastic, and his love theme for Bond and vesper is both romantic in a classic way and sad. Several things are worth mentioning:

-There are many set pieces in the film which are not in the novel: the African Rundown sequence, the Miami airport sequence, the fight in the stairwell at Casino Royale, and the climactic fight for the money in Italy are all original. I loved the action sequences in this film.

-The fight sequences as well as the torture sequence are brutally violent, something that really sets this movie apart from some of the other Bond films in the series. The violence is intense, visceral, and disturbing – the only real violence in the novel is the torture scene, and the film version adheres closely to what is in the novel.

-In the book Le Chiffre is a Russian agent whose mismanagement of money (generally speaking) leads to SMERSH wanting to assassinate him for betrayal. In the film Le Chiffre is a private banker to terrorists who gets entangled with a mysterious organization whose liason is Mr. White (Jesper Christensen). SMERSH is never mentioned in the movie and is not the mysterious organization.

-In the novel the high stakes card game was baccarat. In the movie it was updated to Texas Hold ‘Em. Additionally, while Mathis is not implied to be a double agent in the book, in the film version he is suspected of being (at least) an informant for Le Chiffre.

-Perhaps the biggest change between the novel and the film is the motivation behind the ‘forging’ of Bond’s identity. In both the book and film Bond falls in love with Vesper and decides to leave the service and marry her. In the book the two of them take a holiday in France; as his feelings for her grow and as he firms in his resolve to marry her, Vesper behaves more and more erratically. She also fears that she and Bond are being followed by someone with an eye patch; when Bond reveals he wants to marry her, she tells him the truth about who she is (albeit through a suicide note). This hurts Bond, but it hurts him more that she confessed to being a double agent/spy, forced to work as such in order to keep her lover alive. He now sees her only as a spy and wants to rid the world of the evil SMERSH. In the film Vesper makes a deal with Mr. White and his organization to turn over the money that Le Chiffre owed them (the winnings of the card game) in exchange for their lives. Bond discovers this and takes it as a personal betrayal (“The bitch is dead (now)” is a line of dialogue in both the book and film). The job is done and he moves on to track down Mr. White and the organization he serves based on a clue Vesper leaves on the phone. While this is a slight change of motivation (betrayal of country versus personal betrayal), I feel the change is significant, especially in the film version since Bond is immature and a loose cannon of sorts at the start of his career. I found both ways moving because Vesper did engage in an act of self-sacrifice in each instance. I thought the added poignancy of David Arnold’s music and M’s discussion with Bond after Vesper’s suicide to be very cinematically effective.

-The book does not have the gadgetry in it that many of the film did; instead, it sticks closely to the novel and avoids Bond’s advantageous gadgetry (though oddly enough the villains in the book have an ‘equipped’ car as well as a cane that doubles as a gun). In the film all Bond really has is a defibrillator device in his car (super-convenient…lol…), but that is the only real gadget I can think of.

When all is said and done, I do not really prefer the book or the movie over the other. Both are entertaining, and I am really happy that the film adhered closely to the book. Even though Daniel Craig’s tenure as Bond ended on a sour note for me, I will always maintain that his portrayal of Bond in this film is tops and one of my favorites out of all the films in the Bond canon.

[mkaroly]

LIVE AND LET DIE by Ian Fleming (1954, 229 pages). James Bond is sent to the USA to work with his pal Felix Leiter from the CIA in order to stop SMERSH agent Mr. Big from smuggling Bloody Morgan’s lost treasure of gold coins out of Jamaica. Bond’s enemy is highly intelligent and ruthless, using Voodoo to instill fear in his minions; Bond gets captured by Mr. Big in Harlem and has to make an escape, but not before meeting Mr. Big’s beautiful prisoner Solitaire who has a gift for knowing if a person is telling the truth or lying. She and Bond end up escaping from Harlem and traveling together to Florida, though Mr. Big’s network reaches much further than Bond knows. This novel is pretty much a direct sequel to CASINO ROYALE, for Bond is chomping at the bit to get back at SMERSH after his last (first) adventure. To be honest, I found this book to be rather uneventful (though there are some well written suspenseful moments that are truly disturbing). It is not Fleming’s best…and it isn’t his best plot either. I imagine Mr. Big is using the gold coins he is smuggling to finance SMERSH operations, but it isn’t all that exciting of a motivation. In addition, the book is full of racial stereotypes (not to mention some cringe worthy terminologies), so it is an uncomfortable read (to say the least). LIVE AND LET DIE was made into a movie starring Roger Moore as James Bond (his first time playing the role); however, it is interesting to note that two sequences found in the book ended up in different Bond films: the worm-and-bait factory that is a front for Mr. Big’s operation on Florida ended up in LICENSE TO KILL, and Mr. Big’s attempt to eliminate Bond and Solitaire (by dragging them behind a boat over the coral reefs so they would be eaten by sharks and barracuda) ended up in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Fleming has written better.

Speaking of the movie, Roger Moore's turn as Bond beginning in 1973 was, in my opinion, a significant departure from the character of the books. Moore's Bond is more gentlemanly, more classy, more suave...and more smarmy. LIVE AND LET DIE as a movie is pretty light compared to the book which itself is rather dark and serious. To its credit the film does (thankfully) jettison the Bloody Morgan backdrop of Ian Fleming's story. Instead of being a SMERSH operative, Mr. Big/Kananga is a drug lord who seeks to take over the heroin market by giving away $2 billion worth of the drug for free, thereby driving out the competition and clearing the way for a monopoly in the future. He uses voodoo occultism as a means to scare people away. Yaphet Kotto captured the quiet intelligence (and psychosis) of Mr. Big quite well - I am impressed by his performance. The film's story uses some of the first part of Fleming's novel when Bond and Leiter are in Harlem, and throughout the film some of the situations (such as the ending) are merely variations of the story in the book. As mentioned above, two big sequences found in the book were used in later Bond films. LIVE AND LET DIE boasts a few fun action sequences - the double-decker bus sequence, the crocodile farm sequence, and the boat chase scene with J.W. Pepper (Clifton James). To be honest, upon watching the film again I feel the Pepper stuff makes the film too comedic. I thought the intensity of the boat chase sequence (instead of the usual car chase sequence) was enough on its own. I suppose my issue with the film is that I never felt like Bond was in real danger because the tone was so 'comedic' (unlike my feelings while reading the novel). That tone played well to Moore's strengths as an actor, and while his Bond films are entertaining, I find that I prefer them less and less as time goes on. Be that as it may, LALD was a good introduction to the Moore interpretation of Bond.

[Eric Paddon]

The other element of "Live And Let Die" the book that made it into a later movie was of course Leiter's maiming by the sharks and the "He disagreed with something that ate him" note. The Leiter of the novels always had a steel hook and wooden leg after that, and uber-Fleming purist Raymond Benson would always bitch about the fact that none of the cinema Leiters were ever shown with a steel hook and wooden leg (even though there was no reason for doing so!) Amusingly, when John Gardner wrote his novelization of "License To Kill" he actually felt the need to say this was the *second* time this had happened to Leiter because he was determined to harmonize it with the literary Bond universe.

[mkaroly]

There are spoilers ahead if you have not seen the movie...

THE SEA WOLF by Jack London (1904). Told from a first person point of view, literary critic Humphrey van Weyden is on his way back home from a meeting with a friend when the ferry he is sailing on gets into an accident with another boat in San Francisco. He is picked up by a ship called the Ghost which is sailing far out to sea in order to hunt seals. Rather than taking him back to San Francisco, the ship’s Scandinavian captain, Wolf Larsen, makes him cabin-boy due to the loss of his first mate. Before long van Weyden discovers that the Ghost’s crew hates Larsen, and that Larsen himself is a particularly despicable man – one who leads by abuse, violence, and intimidation. Much to van Weyden’s surprise, Larsen is well read (self-taught) and highly intelligent; when Larsen discovers that van Weyden is a literary critic, he engages with him in philosophy. As the crew journeys toward the seal hunting grounds van Weyden learns the ins and outs of being a crew member on a ship, eventually rising in the ranks. The Ghost comes upon and rescues some survivors from another shipwreck, one of whom is writer Maud Brewster, with whom van Weyden falls madly in love. Eventually the two look for an opportunity to escape from Larsen’s tyranny in order to go off and build a life of their own together.

London’s book is a really entertaining read, though it took me a few chapters to get comfortable with the writing style. I feel as if London’s story has many layers to it which contribute to the book’s continuing popularity and success. For one, it is adventurous. While I have no experience on or knowledge of ships, London’s writing vividly describes the perils and beauty of the sea and sailing. Second, I enjoyed the philosophical debates in the book between Larsen and van Weyden (and later Miss Brewster). While very heavy-handed, these discussions paint the picture of two radically different sides to life: one is amoral and self-serving ‘survival of the fittest’ in nature (Larsen) while the other is moral and selfless in its ethics (van Weyden and Miss Brewster). The philosophical viewpoints of these three characters contributed significantly to what I feel is the central story in the novel: van Weyden’s growth and discovery of himself. Before meeting Larsen, van Weyden is quite ‘weak’ – both physically and experientially. He is cerebral but not much else. Under Larsen’s tyranny van Weyden is forced to ‘become a man’ and mature in ways he could have never done otherwise. And in the face of being pushed to the edge by Larsen’s amorality, van Weyden’s ethic wins out – he does not succumb to Larsen’s way of looking at things. Both remain true to their philosophies to the very end, and perhaps Larsen’s only ‘positive’ trait is in teaching van Weyden something about himself. Another thing I really enjoyed about the book is the turn of the century romance between van Weyden and Miss Brewster – writers back then knew how to describe romantic affections in very poetic and lyrical ways. While it can be quite goofy at times, I have to confess that I have an unapologetic affection for that type of romantic writing style. All in all this was a really fun book to read – classic and satisfying.

THE SEA WOLF has been adapted into several movies and TV shows throughout the decades. The one adaptation I watched was the 1941 film (100 minute version) directed by Michael Curtiz starring Edward G. Robinson as Wolf Larsen, John Garfield as George Leach, Ida Lupino as Ruth Webster (aka Maude Webster aka Ruth Brewster), and Alexander Knox as Humphrey van Weyden. The screenplay updated the source material for a more contemporary audience at the time, so while the film is faithful to the book at times, at other times it comes off as more ‘inspired by’ the book. I enjoyed the film but definitely not as much as I enjoyed the book. Two things really stood out to me where the film was concerned – Robinson’s brilliant performance as Wolf Larsen, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s outstanding score. I thought Robinson captured Larsen’s amorality and tyrannical tendencies well; Korngold’s score is just beautiful to me. The primary reason I did not enjoy the film was due to a major plot change that was not as dramatically satisfying as the book, to be discussed presently.

In the movie, George Leach is on the run from the law. He is a criminal who chooses to join the Ghost’s crew in order to escape the authorities. Ruth Webster is an escaped convict from a women’s prison – she crosses paths with van Weyden in San Francisco and is brought on board the Ghost along with van Weyden after their ferry, the Martinez, is shipwrecked. Van Weyden (as portrayed by Alexander Knox) is stiff and very ‘British’; Larsen’s relationship with him is intellectual. Leach rebels against Larsen’s authority and antagonizes him, so their relationship is much more antagonistic. The romantic element of the story focuses on Leach and Webster since they are both criminals who want to start over again. Van Weyden plays “matchmaker” of a sort and enables them both to escape the clutches of Wolf Larsen by sacrificing himself on their behalf. At the end of the movie Leach and Webster escape the doomed Ghost and go on to start a new life together. I just did not find this story arc to be as compelling as London’s story arc in the novel. I do not want to give the ending of the novel away, so suffice it to say that everything I just described above is not a part of the novel’s story arc. While I know I am supposed to view Leach and Webster sympathetically and rejoice at their chance at redemption, I just do not connect with it (maybe some of that has to do with Lupino’s over-acting at times, IMO).

There were other minor changes the film made to the source material – for one, in the film Wolf Larsen is a seal poacher…he and his crew really come off as modern day pirates in the film. I did not get this impression at all while reading the novel. If anything, Wolf Larsen reminded me somewhat of Captain Ahab in MOBY DICK…though obviously they are different characters. In the film there is a physician named Louis J. Prescott (Gene Lockhart) who is a drunk and lost his private practice. When he sobers up enough to set up a successful blood transfusion between Leach and Webster in order to save her life, he finds his self-confidence again…only to be mocked and knocked down by Larsen and his crew. His character is not in the book and serves as a way to show Larsen’s cruelty while at the same time foreshadowing the eventual redemption of Leach and Webster (to an extent…I am probably stretching the point here). The film has a noir-ish quality to it which is not at all how the book reads. In the end, the film has entertainment value but is not as entertaining or satisfying as the book to me.

[mkaroly]

MOONRAKER by Ian Fleming (1955, 247 pages). Sir Hugo Drax, a British national war hero, is in the final stages of building a new ICBM for England called the Moonraker. Everyone is proud and excited about the new weapon and cannot wait for it to be tested…but M is suspicious of Drax because it seems that despite his wealth and popularity he cheats at cards. M enlists the aid of James Bond to privately expose Drax as a card cheater (which he does). Not long afterward one of Drax’s security officers is found dead; James Bond gets the opportunity to join Drax’s team where he meets Gala Brand, Drax’s secretary (she is secretly working for Scotland Yard). She and Bond both have suspicions about Drax and his group, especially after an attempt is made on their lives. Eventually they both discover that the Moonraker is not everything it seems to be…and neither is Sir Hugo Drax. This is Fleming’s third Bond novel, and up to this point I would argue it is his best. The novel explores more of Bond’s internal character – his focus, competitiveness, vindictiveness, and killer instinct – as well as his mundane day to day routine. The novel is gripping and suspenseful, and Drax is a fantastically evil villain. As the plot advances you will probably figure out what Drax is, but even discovering what he is will not take away from the thrill of this story. I found the ending interesting and powerful as well – unexpected, and yet cold…like Bond himself.

The 1979 film starring Roger Moore as 007 has little to do with the novel outside of using its title and a couple of general themes. MOONRAKER remains a guilty favorite Bond film for me because it probably contains my favorite John Barry Bond score out of them all. I find this score ridiculously melodic and romantic – from the space docking sequence to the murder of Corrine to the title theme (probably my favorite Bond song of them all as well), Barry’s lush score really gives a glowing polish to a movie which, in my opinion, is absurd and silly to an almost annoying degree at times. To be fair, the cheeky and smarmy humor was part and parcel with Moore’s portrayal of Bond – the exact opposite of Fleming’s character in the novels. The story itself tried to cash in on the science fiction craze at the time, though the special effects were not up to task (at least not with the space fight sequence). Lonsdale’s Drax is quiet and deadly, a megalomaniac for sure but not all that interesting. And Bond gets to use way too many gadgets in this film. I also felt that the story was built around sequences rather than the sequences flowing out of the story for the most part (if that makes any sense). So for me, the film has a lot of flaws…but Barry’s score makes it watchable.

*** MAJOR SPOILERS ON THE NOVEL PAST THIS POINT***
The two general themes that carry over from the novel are that Dr. Holly Goodhead is a plant in Drax’s workforce by the CIA (in the novel Gala Brand is a plant from Scotland Yard). The second has to do with Drax’s motivations…kind of. In the novel Drax is an ex-Nazi who wants to get revenge against England for Germany’s defeat in the war. He assumes the name Hugo Drax through a series of events and builds his fortunes, working in league with the Russians to make the Moonraker. His intention is to install an atomic warhead in the Moonraker and destroy London. The Drax in the film wants to create a super-race of human beings after eradicating the population of the earth – he will be the super-race’s god. The novel’s Drax is immensely hateful because he is a Nazi, and Fleming pulls no punches in making him extremely dislikeable (from his appearance to his motivations). The novel’s Drax is a far more sinister villain, perhaps because Naziism still exists today (and for that reason alone, the makers of Bond films can totally remake MOONRAKER into something closer to the source material if they chose to do so). The filmic Drax really has nothing to do with Naziism at all aside from the “master-race” concept that is not developed to a significant degree. In the end, the book is a hundred times better than the film and worth reading even if you know what happens.

[AndyDursin]

Love the review Michael, it takes me back to the JAMES BOND BEDSIDE COMPANION which was one of my favorite books growing up. Raymond Benson did a wonderful job analyzing all the films and books up to its publication (mid 80s), and doing a full comparison of the books to film, usually understanding that some of Fleming's later stories/books were unadaptable, and that the Broccolis were wise to take the title and usually not much else from them.

If you can grab a copy I'm sure you'd enjoy it (been out of print for years though).

[Eric Paddon]

You can get the Kindle version for just $4. There was a lot of interesting stuff in it, but Benson was such an uber-Fleming purist he would rant over the fact that none of the Felix Leiters of the Connery Bonds were ever shown with a steel hook and wooden leg.

It's not too widely known but because the movie versions of "Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker" had next to nothing to do with their source material, Christopher Wood the credited screenwriter did two move tie-in novelizations of those films based on the scripts. I have them but haven't looked at them in years. I do remember that some of the worst puns in "Moonraker" weren't in the novelization and in the scene where Bond exposes Holly as working for the CIA he makes a reference to Felix Leiter.