Films that are better than the Novels they were adapting?
Jimmy Bond
Posts: 324MI6 Agent
At least supposedly, in some cases.
For instance, I think Goldfinger is marginally better than the novel, and FRWL improves on the organization not being SMERSH but actually SPECTRE, as it both broadens SPECTRE's scope and reach and also doesn't actively demonize the USSR, making it LESS propagandistic (instead of being just mildly doing so).
What are your takes? Do you think some of them are better than Fleming's original text?
For instance, I think Goldfinger is marginally better than the novel, and FRWL improves on the organization not being SMERSH but actually SPECTRE, as it both broadens SPECTRE's scope and reach and also doesn't actively demonize the USSR, making it LESS propagandistic (instead of being just mildly doing so).
What are your takes? Do you think some of them are better than Fleming's original text?
Comments
These old threads may be of interest:
https://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/28882/goldfinger-film-better-than-the-novel/
https://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/35924/ohmss-do-you-prefer-the-book-or-the-film/
OK, to help traffic on the thread, here's my comparison:
DR.NO --> Book=Film
FRWL --> Book<Film, although the cliffhanger's better in the book
GF --> Book<Film
TB --> Book>Film (film is rather rushed, IMO)
YOLT --> Book>Film (what the **** was Cubby thinking?)
OHMSS --> Book=Film (though I prefer the film, the book allows me to think of Connery instead)
DAF --> Book>Film (what was Cubby thinking?)
LALD --> Book>Film (what was Harry thinking? I like the film but, you know..)
TMWTGG --> Book>Film (both are weak, Scaramanga's better realized by Lee, but the rest is trash, and we all know it)
TSWLM --> Book<Film
MR --> Book>Film (what the **** was Cubby thinking?)
NSNA --> Book<Film (sorry, but I'm not a huge fan of the book, personally)
CR --> Book>Film (sorry, but the first third is basically pointless)
None of the films qualify, post-MR for me, because their aim is to generally try and fit the Flemings elements in the occassional original plots. The only one that could qualify is TLD, which is undoubtable better than the short story because its basically that very short story, but expanded upon greatly...
... actually, now that I think about it, there is DAD to consider, which is a very loose adaptation of DAD. Fleming's MR is still better by default, but DAD is also a lot better than Cubby's MR, so take that as you will.
I think you mean
For Your Eyes Only does a clever job of segueing the book's two strongest stories into a random episodic and ultimately pointless adventure that contrasts strongly with the epic story structures that preceded it (which I think is a hella-cool achievement), and the film's new content is better than the three stories left out, so...
book < film
This is the best of the films based on the short stories.
Octopussy reduces the title story to a bit of exposition and instead adapts the inferior auction story as its opening act. So the Octopussy-story content hardly counts, but it does improve Property of a Lady. Not as good as the previous movie, but Fleming's book was a skimpy collection of leftovers, so...
book < film
A View to a Kill doesn't even try to represent the story it was named after. Impossible comparison.
The Living Daylights does a clever job of extending the best of the Octopussy stories into a grey byzantine Cold War thriller. so...
book < film
This is the second best of the films based on the short stories.
Quantum of Solace. see a View to a Kill.
unless you count the closing scene as an adaptation of 007 in New York, the slightest of all James Bond stories, but that's maybe two unremarkable minutes at the end of a mostly frustrating film .
also: there's a very loose adaptation of the Hildebrandt Rarity in the middle of License to Kill, but rambling and unrecognisable, and I do like that short story even if it isn't a proper spy story, so...
book > film
and I happen to think the death of Mr White in SPECTRE is a version of the Octopussy story: Bond confronts a villain in his own home and gives him a chance to commit suicide. But that scene is so unpleasant and part of a generally troublesome film, and the prose equivalent was a well written short story, so ...
book > film
the Spy Who Loved Me is the ultimate example … are we comparing Horror's metal teeth vs Jaws' metal teeth (in which case Jaws > Horror). or are we are comparing an oddball experimental and once-controversial Fleming book vs the Bond film that perfected the formula and gave it epic scope? Except for the coincidence of the titles it's a completely random comparison, and I think not valid.
The film immediately before and the film immediately after are almost as extreme in their irrelevance to what Fleming wrote. What specific content in the film can be compared to something in Fleming's books?
Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die adapt maybe less than 25%.
We should try to identify the specific scenes in those books and compare them to specific chapters from Fleming, eg which version of LaLD has the better Harlem sequence, or which DaF has the best Tiffany's apartment sequence? (I say the Fleming version in both cases)
and I say this because there are many later films in which solid chunks of Fleming suddenly appear unannounced, starting with major sequences from LaLD (book) in both For Your Eyes Only (film) and License to Kill. If we acknowledge Die Another Day contains more Moonraker than Moonraker, we must also acknowledge these.
is the keelhauling sequence in the FYEO film better or worse than the LaLD book?
personally I think the ending of Fleming's book is more outrageous and grotesque, so for this scene...
book > film
or A View to a Kill film may ignore the short story, but has that long section in Zorin's stables that I think corresponds to the Saratoga chapters from the Diamonds are Forever book. Tibbet basically replaces Leiter. It is at least as close an adaptation as most of the officially adapted Fleming content in Moore's films.
and since those Saratoga chapters are kinda boring, and the Moore+MacNee teamup is lotsa fun...
book < film
Ways in which EON improved upon Fleming?
in which Seahawk listed minor changes to even the most faithful film adaptations that fixed plotholes in Fleming's book, or made implicitly good ideas more explicitly cinematic.
There are obviously various changes to Goldfinger that improve the story, despite following the plot structure so closely.
But also smaller things like Tracy playing damsel in distress at the end of OHMSS, which (a) gives Rigg more screentime and (2) ties the novel's two plot-threads more closely together.
Given so many of the films simply don't follow the plot of the novels it's a fun, but almost pointless, exercise to compare one to the other. Of the one's which do (DN, FRWL, GF, TB, OHMSS, NSNA, CR) I can only say:
I rate the film of GF very highly, but the book is a slow read after the mid-point, most of the changes for the film improve the cohesion of the story, so it works.
TB is also a particularly dull novel; a lot of the best scenes don't feature OO7. I enjoy the movies pace and assurance, even when the storyline (like that of the book) fails to gel. Given both book and film suffer from terrible plot issues, the fact I enjoy the action and the sexy & very sixties dialogue more leads me to think this film too is an improvement. NSNA? Hmm, based on my reasoning above, I'd probably say it only just about out paces the book, but only just. NSNA also has a fair few dull moments.
While OHMSS is a very good book - the opening chapter is particularly fine - the film has more urgency and irons out some continuity and motivation issues better than Fleming's version.
That was a plot element Fleming gleefully returned to in his last Bond novel TMWTGG where Scaramanga hires Bond (in the guise of Mark Hazard) as security for his hood's congress (which also featured in the GF novel). It is true though that Fleming was sadly out of puff by that stage, as he admitted himself to his editor at Cape, William Plomer.
I did find funny how long it took me to notice that Licence To Kill was an adaptation of Golden Gun!
I like the beginning of OHMSS, where in the book various scenes are told in flashback, with the narrative suddenly flashing forward through time and then back again. Whereas the film shows the same events in the same order, but shows them happening chronologically one after the other with no flashbacks, and it makes no difference to the story!
NSNA does give Bond slightly more reason to actually go and investigate Domino as I remember, although I can’t wuitecremebervwgy. In TB his reasons for going to Nassau are a bit tenuous.
They aren't explained at all, as I remember. Bond simply says, "I saw this man at Shrublands and he was dead" [or something like it] and M says "Do you think she's worth going after?" Cue a one-liner from Bond and off he jets....
Really haphazard scripting....
Are you sure? I don’t think that’s right.
Nope, he's called Elliott for copyright reasons (I'll explain that if you want?) though clearly he's filling Tanner's part.
On a related, but tangible note, Elliott does seem like a stuck-up twit in the film, always trying to prove good by Ed Fox's M.
The Fleming purist might say, "The film is totally different from the book!" but I have to side with the filmmakers that they took some choice bits of the novel and elaborated on them:
The Golden Gun - Not much more than gold plating on a regular gun, but in the film one of the coolest and iconic enemy gadgets.
The third nipple- Not a factor in the book, but used to great effect in the film with Bond's bold move to pose as Scaramanga.
Other modifications like changing the location from Jamaica to Thailand were a big improvement, considering we have already been to Jamaica in Dr. No.
The film also manages to retain a fair amount of Fleming almost verbatim from the novel. Scaramanga's backstory with the circus and his elephant and his routine of making love to improve his aim before a kill.
Overall, I love the film version, but find the novel well worth reading and a good introduction to the literary Bond. Cold showers, loves breakfast and smokes 25 cigarettes a day.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Good call. I highlighted those bits but forgot to mention them.
“Something’s that tight in all the right places. Not too many buttons”
“The buttons are down the back. This is standard uniform for a tropical station.”
“I can just see Q branch dreaming it up. I suppose one of the pearls had a death pill in it.”
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Michael Wilson denies License to Kill has anything to do with Man with the Golden Gun, and he's as official as it gets.
Yet plot point by plot point, once Bond arrives in Isthmus City, License to Kill parallels Bond's pursuit of Scaramanga through Jamaica much more closely than the Roger Moore movie.
Jamaica was also used for the locations in Live and Let Die even though the dialog calls it something else, theyd never use the same exotic foreign location for two films in a row (unless it was Italy).
They were planning on adapting the book as early as the mid60s, did they have all these changes in mind then?
Wilson also said that Licence to Kill was partly inspired by Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which involves a samurai playing two gangs against each other. In the same way, Bond pursues and manipulates Sanchez by turning him against his allies. Kurosawa was later copied by Sergio Leone, and Kurosawa himself admitted to copying the concept from one of Dashiell Hammett's books (either Red Harvest or The Glass Key).
A second consideration: though Wilson denied TMWTGG's influence on LTK, Richard Maibaum might have thought differently. Though Maibaum was prevented by the writers' strike from working on the final draft, the film was entirely plotted by him and Wilson.