A lot of films are based on books, that's a given. Some are so very loosely based on the original novel that you wonder why they bothered citing the novel (e.g. the recent 'Bourne' films which trampled all over Robert Ludlum's trilogy) but there are others which are a fair bit more faithful.
Here are just three, which cover the spectrum between them. Warlock, The Secret Ways/The Last Frontier and Fort Starvation (Backlash). If you haven't seen the movies, stop reading now. I won't be responsible for spoilers!
Warlock, by Oakley Hall, is one of the best novels I've read in a long time and it isn't just me saying that either; it was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 1958. Given that the film was made then, the film-makers must have been lying in wait for it, snapping it up before the print was dry. It's such a gem of a book. The biggest compliment I can pay it is that it, like a great artist in paint, really captures the light. The descriptions are never overdone, but there's such a sense of place, this little backwater town with its two ranges of mountains in the distance, the mines and the miners, the hotels and the whores, and of course the tension between the decent folk - the shop-keepers, the doctor and Miss Jessie - and the badmen, the McQuown gang who come into town and raise hell every now and then because they can.
Gannon is a tragic figure who blows back into town because he has nowhere else to go. He tried to go straight, getting a job on the telegraph, but lost his apprenticeship when his master died. The person he fears most is Cade, and with very good reason. As in the film, he's haunted by the evil done in his past and in both, his reputation as having been a San Pabloite also haunts him so that the only job he's able to get is as Deputy - though in the novel it's the Second Deputy so he does get to team up with someone, if only for a little while. There's a whole other story there involving Curley Burne, and it's a shame that wasn't developed in the film.
The film is, of necessity, a much simpler thing than the novel. You don't get the crowds of striking miners (in fact when you see a crowd in the film you might not know they were miners), you don't get the troops riding in or indeed the townsfolk leaving to see justice done for the cowboys, or when Blaidesdell turns himself in. In fact with the exception of the scene where Gannon confronts the gang at San Pablo, no-one leaves Warlock, which adds to the sense of claustrophobia and entrapment. But the characters are pretty close to the novel, especially Curley Burne, one of my favourites, so well played by De Forrest Kelly. (That speech Curley makes to Blaidesdell in the saloon when they first meet? - lifted straight from the novel.)
There are some name changes (I've no idea why Kate had to become Lily instead though changing Goodpasture might have seemed sensible). There are several character omissions, not least Dad McQuown. Most of the changes you can accept; if they made a film true to the novel it'd be like 'Lord of the Rings' and go on for ever; and as it stands it's OK. Possibly the greatest mistake was to take out the scene where Billy Gannon visits Johnny the night before the shootout and Johnny tries to argue Billy out of his course of action. The conversation between McQuown and Gannon at San Pablo then makes a lot more sense, whereas in the film the logic doesn't really stand up. So the novel is miles better but don't knock the film; it's good enough. Fonda's Blaidesdell is more straightfoward and less conflicted than written, and you don't really get the full sense of Morgan's terrible ennui or Miss Jessie's sheer bitchiness. And much as I love Richard Widmark, he was a bit on the old side to be playing Johnny Gannon; yes he could always pass for ten years younger than he was but even that's pushing it (Johnny's about in his mid-twenties and Billy, nicknamed 'The Kid', just nineteen).
But do read the novel! Get it now! It's brilliant and has a desperately sad ending, and that's something I won't spoil for you.
And now to 1961 and a different kind of claustrophobia; the noir world of Communist Hungary in Alistair MacLean's The Secret Ways (UK title; The Last Frontier) another really excellent novel, now also quickly becoming historical.
In the film, Reynolds is an ambiguous character; you're never sure if he's an international spy (as he claims once, though not in a way to be taken seriously), a gangster (as Julia accuses him of being) or an adventurer who just needs the money. Probably the latter. He's also very obviously very American.
MacLean's Reynolds is a spy, a highly-trained and extremely dangerous British soldier sent to Hungary in great secrecy and in the depths of winter. He's even fluent in Hungarian, without an accent. But the mission of both Reynolds' is the same; to find the freedom fighter Jansci and extract him. Widmark's Reynolds has an easier time, though he does get roughed up a fair bit. You certainly get the sense of high tension when he's hauled into the cellars and neither you nor he are quite sure what side his captors are on.
But in the book it's even worse and the opening chapter is incredibly tense. It's also here that we meet the charismatic, charming and chameleon-like person of the Count. Without his aid, Reynolds would have ended his days in one of the more notorious prison camps. MacLean doesn't skimp on the detail of the awful conditions and torture endured under that regime. Jansci has terribly mutilated hands, so badly damaged that Reynolds thinks it would be better to have had them amputated. And Jansci speaks mildly about how he found the bodies of his remaining family, who had been buried alive. "You can tell these things..." he says. It doesn't bear thinking about, but we must not forget that for many, this horror was not fiction but a reality, and by refusing to forget, hope that this kind of rule of terror will never happen again.
There's a lot of philosophy in the novel. Whilst they're on the run, Jansci has a lot of time to talk, and he's a saintly and forgiving figure, despite all that's been done to him. There is great danger, and double crossing and intrigue and a huge amount of suspense. That episode in the film where Jansci and Reynolds are drugged in the prison camp in order to make them talk? Taken from the novel.
Reynolds is an incredibly tough character, but even he stands in awe of Jansci, this inspiring figure, so much so that he turns his back on all his training and his life up to that point and commits himself to Jansci's cause, determined to stay in Hungary and fight alongside him. But there's Julia ... and the love interest ... and though MacLean kept things very decent and proper, that was the way things had to go; not quite a happy ending, but not terrible either, just bittersweet.
Read it if you can! The Last Frontier is available on Kindle apparently (I've managed to get hold of an old paperback copy from the US). And enjoy the film for what it is; it's never had good reviews but I rather like it.
Last and very much least, to the novel behind my favourite Western Backlash. If you've seen the film, you'll know the premise of the gold said to have been stashed away, and of the gang of men who were starved out and killed by the Apaches. That gives the title of the book, Fort Starvation by pulp fiction and Western author Frank Gruber.
For a little novel, it's remarkably complicated, and quite hard to follow. John (not Jim) Slater chases all over the US, it feels like, rather than being confined to the area between Texas and Arizona, as in the film. There are characters in the book you think can identify directly in the film but then you find out there are others too; for example, there is a Sergeant Lake and a Johnny Cool but the film character of each is made up of at least two, if not three, book characters. What I found most interesting was that in the novel, Slater had never before encountered barbed wire, a source of great conflict between the great ranchers and the small homestead farmers (who were, apparently, regarded as little better than squatters and who used the new invention to protect their crops from the otherwise free-ranging herds of cattle.) In this book, as in Warlock, there's far more sense of people in large numbers, the resulting conflicts, and the restless, fast-changing society of the Western frontier.
Never mind the story being so complicated, it also lacks any kind of plot twist; the bad guy you meet at the start is the bad guy and was all along and Slater's father really did die at Fort Starvation. So in this instance, I won't recommend the novel and absolutely come down on the side of the film. Sorry, Mr Gruber.
Here are just three, which cover the spectrum between them. Warlock, The Secret Ways/The Last Frontier and Fort Starvation (Backlash). If you haven't seen the movies, stop reading now. I won't be responsible for spoilers!
Warlock, by Oakley Hall, is one of the best novels I've read in a long time and it isn't just me saying that either; it was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 1958. Given that the film was made then, the film-makers must have been lying in wait for it, snapping it up before the print was dry. It's such a gem of a book. The biggest compliment I can pay it is that it, like a great artist in paint, really captures the light. The descriptions are never overdone, but there's such a sense of place, this little backwater town with its two ranges of mountains in the distance, the mines and the miners, the hotels and the whores, and of course the tension between the decent folk - the shop-keepers, the doctor and Miss Jessie - and the badmen, the McQuown gang who come into town and raise hell every now and then because they can.
Gannon is a tragic figure who blows back into town because he has nowhere else to go. He tried to go straight, getting a job on the telegraph, but lost his apprenticeship when his master died. The person he fears most is Cade, and with very good reason. As in the film, he's haunted by the evil done in his past and in both, his reputation as having been a San Pabloite also haunts him so that the only job he's able to get is as Deputy - though in the novel it's the Second Deputy so he does get to team up with someone, if only for a little while. There's a whole other story there involving Curley Burne, and it's a shame that wasn't developed in the film.
The film is, of necessity, a much simpler thing than the novel. You don't get the crowds of striking miners (in fact when you see a crowd in the film you might not know they were miners), you don't get the troops riding in or indeed the townsfolk leaving to see justice done for the cowboys, or when Blaidesdell turns himself in. In fact with the exception of the scene where Gannon confronts the gang at San Pablo, no-one leaves Warlock, which adds to the sense of claustrophobia and entrapment. But the characters are pretty close to the novel, especially Curley Burne, one of my favourites, so well played by De Forrest Kelly. (That speech Curley makes to Blaidesdell in the saloon when they first meet? - lifted straight from the novel.)
There are some name changes (I've no idea why Kate had to become Lily instead though changing Goodpasture might have seemed sensible). There are several character omissions, not least Dad McQuown. Most of the changes you can accept; if they made a film true to the novel it'd be like 'Lord of the Rings' and go on for ever; and as it stands it's OK. Possibly the greatest mistake was to take out the scene where Billy Gannon visits Johnny the night before the shootout and Johnny tries to argue Billy out of his course of action. The conversation between McQuown and Gannon at San Pablo then makes a lot more sense, whereas in the film the logic doesn't really stand up. So the novel is miles better but don't knock the film; it's good enough. Fonda's Blaidesdell is more straightfoward and less conflicted than written, and you don't really get the full sense of Morgan's terrible ennui or Miss Jessie's sheer bitchiness. And much as I love Richard Widmark, he was a bit on the old side to be playing Johnny Gannon; yes he could always pass for ten years younger than he was but even that's pushing it (Johnny's about in his mid-twenties and Billy, nicknamed 'The Kid', just nineteen).
But do read the novel! Get it now! It's brilliant and has a desperately sad ending, and that's something I won't spoil for you.
And now to 1961 and a different kind of claustrophobia; the noir world of Communist Hungary in Alistair MacLean's The Secret Ways (UK title; The Last Frontier) another really excellent novel, now also quickly becoming historical.
In the film, Reynolds is an ambiguous character; you're never sure if he's an international spy (as he claims once, though not in a way to be taken seriously), a gangster (as Julia accuses him of being) or an adventurer who just needs the money. Probably the latter. He's also very obviously very American.
MacLean's Reynolds is a spy, a highly-trained and extremely dangerous British soldier sent to Hungary in great secrecy and in the depths of winter. He's even fluent in Hungarian, without an accent. But the mission of both Reynolds' is the same; to find the freedom fighter Jansci and extract him. Widmark's Reynolds has an easier time, though he does get roughed up a fair bit. You certainly get the sense of high tension when he's hauled into the cellars and neither you nor he are quite sure what side his captors are on.
But in the book it's even worse and the opening chapter is incredibly tense. It's also here that we meet the charismatic, charming and chameleon-like person of the Count. Without his aid, Reynolds would have ended his days in one of the more notorious prison camps. MacLean doesn't skimp on the detail of the awful conditions and torture endured under that regime. Jansci has terribly mutilated hands, so badly damaged that Reynolds thinks it would be better to have had them amputated. And Jansci speaks mildly about how he found the bodies of his remaining family, who had been buried alive. "You can tell these things..." he says. It doesn't bear thinking about, but we must not forget that for many, this horror was not fiction but a reality, and by refusing to forget, hope that this kind of rule of terror will never happen again.
There's a lot of philosophy in the novel. Whilst they're on the run, Jansci has a lot of time to talk, and he's a saintly and forgiving figure, despite all that's been done to him. There is great danger, and double crossing and intrigue and a huge amount of suspense. That episode in the film where Jansci and Reynolds are drugged in the prison camp in order to make them talk? Taken from the novel.
Reynolds is an incredibly tough character, but even he stands in awe of Jansci, this inspiring figure, so much so that he turns his back on all his training and his life up to that point and commits himself to Jansci's cause, determined to stay in Hungary and fight alongside him. But there's Julia ... and the love interest ... and though MacLean kept things very decent and proper, that was the way things had to go; not quite a happy ending, but not terrible either, just bittersweet.
Read it if you can! The Last Frontier is available on Kindle apparently (I've managed to get hold of an old paperback copy from the US). And enjoy the film for what it is; it's never had good reviews but I rather like it.
Last and very much least, to the novel behind my favourite Western Backlash. If you've seen the film, you'll know the premise of the gold said to have been stashed away, and of the gang of men who were starved out and killed by the Apaches. That gives the title of the book, Fort Starvation by pulp fiction and Western author Frank Gruber.
For a little novel, it's remarkably complicated, and quite hard to follow. John (not Jim) Slater chases all over the US, it feels like, rather than being confined to the area between Texas and Arizona, as in the film. There are characters in the book you think can identify directly in the film but then you find out there are others too; for example, there is a Sergeant Lake and a Johnny Cool but the film character of each is made up of at least two, if not three, book characters. What I found most interesting was that in the novel, Slater had never before encountered barbed wire, a source of great conflict between the great ranchers and the small homestead farmers (who were, apparently, regarded as little better than squatters and who used the new invention to protect their crops from the otherwise free-ranging herds of cattle.) In this book, as in Warlock, there's far more sense of people in large numbers, the resulting conflicts, and the restless, fast-changing society of the Western frontier.
Never mind the story being so complicated, it also lacks any kind of plot twist; the bad guy you meet at the start is the bad guy and was all along and Slater's father really did die at Fort Starvation. So in this instance, I won't recommend the novel and absolutely come down on the side of the film. Sorry, Mr Gruber.
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