Episode 305: Books on Screen – Our Favorite Film Adaptations

Summary

The Literary Life Podcast

Episode 305: Books on Screen – Our Favorite Film Adaptations

Airdate: December 2, 2025

Hosts: Angelina Stanford, Thomas Banks, Cindy Rollins

Guest: Atlee Northmore

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode is a lively, subjective, and in-depth discussion about film (and TV) adaptations of literature—what makes them work, when they surpass the book, and which adaptations the hosts personally love (or loathe). The hosts aim to share recommendations, highlight film craft, and spark reflection on the translation of literature to the screen. Conversation is loosely organized into classics, children’s adaptations, curveballs, and infamous failures, with lots of amusing asides and passionate hot takes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter and the Art of Adaptation

• The hosts joke about their film “bona fides” with obscure Hollywood references and then outline the episode’s goal: a highly subjective romp through book-to-screen adaptations.
• A thread throughout: the differences in what literature and film can do, how adaptation isn’t just transplantation, but often requires "translation" (see [03:06]–[10:12]).

2. Commonplace Quotes to Set the Stage ([06:28])

• Atlee Northmore: Cites Hugo Munsterberg on how film adapts external events to the forms of the inner world (attention, memory, imagination, emotion).
  Quote: “The photoplay tells us the human story by overcoming the forms of the outer world… and by adjusting the events to the forms of the inner world…” [06:51]
• Thomas Banks: Reads a rare hopeful line from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets:
  "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." [08:06]
• Angelina: Quotes John le Carré on the pain of adaptation:
  “Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.” [10:12]

3. Classics: 'Should-See' Book-to-Screen Adaptations

a) Classic Hollywood Adaptations

• To Have and Have Not (1944)
  • Book by Hemingway, adapted by Faulkner (who despised Hemingway) into a vastly superior Bogart-Bacall spy film. "He rewrote Hemingway’s novel with a love story... it's unrecognizable. But it's a great movie." —Thomas [12:02]
  • Key insight: Sometimes a mediocre novel makes for a great movie.
• Film Noir & Literary Source:
  • Mention of The Big Sleep, Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce and how adaptations can eclipse or reimagine source material.

b) English Literary Adaptations

• Sense and Sensibility (1995)
  • Ang Lee directs, Emma Thompson adapts—the gold standard for respecting Austen’s tone with a seamless blend of new and original text. [15:19]
  • “You really can’t beat Sense and Sensibility. It’s up there in my top 10 adaptations list.” —Atlee [15:19]
• Age of Innocence (Scorsese, 1993)
  • Hosts marvel at its thematic and aesthetic translation.
  • “Scorsese understood the book… carried thematic images through the film… The use of paintings was amazing.” —Angelina [17:17]
  • Voiceover and letter-reading scenes called out for masterful translation from page to screen.

c) Children’s Classics ([20:37])

• Jungle Book (Disney, 1967) [20:37]

  • “Much truer to the Kipling stories’ spirit than many earlier Disney films.” —Thomas

• Sword in the Stone (Disney, 1963): Loosely adapted but fun.

• Treasure Island adaptations:

  • Treasure Planet (space-age version), Muppet Treasure Island, and the Christian Bale/Charlton Heston live-action. Hosts agree that multiple versions bring new life while retaining adventure. [22:44]

• Muppet Christmas Carol: “Surprisingly faithful and effective.”

• The Wizard of Oz (1939):

  • Visually iconic, little fidelity to Baum’s novel, but “an entity onto itself.” [25:01–26:23]
  • Insight: Sometimes the film’s visuals overwrite the reader’s imagination entirely.

d) Gone with the Wind ([28:21–32:00], [32:34])

• Hosts discuss how this adaptation is word-for-word faithful but entirely invents the visual world. It’s a case study in how lasting screen images “stand between you and the novel.”
  • “The images of the movie are just so imprinted in your mind that when you read the book, that’s how you picture it—even though it’s not what she described.” —Angelina [30:37]
  • Atlee underscores its “monumental” importance and why audience investment was so deep.

4. Children’s Adaptations: More Personal Picks ([35:52])

• Johnny Tremain (classic Disney) and Old Yeller get a nod for fidelity and emotional heft.
• The Princess Bride:
  • All hosts agree: a rare film where the movie and book are both wonderful, but quite different in content and tone. [37:03–39:41]
  • “The movie is perfection... It was a flop when it came out, but it lived on through word of mouth among passionate fans.”
  • The book is a literary satire of academia, while the movie is a comedic, romantic adventure.

5. Stage-to-Screen: Plays Adapted to Film ([40:56])

• Amadeus (Milos Forman/P. Shaffer) and Sleuth (Anthony Schaeffer).
  • Divisive opinions on Amadeus—Atlee “hates” the film, Angelina and Thomas defend it as brilliant. [41:43]
• Rebecca (Hitchcock): “Haunting poetry… a rare case where the film feels very much like the Daphne du Maurier novel.” [47:42]
• Wuthering Heights (1939): Only half the novel, but the film moves Angelina to tears—proving fidelity isn’t always what matters most. [50:02]

6. Modern Adaptations & Miniseries ([55:12])

• Howards End (miniseries): “One of the best we’ve ever seen… so smitten. A miniseries allows for deeper, truer adaptation.” [55:08]
• Othello (Branagh/Fishburne): “A strong, underappreciated Shakespeare adaptation.” [55:58]
• Shakespeare Recontextualized:
  • “10 Things I Hate About You” (Taming of the Shrew), “Clueless” (Emma), “Romeo+Juliet” (Luhrmann).
  • They argue high school is the perfect setting for both Austen and Shakespeare because it mimics the social microcosms of their originals. [59:18]
• Lord of the Rings Trilogy:
  • Atlee defends the changes, supported by both he and Angelina noting how they inspired readers: “The movies captured the imagination … and made people read the books.” [71:12]

7. Curveballs, Surprises, and Deep Cuts

Several lesser-known or inventive adaptations are celebrated:

• The Quiet American (2002) [70:01]
• I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith) — “Pure delight… a coming-of-age story with Jane Austen spirit. JK Rowling’s favourite!” [74:28]
• Shōgun (Hulu, 2024): “A brilliant, multicultural epic—better than the massive novel, and more nuanced in its portrayal of both English and Japanese cultures.” [79:31]
• It’s a Wonderful Life: Based on an obscure short story (“The Greatest Gift”), the film expands and deepens the original narrative’s emotional arc. [83:07]
• Shawshank Redemption & Stand By Me: Lesser-known to be adaptations of Stephen King novellas, but celebrated as masterpieces in their own right. [89:14]
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?: “A Southern Odyssey”—Coen brothers' inventive retelling of Homer. [91:11]

8. Hot Takes & Notorious Failures: Adaptations Gone Wrong

• Bram Stoker's Dracula (Coppola) & Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Branagh): Both derided for wild, misguided changes. [95:26]
• Netflix Persuasion (Dakota Johnson): Pure disdain; described as a “train wreck,” “unwatchable,” and “Anne Elliot as Bridget Jones,” completely missing the original’s tone. [97:52]
• The Giver: Loses subtlety, delivers twists literally. [99:41]
• David Lynch’s Dune: Editing chaos, a classic disaster—though new adaptations are praised. [101:06]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the pain of adaptation:
  “Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.” —John le Carré (Angelina, [10:12])
• On Scorsese’s Age of Innocence:
  “It was so clear Martin Scorsese understood this book… He carried through thematic images spot on…” —Angelina [17:36]
• On Princess Bride’s unique afterlife:
  “It was a flop, but mothers and quirky fans kept it alive—it’s the cult classic that won.” —Angelina [37:03]
• On adaptations as re-imagining:
  “Sometimes the images of the movie are what imprints… even if it’s not what the writer described.” —Angelina [30:37]
• On why adaptations fail:
  “They tried to turn Anne Elliot into Bridget Jones. You can put Lizzie Bennet in modern England, but you can’t turn Bridget Jones into Anne Elliot!” —Angelina, on ‘Persuasion’ [99:03]
• On the golden age of adaptations:
  “The 90s were such a huge resurgence of Jane Austen, Shakespeare—a golden age of film.” —Atlee [58:05]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [06:28] — Commonplace quotes
• [12:02] — Classic adaptations (To Have and Have Not, Film Noir)
• [15:19] — Sense and Sensibility (1995) deep dive
• [17:17] — Age of Innocence and Scorsese’s film craft
• [20:37] — Children’s classics: Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone, Disney nostalgia
• [28:21] — Gone with the Wind: faithfulness and the power of visuals
• [35:52] — Kid picks: Johnny Tremaine, Old Yeller, Princess Bride
• [40:56] — Stage-to-screen: Amadeus, Sleuth, Rebecca, Wuthering Heights
• [47:42] — Rebecca (Hitchcock) as a rare “faithful” adaptation
• [55:12] — TV miniseries adaptations: Howard’s End, Othello, the power of episodic retellings
• [58:05] — Adaptations in new settings: Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You
• [70:01] — The Quiet American: An underseen gem
• [74:28] — I Capture the Castle: Hidden joy for readers and viewers
• [79:31] — Shōgun (2024): Surpassing the novel
• [83:07] — It’s a Wonderful Life: Expanding a short story
• [89:14] — Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me: Stephen King’s surprising cinematic legacy
• [91:11] — O Brother, Where Art Thou?: Odyssey as Southern picaresque
• [95:26] — Adaptations gone wrong: Dracula, Frankenstein
• [97:52] — Netflix’s Persuasion: “Unwatchable”
• [99:41] — The Giver’s translation failure
• [101:06] — Dune (1984): Why grand sci-fi can fail on screen
• [103:10] — Fun curveballs: A Knight’s Tale, West Side Story, Ever After, Clue

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Takeaways

• Adaptation is both an art and a gamble: a successful adaptation “translates” the essence, not just the narrative, of a work.
• Sometimes the adaptation overshadows or even improves on its source—a “bad book can make a great movie.”
• Miniseries, due to their length, can often be the best format for faithful adaptation.
• Not all classics translate well; stylistic choices (music, casting, even color) can make or break a film.
• Hosts encourage reading the source first—as the visual world of a film is often supplanting and defining cultural memory.
• Adaptation failures are just as instructive as successes—often due to fundamental misunderstanding of the source’s tone or spirit.

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Final Thoughts

The episode is both a tribute to the power of story—across genres and mediums—and a playful, practical guide for literary and film fans. The hosts’ chemistry and mix of hot takes, deep dives, and personal memories make it an engaging companion for any book or film lover.

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For Further Listening

• Previous episodes: Jane Austen adaptations, Shakespeare on film, Age of Innocence, Howard’s End
• Sister podcasts: The Well Read Poem, The New Mason Jar

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Episode Outro

Angelina: "Keep crafting your literary life, because stories will save the world." [106:05] Thomas closes the episode with a poem.

Transcript

[A]

This is not just another book chat podcast. Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an ongoing conversation about the science, skill and art of reading. Well, explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter into the great works of literature. Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. Each week we will rescue story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute. The Literary Life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. Join us for an ever unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world. This is the Literary Life Podcast. Welcome to the Literary Life Podcast. I'm Angelina Stanford, and here with me is the man who is not the David O. Selznick of the House of Humane Letters, the mysterious Mr. Banks.

[B]

Indeed.

[A]

Indeed.

[B]

I'm fairly certain you're the David O. Sells Nick here.

[A]

Wow. I'm not sure.

[B]

Maybe you're not that controlling, but yeah, I. I think you're more sales Nickian than I am.

[A]

That's probably true.

[B]

Coin and adjective.

[A]

And I'm about to introduce our special guest who's covering his face, not to laugh into his microphone, that I called Mr. Banks the David O. Selznick of House. If you made letters is our own film maven, Atlee Northmore. Atlee, welcome back to the podcast.

[C]

Thank you. Thank you so much. If you're David O. Selznick, I guess that makes me Val Lewton. If anybody knows who Val Lewton is.

[A]

The fact that you ran Brilliantly. Obscurely obscure. The fact that you just took my obscure reference and ran with it and went even more obscure. This is why you're hired.

[C]

Yeah, this is it.

[A]

This is why Allie is the man behind House of Humane Letters.

[C]

Oh, I like that.

[A]

That's right. We pulled him away from the back of his keyboard and put him in front of a microphone. So here we go. I'm excited about today's episode. This is an episode about film adaptations, or perhaps I should say screen adaptations, because I sort of interpreted the word film very loosely to. It's been on the screen. Yeah, that's how y' all did it, too. Okay. So, yeah, I'm. Because I think people have heard me before say that TV is the new film as far as I'm concerned. So, I mean, I could fight about this later in the parking lot. He got red when I said that. But it'll screen. Screen adaptations based on books that we like. That's it. This is the topic of this episode.

[B]

And I think it's going to be kind of subjective in a lot of ways.

[A]

It's going to be extremely subjective entirely. Fine. Right. I thought that this would just be a fun episode to talk about movies based on books that we like and why. And I thought the why part of the conversation can be very interesting as well as maybe throwing some titles your way that you're not familiar with. So that's. Yeah, that's. That's going to be the topic of today's episode. Very, very fun. Very loose. You know, while you're wrapping Christmas presents, you can put this on and just enjoy some good film banter. Right. Some screen banter. But before we start, just a quick reminder that this podcast is brought to you free by the House of Humane Letters and by the Literary Life Patreon. And if you would like to support us, you can join our Patreon at the literary patreon.com the literary life, and become a member of our forum and our community there. And you could also support us through purchasing classes at the House of Humane Letters. We always appreciate that. And this allows you to go a whole lot deeper than what we cover on the podcast. And it's that special time of year right now. It is our Christmas sale at Leo. Have done a beautiful job on the sale. It made me so happy to go in the store and see those cute little sale banners you put on everything. It was just adorable.

[C]

Very professional.

[A]

We're very professional. We're no longer, like, you know, opening up at least trunk on the side of the road with a. With a wreath on it saying, you know, webinars, 20% off. Gucci bags. Gucci bags. That's. That's another obscure reference. Today's gonna be silly. I could tell. Another obscure 1970s film reference. There again, screen reference, because it's TV. But it's our Christmas sale and everything is already this year. Atley just marked everything in the store down for you by hand. You don't have to use a code or anything. So you can just go over there and you can see immediately what's for sale, what's for not. Live classes are not for sale. Upcoming classes are not for sale. But this is our whole back catalog. This is conferences. This is webinars. Mini classes. So many great things. Pick up my Edgar Allan Poe. Everybody is saying it's the best thing I ever did. I just had it. So you can pick that up. And Ali, you made a bundle of my conference talks, didn't you?

[C]

Yes. That should be Available by the time they listen to this. Yep.

[A]

All right, great. That's something you guys have asked for. So you can, like, now you can purchase just my conference talks individually. Yeah. And speaking of conference, don't forget we moved our conference. So our annual Literary Life online conference is now going to be in January. So while you're shopping in the Christmas sale, you can register for that and peruse everything we've got going on. And speaking of Christmas presents, you can get gift cards. Atlante beautiful gift cards for the House of Humane Letters. And people love getting that. Seriously, because let's face it, our audience is nerds. And they're like, yes, we would like a class for Christmas. So gift cards are awesome. Another great Christmas present idea is Jason Baxter's why Literature Still Matters, which is fabulous. And if you have purchased that, please go leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon. That helps the. The all knowing algorithm. That helps us out a lot. So if you could spread the word about that, we would appreciate it. All right, enough from our sponsor. Let's jump in with some commonplace quotes. Atlee, would you like to go first?

[C]

I sure would. So my commonplace quote comes from Hugo Munsterberg, who I only just discovered when I was trying to find a commonplace quote. It was in my new book, Shakespeare and the Moving Image gifted to me by the Stanford banks.

[A]

Yes, you did. We gave you that book.

[C]

That's right. It's already coming in handy, so thanks for that. So he, Hugo Munsterberg was a German American psychologist, and he wrote about a lot of different things, mostly industrial psychology. And I know that we're not supposed to. When we, when we talk about film, when we talk about story, we should be mindful that we don't put a lot of psychological reading into things. But this quote really just stood out to me. So Munsterberg says the photoplay tells us the human story by overcoming the forms of the outer world, namely space, time, and causality, and by adjusting the events to the forms of the inner world, namely attention, memory, imagination, and emotion.

[A]

Oh, that's good.

[C]

Isn't that good?

[A]

That's good. Oh, okay. I'm a fan. That's good. That's really good. I'm glad you're enjoying that book, by the way.

[C]

Oh, yeah, it's great. But now it's, you know, I'm following the footnotes. So now I have to buy this other book that this guy wrote. So thanks.

[A]

And it was just. It was. It was just a free gift. It definitely didn't have any strings attached. Like, I didn't give you this book and say, hey, this would make a great webinar one day. I didn't. I didn't do that. I definitely didn't do that.

[B]

That.

[C]

You definitely didn't say that when you handed it to me.

[A]

All right, Mr. Banks. Mr. Selznick.

[B]

Okay, so mine. Mine is a passage from T.S. eliot's Four Quartets, and I. I copied it down in my commonplace book because it's one of the rare passages in T.S. eliot that sounds to me hopeful. So this is something inspiring. For cold winter days, there is only the fight to recover what has been lost and found and lost again and again. And now under conditions that seem unpropitious, but perhaps neither gain nor loss for us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

[A]

Oh, that's good, too.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

That's a good one. That's a good one. All right, so my comment. I went with the short, pissy one today. I think you guys are going to enjoy this. So I have expressed on this podcast before and in my classes my. My strong feelings about film adaptations, which. I'm going to be a real chill today. I'm gonna be chill today about this, but.

[C]

Okay, we'll see.

[A]

I kind of have a personal rule which. Which Mr. Banks doesn't make me violate all the time because he loves watching movies of books. But for a long time, I would just refuse to watch any movie version of the book because I knew I was gonna be angry, right? Like, I just. I. I just couldn't. Couldn't cope with it. And I've thought at times, like, if it's hard for me, what must the author feel like? I mean, like, Jane Austen's dead, and probably she's still upset, but, like, what if you're. What if you're like, Netflix? She's gonna haunt Netflix now. But what if you're the author? What if you're the author and you have this. This baby, this book that you're so proud of, and you give it to the hands of Hollywood? Like, wouldn't you just be terrified of what they would do with it, despite how much money they give you? And so I have a quote from a living authority, or he was living at the time that he said this. See what I did there? I'm actually not sure if he's still alive, but he's a modern author. He writes spy thrillers. I've read some of them. And of course, Mr. Banks and I have seen quite a few of his movies. This is John Le Carre, and this is what he says about having your book turned into a movie, Y' all are going to like this. Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.

[C]

Oh, no.

[B]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

Isn't that great?

[B]

That's brilliant.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

Oh, that's awful.

[B]

There have been some really bad version. Film versions of his novels.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Did you ever see the Little Drummer Girl with Diane Keaton?

[A]

No.

[B]

Diane Keaton becomes a terrorist. It's.

[C]

Oh, no.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's during any hall. I know.

[C]

Too Soon.

[B]

I love Diane Keaton.

[C]

But, like.

[B]

Yeah, that one was.

[C]

Yeah, I think they just remade that, actually, now that you said no.

[B]

Okay. That didn't need to be remade.

[A]

Yeah. Well, anyhow, 2.0.

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

Okay. So I'm gonna tell you guys, we did not look at our lists ahead of time. And this was on purpose because I'm each other. We didn't see each other's lists. Okay. Because I'm just really curious what crossover that would be. And I'd really tried to pick things that you guys wouldn't pick. So. We'll see. We'll see. I think we're all trying to pick things the other wouldn't pick. So I'm going to try to guide this conversation through. Let's start with the classics. Just like, what are those? Are the classic films based on books. Right. And that everybody needs to see. And then from there, we'll go to some kids movies because I know our audience is always looking for new things that kids could watch. So we can maybe all talk about kids books that have been made in the movies. And then we'll throw some curveballs. Some things maybe people did not expect. And I don't know. I didn't prepare this in advance, but I bet we could each, off the top of our head, think of a really bad movie based on a book.

[C]

I think I could be perserving.

[A]

All right, let's start with the classics. Actually, you know what, Mr. Banks, let's start with you. Give me one classic Hollywood book movie.

[B]

Okay. The first at the top of my list answers to that description to have and have not, which is directed by Howard Hawks. It was the first of the. I think there's four collaborations between Bogey and Lauren Bacall. They. I think this is the film they met on, actually.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. I think this one, a couple of mine, kind of answer to this description. It's a really bad book that turned. Was turned into a great movie. Howard Hawks, he had a screenplay written by William Faulkner, who had completely readapted the book because he hated the author. The author of the book to have and have not is Ernest Hemingway. Faulkner. And he could not stand each other. So Faulkner, in this brilliantly sadistic act of literary revenge, rewrote Hemingway's novel with a love story, and he sets it during World War II. The original is not set during World War II. He changes the location. He makes the hero, like, a much more likable guy. Like, basically, it's unrecognizable. But so he. He said that I'm. He actually says this in a letter. I think I'm going to take Hemingway's worst book and make a great movie out of it, and he will hate me for it. And he did. And.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Haven't. Have not.

[A]

That's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.

[B]

And it's a spy movie set during World War II in the Caribbean. It's set in Martinique, I think.

[A]

Okay, so that brings up a very interesting point, which is that sometimes, because movies and books can do very good things, sometimes the movie version can actually be better than the book. If the book is like a mediocre.

[B]

Book, I can think of a handful.

[A]

I can think of a handful like that, too. So I remember. Oh, I'm gonna really out myself here. Like, when the movie Fight Club came out, this. This shocked my husband when he first met me. I was obsessed with that movie. I would watch it on repeat.

[C]

What?

[B]

I was expecting you to be, like a prim homeschool mom.

[A]

And then I was like, my favorite movie is Fight Club. He didn't see that. No.

[C]

Seriously, I don't know what to do with myself.

[A]

It is an allegory of my monolife. Ali. I will give you my private webinar on it later. It is a total allegory about modern consumerist life. It is a brilliant, brilliant film. And so afterwards, I read the book and thought that the book was not as good as the movie. And the author of the book actually said, when I saw the film, I felt a little ashamed of the book.

[C]

Oh, no.

[A]

Right. So that does happen sometimes. That doesn't. Okay, so. Right. Isn't that interesting? Howard Hawks. Okay, so that makes me think of something that I definitely did not put on my list, like the Big Sleep and the Maltese Falcon. I've read both of those books.

[B]

Yeah. A lot of films. Like, I've seen them most. Postman Always Rings Twice.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which we've been watching.

[A]

Double Indemnity.

[B]

Double Indemnity. That's what I meant. Double Indemnity.

[A]

But we also watched the Postman.

[B]

Yeah. Like James M. Kane and Raymond Chandler. And some of those books are actually good books, but yeah. To have and have not as like. Like Common Consent, one of Hemingway's. One of those books you want to forget.

[A]

Yeah. And actually I would also throw into that time period Mildred Pierce, also James M. King. Yeah.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. Also. Yeah. Was the original with Joan Crawford. Crawford, right.

[C]

That's a fantastic movie.

[A]

We watched all of those that you listed in my. In my film class.

[B]

Yeah. Howard Hawks is going to pop up again in my list, but.

[A]

Okay, okay. All right, Atley, let's toss it to you. How about. How about just a big. A classic classic.

[C]

I don't think you can go wrong with talking about. We've already talked about this at length. Emma Thompson's 1995 Sense and Sensibility. I think that is a monumental shift for film adaptations. I think she inserts the right amount of humor in the similar style that Jane Austen would. I think she was very respectful to the original work. I just, you know, you really can't beat Sense and Sensibility. I think it's. It's. It's up there in my top 10 adaptations list.

[B]

Did she direct that also or my.

[A]

She did not.

[B]

It was Ang Lee Angley, of course. That is good direction. Yeah.

[C]

Oh, it's fantastic.

[B]

Very different sort of film for Angle.

[C]

Yeah. And I think this was his first English speaking film that he did, so I think there were a lot of barriers to break through when he was. When he first came to England to shoot it. But I've been, you know, rewatching a bunch of stuff about how Emma Thompson went through. She had like 17 drafts of the script, and like, it took her, you know, five years, I think, to come up with something that was really special. And I think they just really did great service to it.

[B]

And she really has the ear for the Austen style. That's one of the very rare Austin films where you can't really tell. It's very hard for me to tell what is directly taken from the text of the novel and what is supplied by the screenwriter or herself in this case.

[A]

Yeah, she won an Oscar for that. Yeah. No, it's. It's a very. It's a very good. It's a very good adaptation.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Sorry, I guess I cheated a little bit. I'm taking things from things that we've talked about before.

[B]

No, that's. I think that's a great. Actually that. I wish I had thought of that one myself.

[A]

No, that's. That's a great one. I'm looking at my list and trying to decide what should I say? Actually, I'm going to say I'm gonna save my curveball here. And I'm gonna say we did talk about this one on the podcast, but because I was serious on the podcast when I said I think this is now my new favorite film of a book, I'm gonna say it. Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese.

[C]

That was my number one.

[B]

I just, I'm still really glad we re watched that.

[A]

Like, holy cow. And we did an entire episode on that. Guys, if you're. If you're listening and you can go back and find. That was just a couple months ago. But, wow, that is like the gold standard for me now for a film adaptation.

[C]

No, it. You can't. I don't think you can beat it.

[A]

So one of the things that impressed me so much was clearly they understood the book. Right? So one of the things that really annoys me about an adaptation. I mean, obviously I'm not expecting to see the book on screen. Not possible, right? Not possible. Every. You've got to make changes. But what annoys me is when I feel like the changes show. You have no idea what this book is. You're not even trying to capture the heart of this book. You just. It's like, you know, superficial images based on things I thought about when I thought about this book. Like, like, it's just, you know, stream of consciousness stuff. It's like a Jackson Pollock painting. See, I thought about all of this when I read Pride and Prejudice. Okay, great. But it was so clear to me Martin Scorsese understood this book, that he focused on all the right scenes. He carried through thematic images through the whole film, which were spot on. And then, of course, the great challenge is taking. It's not. It's translating the book to film, not interpreting it, but translate. Right. Like putting it into another language. The language of film. Film can do certain things that books can't do, and books can do things that film can't do. And he just translated it beautifully. Like the use of the paintings all through.

[C]

I know, right?

[A]

That was amazing. That was. And it was so spot on. Fit thematically, everything. Just. I mean, that. That film is perfection to me.

[C]

No, you're absolutely right. Well, and it, it incorporates a lot of things that were prevalent in classic film as well. So you can tell he has a real appreciation for them. And he, you know, he uses things that, like flashbacks and voiceover narration and, you know.

[A]

Yes, that was very well done. Sometimes that can be so awkward.

[C]

Yeah. And this becomes sort of a rule. Like, I remember in screenwriting classes, they would tell us no flashbacks and no narration because it's, you know, quote unquote, cheating. But I think he managed it really well, and I think it was. It fit the story because you're trying to look at a society from a distance, and so it's kind of acknowledged and should be encouraged to have some kind of guide to help you kind of move through the story. So I think they just did a beautiful job.

[A]

Brilliantly done. And even how. Even the scenes where he had a character reading a letter.

[C]

Oh, to the camera. Yes, Yes. I love when they do that.

[A]

And it was just so flawless. Because that can also be really awkward.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

If you're. Yeah. If you're doing it in a voiceover, you're just sitting there watching somebody scribble on a piece of paper. It's not really engaging. But even when they're. Even when they're reading the letters to the camera, the camera is moving in closer on the actors reading it out loud. So there's. There's dynamic movement going on there. You know, there's something to still kind of keep the pace of the. The movie going. Even if you're. Even if the letter is kind of boring.

[A]

Exactly. All right, Mr. Banks, give us another one.

[B]

Okay, so my list is kind of in no particular order, one that is child friendly. The Jungle Book. 1967 stories by Kipling, film by. The Jungle Book was the last of the Disney classic era films that Disney himself had a hand in making. I think he died during the filming of it, and there was one that he had a particular care for. And I think that. I think that. I mean, they add songs and things like that and they make baloo. Clownish. But in a lot of ways that's much. It's much truer to the spirit of the stories, I think, than say, Snow White or a lot of the other Disney cartoons where they really. Or Mary Poppins, where they just kind of reinvent it from.

[A]

I love the movie Mary Poppins, but it has nothing to do with the book.

[C]

Absolutely not.

[A]

Has nothing to do with. But yeah. So we did an entire podcast series on the jungle book, and Mr. Banks convinced me to fall in love with it, and I did. And. But I don't. I've only seen the Jungle Book movie in bits and pieces.

[B]

There's one of the first films I remember watching distinctly. I remember there was a revival theater in my town and being taken to it by my mom when I was probably three or four years old or something like that. So, yeah, I. That's one that I have a personal fondness for. Another Disney classic Disney film on my list is the Sword in the Stone, which was a novel, but which is. That one is very different from its source material because, again, it's the novel by T.H. white, which is not really written for children. It's one of those books that a lot of people discover in childhood. But I think that's kind of. I think that's kind of odd. But, yeah, the Disney cartoon, I mean, it has Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, but doesn't have much more aside from that really in common with its source. TH White also has a kind of. A kind of darkness about him. I mean, he can be. He's a. He's a funny writer in some ways. He has a sense of humor, but there's also a kind of this kind of wry skepticism in his books.

[A]

Very good. I didn't think of that one.

[B]

Okay, so those are my two child friendly ones.

[A]

Okay. Okay. All right. Well, as long as we're on that, you got a couple kid friendly ones.

[C]

Yeah, they're also kind of curve balls. I guess so. Oh, no, I can't even say it. We'll start with this one. So there is a. There is a Disney movie, very underrated Disney movie that came out probably when I was a kid. It is an adaptation of Treasure island, but it is Treasure Planet. So they have taken. Yeah, they've taken the. Basically the entire story of Treasure island and just placed it in outer space. So they're still flying on a ship. It's not a spaceship, but it's like, you know, a ship that sails on the seas through space. And I don't know, there's just something about it. That's it to me. It captures the spirit of the book in a way that some of the other adaptations won't. And along with that, I will say the Muppet. Treasure Island.

[A]

Treasure island was really good.

[C]

It is really good.

[B]

I remember seeing that when I was about 10 and think in the movie theater and. Yeah. Didn't it have Tim Curry?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yes. Tim Curry was like the actor. Like the one human actor, for the most part, except for Jim Hawkins, I guess.

[A]

But he's honestly the Muppet. The Muffet adaptations are pretty good. Like, they're Christmas Carols.

[C]

That's on my list.

[A]

That's on your list.

[B]

Sorry, put that very high. Yeah.

[A]

And then isn't there a Christian Bale.

[B]

Treasure Island There's a Christian. Okay. This is a movie that, like, was a big part of my childhood. I never meet anyone who has seen this film, though. Yeah, so it's Christian Bale, you know, like Empire of the sun era. Christian Bale is Jim. And Charlton Heston is Long John Silver.

[A]

Yeah, we've watched.

[B]

And then, like, a bunch of BBC actors. Yeah, it's. It's really good. I think they. And it's one of those where it's very, like, almost. Almost too scrupulously faithful to the. The book itself and. Yeah, really good.

[A]

Did you have another one, Atley?

[C]

Let's see. Oh, the Treasure Planet. Treasure Island, Muppet Christmas Carol, that was. And my last kids one. This is not. It's not a good adaptation, but it's a great movie. The wizard of Oz.

[A]

Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. It is sort of an entity onto itself. You know, they. They change the ending of the movie, so you can't even really call it a, you know, an American fairy tale anymore. And they add a bunch of. They condense a lot of characters. They condense a lot of plot details. But it's just. There's something about it that.

[A]

I agree. I grew up with that movie and I'm extremely fond of it.

[B]

I remember almost none of it. I seen it, but, like, not since I was maybe five or something like that. And I have, like, images of it still, because it's just one of those, like, strikingly memorable films as. Just as a visual picture. Doesn't that. And Gone with the Wind share the same director?

[A]

Well.

[C]

Actually, like Fleming get credit.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

They both had a revolving door of directors.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

George Cu. Core, too. George Cu.

[B]

Cord a couple of days. Yeah.

[C]

They share. They were the two heavy hitters of 1939, which was already considered, you know, one of the biggest years for movies of all time up until.

[B]

I know, like, if you. Yeah, just like it's one of those years where if you look at. I can't remember what the other nominees for best picture were, but, like, all of them are basically acknowledged classics now.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

It's kind of like, actually, I think it's only a couple years later how Green With My Valley wins. And it's nominated against Citizen Kane and, you know, a couple others. And that's considered one of the sort of big upsets of Oscar history.

[C]

Right.

[B]

That Citizen Kane didn't win.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

When my kids were little, I used to play the wizard of Oz soundtrack in Car. That was our. That was our family soundtrack since we.

[B]

Mentioned Gone with the Wind.

[C]

One.

[B]

One thing and George Cukor's involvement of that. He was a big hit with Olivia de Havilland and with Vivian Lee. And when it was when they were told that he was going to be walking off set for whatever reason, either his decision or the studios, they went to plead with him to stay in character as Melanie and Scarlett. Anyway, I find that kind of an endearing story.

[C]

Well, he was, you know, he was known as the woman's director.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

He made, you know, movies with actresses and made them feel very comfortable on set. He made a movie called the Women.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Non tyrannical. He. He got really good performances out of like the best actresses at the time. So it's not surprising that they were upset when he left.

[B]

You know, Angelina and I watched the Women again recently. I think that also is a film that maybe kind of transcends its source material because it was a play by Clare Booth Luce, who was the wife of Henry Luce, who owned Life and Fortune and, you know, look magazines and all that. But I don't think I've ever heard of the play being revived in recent times, at least not on a big scale. But the movie you still see on classic.

[C]

The movies. Yeah, it's one of my all time favorites. It's. It's so what? That's also a 1939 movie, in case anybody's wondering.

[A]

It is.

[C]

Yeah. It was remade into a terrible movie. So if you're talking about Badass.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

There was recently Meg Ryan.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Benning.

[B]

Yeah, I think I remember that coming out and a lot of people expressing their regret that they tampered with a classic.

[C]

Yeah. I only got halfway through it and I had to turn it off.

[A]

Okay, well, I do have my children's story list and I'm going to get to it in a second. But since you guys brought up Gone with the Wind. Gone with the Wind is on my list. So I'm just going to say what I was going to say now is on mine too. Okay, well, we're just going to. Hey, we're just going to.

[B]

I honestly thought of putting it on.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

All right.

[B]

Well, I knew you would do so, so.

[A]

Exactly. Exactly. I'm not going to say the things I think Atlee will say because I'm going to let you say all the things you think about it as a great cinema thing. But what I. Here's why I put it on my list. I was also very, very obsessed with the book Gone with the wind 29 years ago. I know because I just had a baby. And I read it when we couldn't sleep at night. And he's just turned 29. So that's how I know how long ago this was. But I became obsessed with this book again because I read it as an allegory and just. I actually read it as an allegory of World War I. So don't come at me with your Civil War stuff, because I don't really think it's about Civil War. But I thought it was brilliant. And I just felt on this rabbit hole. And I read a scholarly biography of Margaret Mitchell, and then I watched the movie over and over. And then, of course, I grew up with the movie. And then I read a book about the making of the movie. And then it was re released on the big screen and I went to see it, like, just like all the things. I just, you know, Gone with the Wind, it's a big movie for me. But the reason why I included it in the list is because this is an example in which so many of the things in the movie are faithful. For example, there's no word except for one. Rhett Butler's line is changed at the end. Frankly, the book just says, I don't give a damn. And they add, frankly, I don't give a damn, which is an improvement. But. Yeah, but every other word is a word that was said in the book. And because they had no working script, yes, I'm about to hypernode. I'm about to hypernode on the making of Gone with the Wind here. But they had no script. And Vivian Lee would literally walk around with the book, okay. And like. And she insisted nothing was said that wasn't in the book. And so in one sense, it's incredibly accurate. But where it is incredibly inaccurate is visually. Is visually. And one of the books I had read had made the point. And this was so true because I had just read the book and it said the images of the movie Gone with the Wind are just so imprinted in your mind that when you read the book, that's how you picture it. Even though it's not what she described.

[B]

It is one of those books that's kind of a mountain between you and what inspired it.

[A]

It's exactly right. So, for example, Tara of the movie is this huge, sweeping plantation. And in the book, it's not. It's a small country home, right? Because. Because Scarlett o' Hara is a social climber. But the images of the movie are what imprints you. Anyway, I just. I thought it was an interesting example of the sorts of Things that can happen when you adapt a film. So, Alan, go ahead and you. You say why you chose it, and then I'll swing back around to my kid fix.

[C]

Well, even. Even kind of like following what you're saying about it, you know, visually, you know, Scarlett o' Hara is not supposed to be a great beauty. And you've got Vivian line of the.

[A]

Book, which I can recite from memory. Scarlett o' Hara was not beautiful. But men seldom notice when in her presence.

[C]

Right, Exactly.

[A]

Vivien Leigh.

[C]

Vivian Leigh is like drop dead beautiful. Yeah, that doesn't really work. But you.

[A]

You know, but other than that, she's fabulous. She was just too pretty, but she's fabulous as Scarlet. Right.

[C]

And you know, as far as is just a movie unto itself. It's. It's monumental and people still watch it, people still talk about it. You know, it was the biggest movie of the year in the biggest year for movies. If you adjust for inflation, it's still the highest grossing movie of all time.

[B]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Because they keep. They keep re releasing it. That might have something to do with it, but, um, it's so important to people. It is. It is a film monument. You know, there are so many lines that we still say there, you know, visuals that came from it that are, you know, like you said, imprinted on your mind.

[B]

Is.

[C]

It's just so important. And it has a huge runtime, almost four hours long, to where it really gives you space to breathe and let you kind of rest in the quieter moments.

[B]

Does it have an intermission?

[A]

It does.

[C]

It does. I wish they would bring those back.

[B]

I know. I want. Like, seriously, I was. I was talking to those. To my students about those the other day, and some of them already knew what that was. But yeah, like, I'm trying to think Maybe like the 1960s is the last time you see another Ben Hur has an intermission and.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

It's just a very humane thing. Let the audience go to the bathroom, get a snack, like.

[A]

Yeah, it is.

[C]

Yeah. And now we have apps that tell you when's the best time in a movie to go use the bathroom.

[A]

Really?

[C]

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I guess probably like David Lean. Those big David Lean epics are probably the last, I think.

[B]

Yeah. Lawrence of Arabia, maybe.

[C]

Yeah. And then Gone with the Wind was.

[A]

Just such a cultural phenomenon too. Like the whole story of how the whole world fell in love with the book and was so invested in what actors got. What. Yes, there were campaigns, different governors. Governors each had their particular actors. They were Backing, like, that's just. That's super fascinating to me. Finding out all about all that backstory was just really.

[C]

I mean, I've been trying to figure out for a while now, like, what. What could we translate that to in modern times to help people, like, grasp the important. How important the book was at the time. And the only thing I could think of was, like, the. The craze of, like, Harry Potter. When Harry Potter came out and, like, the movie came out, people were going nuts for it. But even that is kind of way down, way down below, Gone with the Wind. Like, you go into restaurants and people would. You know, everybody sitting at, like, at the counter would be reading Gone with the Wind at lunch. Like, it was in. There was a. I might have told this story before, but I'll tell it again because I love it. There is a story about when they released Gone with the Wind as a. As a preview. So they were showing it to an audience who was coming there to see something else in the theater. And nobody knew that it was coming. Nobody was expecting to see, you know, Gone with the Wind. But it was so. It was so expected and excited. People were excited for it, that people stayed for it. And when they announced that the movie was going to be Gone with the Wind that they were seeing in previews, the theater erupted in applause. And, like, they're screaming. They didn't even have, like, you know, the iconic music done yet. They had to use, like, placeholder music. But people were so happy to see it. There was just this outburst of emotion. And I like to kind of. From time to time, I like to picture, you know, being in that theater, watching that happen for the first time.

[A]

Wow. We watched it not too long ago. Yeah.

[B]

It wasn't the last year. Yeah, no, it. I thought it held up well. I was kind of expecting that. I'm not going to like this very much, but I. I did. I did.

[A]

The book is better. I will say that, like, I grew up with the movie and had some very wrong ideas in my head about what the book was about because of that. But when I read the book, I just kept saying, this is not the movie. But then when I went back and watched the movie and I thought, no, if you know the book really well, then the movie is like the book. Does that make sense? Like, there's just. It's just so long, and it makes little subtle nods to things. And I think, honestly, they could presum the audience knew the book really well.

[C]

That's fair.

[A]

But if you. But if you've Only seen the movie. You have the wrong impression. I'll say that.

[C]

I think so. Yeah, that's. That's very good. Yeah, I agree with that.

[A]

All right, my kids pick. So I decided to go super old school with a couple of kids adaptations that my children really, really liked. And these are old school Disney Johnny Tremaine and Old Yeller.

[B]

See, you mentioned Johnny Tremaine to me the other day, and I had no idea that was even a movie.

[C]

I've never heard of that.

[B]

Never heard of that one.

[A]

You'll know. Oh, my God. Atlee, Google Johnny Tremaine.

[B]

That's one of those books that we read always. I just felt I should like that more than I did because I think that is like a good historical juvenile fiction. But, yeah, I.

[A]

All right. Did you find it?

[C]

I did. Oh, my gosh.

[A]

We owned it on vhs. Okay.

[C]

We were cool homeschoolers, man.

[A]

And my kids watch it over and over. It's really. It's good. Johnny Tremaine.

[C]

I wonder where you can watch this.

[A]

And then Old Yeller. I mean, that book.

[C]

I can never watch that movie again.

[A]

Just rips your heart out. But it's a good adaptation. The movie is. It's. It's good. It's good. All right, so those are my two kind of classic kid picks. But then I have another one which isn't technically a kids movie, but I think a lot of kids watch it. And it is based on a book which I have read, and it's Princess Bride.

[C]

That was on my list and I took it off.

[B]

I actually thought about putting that one.

[A]

All right. All three of us. So that movie is perfection. And I am old enough that I remember when it came out and that it was a flop.

[B]

It strange the afterlife that film has had because it's.

[C]

Everyone loves.

[A]

Others have kept that movie alive. So here's what's interesting. So it comes out in what, 87, 88. And we watched it when it came out. In my family, who was very quirky, we loved it. I mean, like, I was obsessed with the Princess Bride in high school. And it was one of those movies where we made everybody who came to our house to watch it and then they wouldn't laugh. Ali, they sat there and they like that. Like, that was the era when it was bombing. Like, people, they just didn't get it. And I would look at my friends and I. I'd say, I don't understand why you're not rolling with laughter. This is hilarious. And they were like, I didn't really like it. And I was like, I don't like you, and I can't be friends with you now. But. But it was really interesting in my own lifetime to see that by the time I had kids, the movie had made a Second. Had a Second Life and Right. Had become very, very popular. But I did read the book, which is almost nothing like the movie, really. And the book is really good.

[B]

It's by the guy who did Marathon Man.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

The book is by the same guy.

[A]

Who wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

[B]

Yeah. Well, didn't he.

[C]

William Goldman. He wrote Goldman. Yeah. He wrote the book and the screenplay.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I love when they do that, but it was different.

[A]

Also, the actual author of Good Will Hunting who got robbed.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That's a whole other thing.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

No, the book is so. The book is a satire on academia. And so he finds this old medieval text in a bookstore, and he's working on this manuscript, and it's just a satire of academia. It's very Gulliver's. It travels like the big Indians and the little Indians with the egg. The egg war. In Gulliver's Travels, you know, when they're fighting over which side to crack the egg. The big end or the little end.

[C]

Right. Yeah.

[A]

E N D, not ind. It's a lot of humor like that. And I was in grad school when I read it, and it's a lot of humor about scholarly life and manuscript preparation. And so the manuscript he's working on is what they ended up making the movie out of.

[C]

Okay. I had no idea.

[B]

Within a book.

[A]

It's an odd book. Within a book. Within a book.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the story goes that William Goldman was tucking his daughters into bed and said, what kind of story would you like to hear? And one of them said, I want to hear a story about a princess. And the other one said, I want to hear a story about a bride. And this is what he made up.

[C]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

Isn't that adorable?

[C]

I have to read this now.

[A]

It's been a long time since I read the book, but it's an example of how the book and the movie can be. Almost have nothing in common and both be wonderful.

[C]

Right? Wow. Oh, my gosh. I have to see. I think. I think I have a copy of it. We'll see. Oh, gosh. Now, this is what I'm gonna do over the holiday weekend.

[A]

Watch Princess Bride and read the book.

[C]

Oh, yeah, for sure. I've got, like, the Criterion Princess Bride, where they have, like, all the bonuses.

[A]

Oh, there you go.

[C]

Content.

[A]

You Know what else I really liked? I really liked Carrie Elways's book about filming the Princess Bride.

[C]

Oh, as you wish.

[A]

That was so good.

[C]

It was. I read it.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. He's delightful. It was so funny. It was wonderful. No, no, I highly recommend. I. Whenever that. Whatever year that came out, I had the flu really bad. This might have been like. I think this was 2017.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I think in January 2017, I had the flu really bad. I don't know. That was before I was listening to audiobooks. I think I got through the library app, the book on ebook. I think that's what it was. And I was lying there dying of the flu, and I read it, and it was so. I just loved it. It was so charming.

[C]

You were sick in bed like the kid in Princess Bride.

[A]

Exactly. All right, Mr. Banks, tell us something else on yours.

[B]

There's a couple of mine. Most of the films on my list are adapted from novels. Two or three are adapted from plays. So I'm going to throw two plays at you that are turned into films. I know that you and I have watched both of them together. Amadeus by Peter Schaefer.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And Sleuth by his brother, Anthony Schaefer. So Amadeus, I'm guessing, is probably the better known of those. And I'm really scared about the new version that's.

[A]

We're not even talking about.

[B]

Yeah, I've seen. Yeah.

[A]

We have a lot to answer for. That's all I can say. The Amadeus film is performing.

[B]

Yeah. Honestly, I think that's.

[A]

That's another face. Are you about to fight me?

[B]

It's another film that just should not be remade. Like, there's no way to improve on it.

[A]

You're making a face at me at the Northmore.

[C]

I. I hate that movie so much. I really do. We had to watch it. We had to watch it for college. We had to watch it for one of my classes in college. And it was, like, in this huge list of things I'd watch, like Taxi Driver and Annie Hall. It was, like, really good stuff. And then I got to Amadeus, and I was so annoyed the whole time. I will never watch that movie again.

[A]

You're coming to our house next week, you're watching it with us, and we're gonna give you the Thomas and Angelina commentary. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I think it was the acting. The acting really just. It drove me nuts.

[A]

It's amazing. What are you talking. Oh, my God.

[C]

Sorry to throw out some.

[A]

Like, I never went to the movies when I was a kid. Like, never. My dad was Very Hollywood's evil. And we didn't go to the movies. I can remember twice that my father took us in the 80s to the cinema. One was to see Chariots of Fire.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And the other was to see Amadeus.

[C]

I'm so sorry.

[A]

And no. Oh, my gosh, no. Amadeus. Don't listen, Atlee.

[B]

Amadenus I can feel over Sacred Cows at least is tipping over. Amadeus. I'm gonna say Chariots of Fire. I think that's a terribly overrated movie.

[A]

I would agree.

[B]

I don't see how that one. That one Best Picture also. And I. Yeah, honestly, I think of, like, all the great sports movies, and I. I'm someone who doesn't really like sports movies. With the occasion, rare boxing picture, maybe like Rocky or Raging Bull. Fine. But, yeah, any film about team sports I'm inclined to dislike. And I. I honestly think that that film is dull. I think it's badly filmed. I don't think the acting has much to commend it. I think people like it for its spiritual uplift. And that's.

[A]

Agree.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, fine, But I mean, it's not a good movie. Sorry.

[A]

I agree. All right. No, that's. That's good. All right. All right. Atlee, what you got? Give us another one of yours.

[C]

I'm like. I feel the. The heat of hatred coming towards me with people listening to Amadeus.

[A]

I'm not texting the accountant right now to cancel your insurance. What are you talking about? That's not happening at all. Click, click.

[C]

Oh, gosh. Okay. Anyway, what category are we in right now?

[A]

Any category.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Keep it spicy.

[C]

Okay. I will throw out the talented Mr. Ripley.

[B]

Okay. That should have been. I didn't write that down, but I thought about doing it. Yeah. Do you mean the new one or the. The Matt Damon?

[C]

The Matt Damon one. I still haven't seen the new one.

[A]

Okay, okay, okay, Sorry. Everybody just got their ears blown out because we got so excited that we all.

[C]

Sorry, headphone users.

[A]

Go ahead.

[C]

Now I've blanked. So when I was in college is when I first discovered that movie, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I would watch it over and over and over again. And then I read the book.

[A]

I just want to say I have read the book.

[C]

Me, too. I have read the book. Yeah, I read the book. I can't remember if it was for a class or what, but we. I took an adaptation class, and I don't remember very much from it, except that we talked about the talented Mr. Ripley. And what I really loved about it was it did deviate from the book. It's been so long, I can't remember exactly what was different. Like, I think the years were. The years it was set in were changed just slightly to kind of fit with the jazz age, which I loved, because the whole idea of jazz being sort of an improvisational riff really felt like it was fitting. With the character of Ripley.

[B]

Oh, that's a good point.

[C]

You know, he's kind of. He's kind of improving as he's going along.

[A]

Oh, that's a great point.

[C]

If you haven't seen the movie, I don't. I'm not gonna spoil anything for you. But he. He lies a lot, and he's, you know, trying to kind of create this Persona for himself, and that comes with a lot of improvisation. So that's. That's one thing I really loved. And they gave him. Not that I love when people give characters a sympathetic backstory, but I feel like we saw more into his. His reason why, which is not crucial.

[B]

He's more approachable, I guess. You don't. You don't feel comfortable in his company in that film, even when he does, you know, commits murder and things like that.

[C]

Exactly, exactly.

[B]

The newer version, the black and white.

[A]

We should say this is based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, the talented Mr. Ripley, and a series of sequels. Go ahead, honey.

[B]

Yeah, so the new one. I really love the starkness of this one.

[A]

Best with the new one you have to watch.

[B]

Yeah. Also brilliantly acted. I think Andrew Grant was Ripley. And it's black. It looks like an Italian neorealist film from the 50s when the book. It looks like Vittorio De Sica directed it or something.

[A]

And it's a series, so it can take its time. And in this, Ripley is much more like the Ripley in the book. He's more.

[B]

Much more darker. Yeah, much. Kind of a snake in the grass from the beginning.

[A]

Does not have any sympathetic side. Much more like the book.

[C]

Okay. But it's still. Still good.

[B]

Still very good. Yeah, very different. And we like the movie Anthony Minguela, but, yeah, very good.

[A]

No, we like both of them. They're very different. No, we loved the talented Mr. Ripley. And I also read. This is not on my list, but as long as we're talking about Patricia Highsmith, I also read Strangers on a Train by her and loved it and then watched the Hitchcock. So I'm gonna say my now horrible thing to get you mad at me.

[B]

You're a sacred cow.

[A]

I hate the Hitchcock film. I was so mad at it. I was so mad because Because Hitchcock does things I thought about while I heard the title of this book. Yeah. And I just. It just. It wasn't. Maybe I was wrong to have watched the movie expecting it was going to be the book, because it was.

[C]

You did read it.

[B]

You couldn't have filmed the book.

[A]

I read it first.

[B]

He couldn't have filmed the book at the time.

[A]

But it's not a different ending, and it really bothered me.

[B]

Well, yeah, but it was because of the Hays code, I don't think you could have filmed. There's so many plot elements in the book you just couldn't include in the. In the movie. And Hitchcock did that often, I think, because. I mean. And again, because he liked to be liberated from the text a bit. But one exception to that one film of his that I think is very much like the book is Memory Serves, and he is Rebecca. And that's actually on my list.

[A]

Okay, go for it.

[B]

So, Rebecca, I think, for one thing, it's a beautiful movie. I think the cinematography is probably stronger than.

[A]

So he's talking. You're talking about the Hitchcock Rebecca, not the new one.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Abortion of a remake we did not like.

[C]

Terrible.

[B]

Yeah, but. But yeah, the. The Hitchcock 1940, which is also a David O. Selznick produced film. But you don't. It's. It's famous for being one where this. The Selznick hand is not as visible, where for once, the director kind of seems in charge of the film. And yeah, I think it's. I think of his black and white films, it's certainly the most beautiful and it has a kind of haunting poetry, and it does have. That kind of. Does feel very much like the Daphne Du Novel. And it's also just brilliantly acted to both Lawrence Olivier, who did not enjoy making the film because he wanted his wife Vivian Lee to be in it, and he was playing opposite Joan Fontaine instead. And he really treated her like a jerk on the set, as did. As did Hitch. And. But her character is supposed to be kind of like frightened and, you know, sort of, sort of confused all the way through. And that, I guess, turned in a great performance.

[C]

You know, I should say it was very method, very messy.

[A]

Do Rebecca on the podcast.

[B]

Yeah. Like anyone who likes.

[A]

We should do it because we're gonna do Jane, Aaron.

[B]

We're gonna do Jane. Yeah, like the.

[C]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

Rebecca would be the natural, the literary granddaughter of Jane Eyre.

[A]

Then we could do a movie episode about the Rebecca.

[C]

You know, just the Hitchcock one and not. Oh, no, Army. The army.

[B]

Army Hammer. Yeah, that Was.

[A]

No, we're gonna have a two hour.

[B]

Just pretend that one doesn't exist.

[C]

Done.

[A]

All right, well, since I got skipped, let's circle back around to me and as. Okay, so I also have an old one to throw out. Since you guys are doing old, old classics. This is going to be a curveball, I think. I don't think my husband's going to see this coming because this is a movie version of a book that I have read five times in an attempt to love it. I can say that the book is a masterpiece. I can tell you exactly why it's a masterpiece. And then I can also tell you I don't like it. And then in grad school, we had to read it. And I was talking to the professor, I was like, about how much I was struggling with this book, and she agreed with me. And then we watched the film and I cried. You know, I think. You do know. I cried in our little seminar classroom while we're watching it like a 1980s TV. I cried in it. And this is the 1939 Wuthering Heights.

[B]

With Lawrence Olivier, also a beautiful film by a criminally underrated director. It's William Wyler. Who did Best Years of Our Lives? He did.

[C]

That's a great movie.

[B]

Yeah, like William Wyler. Like, talk about a director who's could do anything. He could do any type of movie, any genre. He was just a kind of a great journeyman director and. Yeah, like, kind of forgotten on my list.

[A]

I.

[B]

One of the directors on my list is Fred Zinneman, also like, I think a great director. Who. I mean, he did High Noon.

[C]

He.

[B]

Did the Day of the Jackal. That was one of his last films.

[C]

From Here to Eternity.

[B]

From Here to Eternity, yes. And. And A Man for All Seasons. And like Fred Zinneman also is not one of those directors who has any kind of immortality about a name anyway, but sorry to go back to Wuthering Heights.

[C]

I want to hear about Wuthering Heights.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Have you seen it, Atley?

[C]

No, I haven't.

[A]

Oh, you'll love it. So it's. You hated it? No, no, I love the movie.

[C]

Oh, the book you hated.

[A]

I hated the book. No, I love the Lawrence Olivier, Merle Oberon, absolutely fantastic.

[B]

You know, he felt he was filming. Olivia was filming Wuthering Heights back to back with playing Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. I think that's the same year. Yes, he was playing. He was like doing, I think, same character, like on one set one day.

[A]

And that's very little to do with the book. Yeah, it's a great.

[B]

It's only like the first half of the book, if I remember correctly, sympathetic Heathcliff.

[A]

So it's not a good adaptation of.

[B]

It was a more civilized Heathcliff. The.

[A]

But it's a good movie.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

I'm so.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Just to show people that I'm not just a snob. And I expect that the movie has to be exactly like the book.

[B]

So far in our collective list, I've counted three Lawrence Olivier films between yours and mine.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah, I think that.

[A]

And then also, have you noticed that 1939 is extremely overrepresented?

[B]

I know.

[A]

Wuthering Heights, the Wizard of Oz. That is a golden age year of film.

[C]

I tried very hard not to put too many 1939 movies in here.

[B]

I think I got at least one more here. Yeah, you do.

[A]

What's your other 39?

[B]

Isn't his girl Friday 39?

[C]

No, I think that's 40. 41 or 42.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So his Girl Friday also based on a play. It's based on the play the Front Page by Ben Hecht. And Ben Hecht is widely regarded as the greatest comic screenwriter in classic Hollywood. He was called the Shakespeare of the screen. And in his Girl Friday, I. I love that film. Just for the dialogue, he didn't write the final draft of the screenplay, but. And famously, they changed the gender of the main character. Yeah, it's two men. It's two men who work together in the office in the play. But in the film, they introduce a romantic tension by making Hildy the ex wife of the. The Cary Grant character.

[C]

Right. I think if I'm. I hope I'm remembering this right, but I think there was a film version of the original play.

[B]

Yeah. So there's two versions of the film. One, I think, from the 30s, around the time the play was written. And then Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau did a version of the Front page, maybe in 1970. They're both a bit older in it. I think it has a young Susan Sarandon in some capacity. It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny.

[C]

Oh, I bet it is.

[B]

Yeah, it's. I mean, they're the odd couple still. It's like, you know. You know, Jack Lemmon's like the kind of uptight, you know, very responsible sort of guy in Walter Mattho's the Slob kind of unethical boss. It's actually a pretty good movie.

[C]

Oh, I have to find this. Please, please hold. I'm gonna hop off and go watch it. Real quick, you guys can finish the podcast.

[A]

Podcast is gonna take two weeks to end because we have to go watch all these things. All right. I am going to actually just combine several, because we've actually already talked about them on the podcast before. But just in case somebody has not heard those episodes, I want to point out. So. So we don't repeat those too much, and then we'll get back to our list. But we did an entire. We did a whole Jane Austen adaptation series. We got a bunch of them. So the BBC Pride and Prejudice is definitely on the top of my list last years, too. Yeah. But we. But we already talked so extensively about that, so you can check that out. We also, when we did Much Ado About Nothing, we had an entire episode about the Kenneth Branagh version, which I think is almost perfection in terms of Shakespeare adaptation. And again, the same sort of thing does some things with film that you can't do on the stage, but really captured the heart of it, and just an absolutely beautiful, beautiful production. So I don't want to just repeat everything we said about that, but. And I have one more that we talked about a lot, which was when we read Howard's End, we had an entire episode on Howard's Inversions, and the movie is fantastic. But Atlee convinced us to watch the series, and we were blown away. Blown away and quick. I mean, Mr. Manx, you and I.

[B]

That redeemed my faith.

[A]

We were like, this is one of the best adaptations we've ever seen. We're so, so smitten with that.

[C]

Yeah, that Howards End miniseries is my number three. It's really high up on my list.

[A]

Oh, nice.

[C]

They just. I don't know. There's something about a miniseries when you have the time and the budget to do it justice, you are more likely to be more faithful to it in a. Not in a literal translation of the book, but like, just a. The spiritual way. And it. They just do such a good job in that miniseries. No, they want to watch it again.

[A]

They really do. So if we talk about Shakespeare for a second. Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, I mean, there's just so many great ones, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna throw one out that I don't. I don't know that that gets a lot of buzz. And Mr. Banks and I both think that it's really, really good. And this is the Othello with Kenneth Branagh and Lawrence.

[C]

Lawrence Fishburne. Yeah.

[A]

Both really like that one.

[B]

No, I think that's really, really good. And I yeah, it's. Othello has been filmed a number of times. Both filming the play straight, and I think they filmed it as a high school movie. There's. There's a high school.

[C]

Yeah, it's called. I think it's called. Oh.

[B]

Oh, yes. Probably from about 2000, early 2000. It was right after Romeo and Juliet with DiCaprio and Danes, and they decided to do every Shakespeare film as a team.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like drama of some kind, which I will get to.

[C]

It was like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And things I hate about Othello, sure.

[B]

But no, the. Oliver Parker, Kenneth Branagh, Lawrence Fishburn. I think that's a brilliant film. And I Also a really pretty film, too. It's one of those. It's one of those where the sets are very, very nice. Nice. Apt in every way.

[A]

All right, whose turn is it?

[B]

So I only have one Shakespeare on my list, and I have Ron, which is a Japanese. A feudal Japanese version of King Lear by Akira Kurosawa. It was one of Kurosawa's last films. It was the last of his three or four Shakespeare adaptations. He had done Throne of Blood some years earlier, which is Macbeth. He has a version of Hamlet. Ron, however, I think captured. I mean, the title Ron, in the. I think is the Japanese word for chaos. And it captures that kind of. That. That kind of feeling of the universe, this sort of claustrophobic universe of King Lear where there's kind of an oppressive darkness all throughout. And. Yeah, I think. I think Ron is the best screen version of King Lear. It's really the only one. I really. Careful in myself, in a way.

[A]

Interesting. Allie, did you have any Shakespeare that made your list?

[C]

Yes, I had one, but you're not gonna like it.

[A]

Oh.

[C]

Oh, maybe you will, actually, now that I say that it's just not a straightforward adaptation and I kind of lumped it in anyway. It's. Oh, no, I have two. Sorry. It's 10 things I hate about you.

[A]

No, I like that movie.

[C]

No, I know, I know. I just. It's not like I think that's a charming movie.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

I almost put that on my list because I think that it really gets the spirit of Taming of the Shrew.

[C]

That's. Yeah, that's exactly how I felt. And you could probably speak more to the Taming of the Shrew because you teach it, but I think so. On this list, I had lumped together 10 things I hate about you and Clueless. And one of my curveballs was the Leo, Claire Danes, Romeo and Juliet. Because the 90s, we talked about this A lot with the Jane Austen episodes we did. But the 90s were such a huge resurgence of Jane Austen, Shakespeare, golden age of film. It really was. It really was, as silly as that might feel. We are now far enough removed from it where we can call it a golden age. But there's something to be said for taking these. Taking these plays, taking these books and wanting to. I don't want to say, make them relatable, but sort of adapt them to where, oh, this is so hard to say. It's. It's not. The goal is not to make them relatable, but it does make them more. It does make them relatable.

[A]

So they were translated into a different context.

[C]

Yes, and that's the. And the context is so important. So when you have something like a Shakespeare play or a Jane Austen novel, they are set in these communities that are sort of fixed. You know, you have this. You have this cast of characters, and they all kind of live around each other and they socialize with each other, and it's. It's kind of hard to recreate realistically in modern perspectives. So placing them in a high school really seems to work out well. There's. There's a sort of levity to the. To the dialogue and. Because that's how, you know, high schoolers behave for the most part. And there's. It's a very closed society with leaders and, you know, different cliques and groups and things like that. So it just. It just makes a lot of sense. So I have clueless, 10 things I hate about you and Romeo and Juliet on here for that.

[A]

And we should say, if people don't know Clueless is a remake of Emma.

[C]

Emma.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Clueless is a remake of Emma, and we did a whole episode on Emma at a time.

[A]

But it's a fantastic movie.

[B]

It's really funny. Yeah. And I. Again, I think it's more. It's more literate than it seems to be. It's a smarter movie than it seems to be. I. I've watched it within the last few years, and yeah. Yeah, it's.

[A]

Yeah, it is a smarter movie. Yeah.

[C]

Which one? 10 Things I Hate about you.

[A]

No, Clueless.

[C]

Oh, Clueless. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I've seen 10 things I hate about you more than once, and I do think it is very true to the spirit of Taming of the Shrew. Like the one. The one thing that bothers me is people who read Taming of the Shrew and can't see that Kate holds her own, and they see her as sort of being Bullied into this relationship, which is a complete misreading that there's actually an attraction there, and she's very much willing and. And desiring to marry Petruchio. And so that they. They did a good job of picking that up. Like, you know, Kate's not in. She's not broken. At the end of 10 Things I Hate about you.

[C]

Right.

[A]

It's. It's, you know, to quote the line from the play, we will be like two fires who, when they meet, will put each other out. And. And I think they captured that very well.

[C]

Oh, that's a good line. I forgot that.

[A]

It is a good line. I've actually used that on people before. Use that one.

[C]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yeah. Not to pick them up, just to be clear, but just as an example, I've quoted that line. I once quoted that line to a firefighter and he stopped in his tracks and he said, wait, they knew about that back then? Oh, that a fire would put out a fire. I was like, yeah, imagine that. People knew things about fire a long time ago.

[B]

Oh, can I bring another one? I meant to bring up earlier when I was talking about bad books that made really good movies. This is so obvious. Maybe it's not obvious, but the Godfather.

[C]

Parts one and two, that was on my list.

[B]

Yeah. If you ever tried to read the Godfather books. But it's. They're like airport fiction. I would describe. Yeah, they're. They're. They're not. They don't have much literary standing, frankly. But, yeah, the first two movies. The third one, I, again, I have smart friends whose opinion I trust on most things, who insisted the third one is worthy of the first two, but it's not. I'm sorry. I've given it a shot. I've watched the third one three times.

[A]

This is a spicy hot take episode.

[B]

No, no. I mean, but like, yeah, I. But the first two, I think, are among the greatest American films of that certainly that decade, probably of all time.

[C]

Oh, all time.

[A]

And he did find getting me to watch them.

[B]

And I. I know my wife went. I mean, she married me with having never seen the Godfather, so I had to fix that. And you enjoyed them? I did, yeah. Yeah.

[A]

We only watched the first two, though.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay. Yeah, the third one, you know, it's generally accepted that you could. You could miss it. Yeah, it's okay.

[A]

All right, Atlee, what else you got?

[C]

Oh, let's see. I did put pride in both Pride and Prejudice, the big ones together. I don't. There's a whole, you know, two hour episode where we talk about the virtues.

[A]

And the downfall of the 2000s one as well, so.

[C]

Oh, yeah, well, it's, it's scary. We just hit the 20th anniversary, so in April they re released it in theaters and I got to go see it. And it's, it's still so good. I'm just. You just can't beat it. It's very, it's getting very popular on like Tick Tock and Instagram now. Like, people are using a lot of the audio and they're, you know, replaying and reenacting a lot of the clips from it. So I think it's, it's now growing even more than it was before. I think just Jane Austen in general is, is seeing a resurgence.

[A]

No, that is definitely, that is definitely true.

[C]

And yeah, the Bridgerton effect.

[A]

Most of the ones that I have described, I read the book first, but not all of them. Like Princess Bride. I read the book afterwards and for me, one of the great marks of a film adaptation is does it make the viewer want to read the book?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And it made me want to read the Princess Bride. And there's some others on my list that I, I read the book after watching the movie, but that, that was.

[B]

One of them, you know, one that I know you and I have watched together. Ms. Stanford doesn't have much to do with the book, but it, I think it makes some interesting cuts. Is A Place in the sun with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, which is based on An American Tragedy, so. Oh, that's An American Tragedy. It tells the second, the, the film covers the second half of that book. It covers it pretty faithfully as well. It cuts out the entire like childhood of the main character and his, his adolescence. And it just starts with him and, you know, he's 20 years old or something like that. And I, I think as a story, it has a kind of well crafted integrity. Enough by itself, the film that it doesn't feel unfaithful to the book, even though it leaves so much out of it. So maybe kind of like the Wuthering Heights you mentioned, which also means a lot of.

[A]

Okay, so if, again, if our artist doesn't know he's referring to Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy. Am I about to go Lawrence Olivier again? Because go for it. The other Theodore Dreiser novel that I really like is Sister Carrie and there's a movie of that. Is that with Lawrence Olivier?

[B]

Oh, I've never heard of a Sister Cherry film.

[A]

Oh, yes, I've watched it and I Remember, I enjoyed it. Look it up and see if it's Lawrence Olivier, because I think he's the man.

[C]

It's a William Wyler movie for sure. Yeah, Lawrence Olivier.

[A]

Oh, I was right. Okay. He's very over represented.

[C]

It's a very skewed episode.

[A]

I'm gonna title this at the Lawrence Olivier episode.

[B]

Yeah. And if you enjoy literary naturalism, Theodore Dreiser might be your cup of tea.

[A]

I mean, he's very fond of the book Sister Carrie.

[B]

Yeah, I like that one a lot too. And that's not a genre that I like that period. Like Zola. He's kind of like an American Emil Zo.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets. We could do that on the podcast. I'm very fond of that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Very fond of that book.

[B]

I'm not go there.

[A]

Yeah, there's a few American authors I like. All right, Atley, you got another one for us?

[C]

Yes. I might just need to lump them all together. So for plays, I tried not to do too many plays outside of Shakespeare, but there are some plays that I think sort of outlive and outrank some adaptations of plays that outrank and outlive the play itself. And so this one people might not know was actually neither of them people. Well, no, was a play. I don't think they don't go together at all. Steel Magnolias and Casablanca. So Casablanca, you're right.

[B]

That was a play. It actually looks like a play kind of. I mean, it's all.

[C]

Yeah, it could absolutely work as a.

[A]

Play noise because it's written by a guy from Louisiana.

[C]

Oh, okay. Oh, duh. That makes total sense. Yeah, I guess he wrote it sort of based on his life, like his sister's experience.

[A]

Okay, so tell us about those.

[C]

I don't know. I just, I put them on the list only for their merits of. Well, at least Steel Magnolia is only for its merit of how, how a play can be translated into a film really well. But. And you know, they, they add certain things, certain elements to it that you can't add in a play. But it's just, it's so. Still so powerful and it feels like you're. You're getting deeper emotionally into the story than you might necessarily in a play. With Casablanca, it's just one of the best movies of all time. You could make the argument that it is the best movie of all time. And the play, I think, is very, Very little known. I don't even know if it was performed at all very much before or after the movie came out. But yeah, like, like Tom said, it's just, it could, it could be very well performed on a stage and you wouldn't even really notice the difference. So I just love those a lot.

[A]

Very interesting. All right, my pick. And I'm, I'm, I'm actually surprised you haven't said it yet because I know it's on both of our lists. Mr. Banks is vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon.

[C]

Whoa.

[B]

I love that movie.

[A]

We both love that movie. What? You're surprised?

[C]

I mean, I've never seen it. I'm just so.

[A]

We both love the book and we both love the movie. And this is an example of this, a huge book. It's so long. This is long. It's Gone with the Wind and now it. But not a four hour movie, a two hour movie. So they had to keep, you know, huge chunks had to be missing. But I thought they captured the spirit.

[B]

And yeah, it's by someone who loves the book. It's directed by my Renair, who's the mother of the now mayor of New York. But yeah, she did Mississippi Masala and Monsoon Wedding. And yeah, it's, she has, I think, I think she, she incorporates some, you could say foreign elements to the story, but they all seem interwoven with it in such a way that nothing seems out of place, nothing seems discordant or false. And I, I think she understands the characters too. So I think that's, I think that's a brilliant film. I, I almost put that one on my list myself. I, I remember I was actually working in a movie theater when that movie came out. It came out when I was in high school or right after high school. And I remember these three young women about my age walking out of the movie and one of them remarked to another, yeah, I thought that was going to be like another Legally Blonde. No, but I didn't get it.

[C]

I didn't get it.

[B]

I, like, I, I had to bite my tongue right there. But I was like, I was such a snob.

[A]

Angel wings right there.

[B]

Yeah. Wow.

[C]

Oh, gosh. I had the same thought when I saw the poster, but I was also probably 10 years old.

[A]

It's okay.

[C]

I don't know what a 10 year.

[A]

Old, a 10 year old can definitely say that. I don't know how many y' all still have on your list. We, I mean, I still, I got.

[B]

A handful almost to the.

[C]

I've got a handful.

[B]

Yeah, I have my last. I mean, this is a film, this is a film I love and I've almost never meet Anyone who has heard of it but early 2000s, the quiet American, which is the second film version of Graham Greene's espionage novel. So it's, it's set in Vietnam right before the Americans got involved in that conflict. So it's set in the 1950s when the French are. The French colonial army is still there. It's Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser really.

[C]

Oh, you've told me to watch that before.

[B]

Yeah, I think I was going to.

[A]

Say you with the Brendan Fraser I.

[C]

Know, I love Brendan Fraser. I've never seen it.

[A]

This one.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's really one of those films where everything works very well and the. Though they don't retain everything from the novel, they retain a kind of. They capture the kind of spirit of world weary sort of well traveled cynicism that you find in Graham Green so much. And the dialogue is very good. I don't think a whole lot of it is directly from the book, but it, it has the Graham Green note that it hits very, very well. That's. Yeah, I think 2002, 2003 or something like that. Yeah.

[A]

All right. Atlee, how about you?

[C]

Okay, I think we're getting it. Oh, this one is technically three films, but it's also technically three books. I'm gonna put it out there. Lord of the Rings I think is. I think it's a solid adaptation and I'm really getting nervous now.

[A]

Don't get nervous. At least you didn't say the Chronicles of Narnia. Because I wouldn't.

[C]

No, I, I didn't.

[B]

Probably the Hobbit.

[C]

Yeah, no.

[A]

Let's hear now. Go. Give me your justification for this. Go.

[C]

It might just be because when you watch the extended editions and you watch the. All the supplementary stuff, like hours and hours and hours of interviews and things, and they talk about their justifications for the changes that they would have made from the book to the film. I think this, I think, again, I think the spirit of the books is there. And you know, when I was a kid and watching it, it made me want to read the books and then I did and I loved them even more. But there's, there are, I think there are things in the books that don't. Would not make sense in a film version. Maybe you can make the case if it was like a miniseries or something, you could, you know, go off on little tangents and things, but, you know, like taking out Tom Bombadil it just as a film, it wouldn't.

[B]

Or as the nerds call it the Great Betrayal, get angry about that. That's, yeah. Disturbing level of fandom.

[A]

You don't have to be scared, Ali. I, I don't hate those movies. And I was teaching high school when they came out, and I saw that the movies captured the imagination of those boys and that they then went and read the books. So I, I have a fondness for them and I enjoyed watching them. I, I enjoy. And I own them, actually.

[C]

Yeah, I, I will put. I put them on constantly. I'll just like. Even if I don't. Not watching them, per se. I'm just. They're on in the background all the time. The extended editions. I just, I don't. I don't know. I, I've. I saw them first before I read them, so I think that might have a little. That might have softened the, the. Any kind of controversy I might, you know, feel about.

[A]

No, I think that that's a valid pick, I guess, for anybody listening. I would, you know, if you're a homeschool family or just if you're a literary family, you're not homeschool. I realize our audience is much bigger than that, but I forget sometimes if, you know, your kids are going to read the books, I would say read them first before watching them.

[C]

Yes, definitely read them first for the.

[A]

Same reason that we talked about with Gone with the Wind, because those visuals are going to get in your head and it's going to change your reading experience.

[C]

Well, think about, you know, the movies have been out for, you know, what, almost 25 years now. The first one came out 24 years. And think about how much the, how much the visuals from that movie have, like, permeated into our brains. You know, like, when I was a kid, they were selling action figures and movie posters and books about the production of the movie. So even now reading them, I can't not see, you know, Viggo Mortensen or Orlando Bloom in my head when I picture these characters. I'm not sad about it. But you. I think to watch them first might do you a disservice as far as your imagination goes. So that, that is the, the caveat.

[A]

I would agree with that. And I think if you're well rooted in the book, you can enjoy the films. Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's fair. All right. I've got a minor pick that I know didn't make on anybody's list, but I think our listeners are going to scream with delay over this. This is a movie I stumbled on. Oh, I don't even remember how many years ago, five years ago, maybe. Stumbled on it, had no idea it was based on a book, had never heard of the book. And I watched it and was like, this is delightful. I don't know what this is, but this is fantastic. And then I just. I never even looked. It didn't even occur to me. It was. Was a book. And then I started hearing people in our Patreon talking about it, and I think they all read it together. And then so I was like, well, I'm going to read it too. And I read it, and then I found that it was jk, one of JK Rowling's favorite books. And that because it's a book about a girl writing a book. And. And so it became. I look at your face. What is it? What is it? And I'm so. I want to do it on the podcast because I'm so in love with the book, but this is I Capture the Castle, which is a book by Dodie Smith, who wrote Dalmatians. And look at the cast. It's like Bill Nighy and what's his name? Superman.

[B]

Henry.

[A]

Henry Cavill.

[C]

Oh, that.

[A]

Oh, the girl is the girl from Emma Ramola. Yeah, her. She's like. She's like 14. And it's a. It's a coming of age thing, but it's very Jane Austen.

[B]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

The whole subtext of the book is Jane Austen because it's like, oh, we have a neighbor and he's single, and so he must be in one of a wife. And she keeps referencing. This isn't going like a Jane Austen novel. It is. You'll love it. It is pure delight.

[C]

I'm looking it up now.

[A]

I love. And it's like this bohemian, artsy family in the. In around.

[B]

It's just kind of a small gem of a movie because I don't think I heard of it when it came out. It's. It's another one of those things that just didn't come to my attention.

[A]

Look at your face. You're freaking out right now. What are you saying?

[C]

I'm like. I'm just like. I'm so shocked. I've never even heard of this movie. Okay.

[A]

And look at this cast.

[C]

For people listening, it is playing on Amazon Prime Canopy, if you have a Canopy account and 2BTV. I love to be TV. It's free. Go watch it because apparently it's amazing.

[A]

No, it's so delightful. And I do want to do the podcast. I do want to do this book on the podcast. I think it would be a really good one for the podcast.

[C]

Henry Thomas from. Yeah, from E.T. elliot. Oh, my gosh.

[A]

I know. It's fantastic.

[C]

What is this movie?

[A]

But I will say that I could tell on the Patreon. A lot of people didn't understand the ending because they didn't understand what kind of book they were reading. And that's why I wanted to do it on the podcast, because, you know, my whole thing is if I'm out there and I see somebody's misunderstanding a book, I'm like, we must do it on the podcast. I must explain to them why they read it wrong.

[C]

Said it right.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah. No, it's very. It's charming.

[C]

Okay. We're gonna watch it this weekend.

[A]

I mean, it's even got. Romola's sister is.

[C]

Oh, Rose Byrne.

[A]

Yeah, Rose Byrne. She's in everything.

[C]

Oh, she is. I love her. She's so funny.

[A]

So, yeah. Okay. So that's. That's my kind of minor pick.

[B]

Wow. I have exhausted my list. I. Yeah, I feel like I've hogged the podcast.

[A]

Well, I've got my curveballs. Atley, you got anything before we go to curveball?

[B]

Actually, no, there's one I didn't mention.

[A]

All of my left ones are curveballs.

[B]

One that, like, I wouldn't show this to a small child, but the original film version of the Day of the Jackal, which was just remade as a series, which I thought the series did justice to the book, even though it's contemporary. But. Yeah. The Day of the Jackal is a spy novel written by Frederick Forsyth, who is. I would say he's a better writer than Ian Fleming, but he writes Ian Fleming type books, and he just died, actually. I think. I think, yeah, he's an underrated spy writer. Anyway, so the. The film version, 1970. 1971, by Fred Zinneman, has Edward Fox as this kind of man of mystery who has all these different identities, who's been given the job to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. It's loosely based, inspired by real events. And, yeah, both the book and the movie are. If you like spy fiction, it would probably be your thing.

[C]

Sweet.

[A]

All right. Ally, you got some curveballs.

[C]

I do. I know.

[A]

These are risky for me, too. Let's do our curveball.

[C]

I'm so scared. Maybe you should go first. Okay.

[A]

I will spin boldly here. All right, so here's my first curveball. This is something where I knew about the book, had never read it. My mom read it and had loved it, and we had watched, like, the 1970s mint TV miniseries that came out about it, but I don't even remember very much about that, Although I'm sure I watched it with her. But this came out on Hulu a couple years ago. We watched it. Look at your face. We watched it and were smitten. Like, we were so into this. We started texting everybody we knew. You have to watch this. You have to watch this. And I was so into it that when it was over, I went and read the book. And I actually think the TV series is better. Shogun.

[C]

Oh, yeah. You were telling me to watch that.

[B]

That was strong. That was strong. Yeah.

[A]

No Shogun. And they're making a season two and we're here for it.

[B]

Okay. Of recent film or screen versions of, you know, with a distinctively historic setting, which is also very foreign to, you know, most Western people's understanding. I think they did a pretty good job of interpreting 17th century Japan for an American audience.

[A]

I thought they did a great job.

[B]

They did a pretty good job.

[A]

Is hugely long. It's too long, in my opinion.

[C]

I've seen it in the stores and it's like five inches too long.

[A]

It was two separate audiobooks. That's how long it was. Oh, and they were each like 40 something hours. It was crazy. I was. I was invested in them. I was in a miniseries of Must have Been. But it was fun. I enjoyed it. But there were parts when I thought, oh, I can see why they cut this part out. I can see why they changed the timeline. And the choices they made made a lot of sense. So we really enjoyed that. One of the things that really was interesting to me, again, as opposed to like the 1970s version, which starred Richard Chamberlain, this had a Japanese cast and it is done in Japanese with subtitles. And I thought that was just very interesting because Americans are not really known for their willingness to read subtitles.

[C]

So that was just to read anything.

[A]

To read anything. Ooh, saucy. But that was delightful to me. I love watching foreign movies and hearing the foreign language. It was also. It was an international hit because of that. So it was big in Japan and it was produced by Japanese producers that told me a lot. Like the Japanese culture felt good about the way they were being presented on screen. I thought that it. It handled the multicultural issue extremely well. So if you don't know, Shogun is the story of. And what's the time period? 1600.

[B]

17Th century.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

1600S. Yeah. Yeah. So an. An English ship arrives on the shores of Japan. And so there's a lot of kind of fish out of water stuff. Because he doesn't understand them and they don't understand him. And I had sort of half expected the movie to take the position as you would expect that, oh, the English, they're Christian, they're bad, you know, the white man is coming. This is terrible. It was a much more nuanced portrayal than that. Like, from the English perspective, the Japanese are savages. From the Japanese perspective, the English are savages. But it was very, was very well done without being like heavy handed and just showed that there was a lot of misunderstanding. And then in some ways the Japanese culture was vastly superior. And you know, in, in other ways the English had had, you know, perfected some things about ship making, for example, that was, you know, superior. It was, it was just very well done and we enjoyed it a lot. I'm really looking forward for the second season, which is not going to be on the book Shogun, but it's, I believe, going to be pulling from some of the season sequels that he wrote. He wrote a ton of sequels. And weren't you telling me, Mr. Banks, that the author was a prisoner of war in Japan?

[B]

Yeah. So in. James Clavel was an Englishman who was taken as a prisoner of war in World War II. Yeah.

[A]

But then, but really it didn't seem like. Wasn't angry about it. Like he really, he came to have a great.

[B]

It's not a xenophobic view of Japanese society.

[C]

So it's, you know, it sounds sort of similar to the story, right? Like.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, sort of. Sort of similar, yeah. Except it's like a different time period.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

It was. I really enjoyed that. All right, now will you say your curveball since I've said Shogun, this is hardly a highbrow.

[C]

Okay, I'm gonna throw out a soft curveball. It might not even be a curveball now that I say it. It's a Wonderful Life is based on. It's based on a short story. So the author of the short story wrote it and couldn't find a publisher, I guess. So he wrote it out and sent it out to like 200 of his friends as like a, A Christmas present. Sort of like, like sending out a Christmas card.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And the reason I bring up It's A Wonderful Life is because I've. I haven't read the short story. I've listened to it. It's like a 30 minute reading by Edward Herman, who was an incredible reader. He was a great actor. It's worth your time. But what was interesting was if you've seen It's a wonderful Life. I'm gonna spoil it if you haven't.

[A]

Probably Leanne figures out it's a wonderful lie. Go ahead.

[C]

So probably in the movie about three quarters of the way is when, you know, very famously he's, he wishes that he had never been born. And then he sees what his, what life, what the world would be like without him in it. And so the short story is just that section. And it's so quick, it's almost not as impactful as, you know, a hour and a half long movie where we see his entire life leading up to that moment and that's when he really becomes, it's when the conflict comes in for his character. So, you know, I think as far as adaptation goes, I think it's a better representation of that story than the original work.

[A]

Oh, that is very interesting.

[C]

Yeah. You know, and they put a framing device in there with angels. They give the angel like character a name and make it, I don't know. Frank Capra has a way of just making me making anybody so emotional and, you know, really attached to these.

[B]

It's one of those films that makes you want to be a better person. As cheesy.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Sounds.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. But no, I, I, I hated that movie as a child and I've come to love it kind of really. So the first time I saw it, and I think this is probably true of a lot of people my age, there was this weird craze in the 80s and 90s to colorize black and white films.

[A]

Yeah, I remember that. Turner, Ted Turner.

[B]

Yeah. And I saw, I saw, saw a colorized version of that film around the holidays, I think, in my grandparents house. And it's like, why, why do people like this movie? And yeah, if I'm, if I remember.

[A]

Correctly, why is everyone's teeth blue?

[B]

That's yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And their skin, like this weird corpse like, like you, they seem like they just stepped out of a coffin or something. Yeah, everyone looks like an undertaker has had a go at freshening their cheeks up. But anyway, if I remember correctly, that film was not a hit when it first was released in 46 or 47.

[C]

Yeah, I don't think so.

[B]

I mean, I think it really. Yeah, I don't think it was a really big movie at first. And it kind of built up a following over the years.

[C]

It was probably, yeah, it was probably after it was, maybe it was Turner who like popped. I don't know. Honestly, it might have been. Well, it might have been, you know, like the wizard of Oz has like such repeat love because it Would premiere on tv and like, same for the Sound of Music. People love those movies so much because they saw them every year that might be seen something similar.

[A]

Wizard of Oz played every year on Easter Sunday when I was a kid.

[C]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yes. Okay. So this just to give you the childhood. I. I grew up in an era in which people did not have black and white televisions. So my grandparents had a. I mean, didn't have color televisions. My grandparents had a black and white tv. My parents had a color tv, but not when I was real little. We just had black and white. But eventually we, like, upgraded and got a color TV on our dinosaur. Well, we rode our dinosaur to the store and got a color tv. I realized that the students are like, what was the whole world black and white back then? It was. So we would have Easter Sunday dinner with my grandparents, and then the wizard of Oz would start. And I remember my mom would always say, well, you can watch it here because the first part is black and white. Anyway. Okay, so we'd watch the black and white part, and then when she gets caught up in the twister, that's when we would leave during the commercial break, and we would make it home just in time for her to open the door and be in color. Like, this is so imprinted in my brain.

[B]

Sort of Americana story that you've ever told.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We came snippets from the life of.

[A]

Angelina, but it's like, to grow up Gen X. There you go. To be a 70s, navigate the world between black and white and color TV.

[C]

Yeah, well, speaking of, that played on CBS, too.

[A]

I remember.

[C]

Oh, okay. The colorization. They did that with Casablanca, too. I think I remember seeing it.

[B]

Casablanca. That was terrible.

[C]

It's disgusting. But what makes me so mad about that is that now creates this sort of false idea in people's heads. Like, people my age that think any color. Any color movie that they watch that's old was colorized. It was colorized. And like, we, like. They didn't know how to do color film back then. They did, but they, you know, they made these films in black and white for a reason. So, like, people think the wizard of Oz was colorized?

[A]

No.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[C]

Or Gone with the Wind. Yeah. They're like, wow, this looks so good. I'm like, yeah, Gone with the Wind.

[A]

And the wizard of Oz is why there's no Technicolor left in the world, right?

[C]

No, the. When we were talking about Pride and prejudice, the 1940 version or 39, whatever. The Lawrence Olivier Pride and Prejudice that was supposed to be this, like, super lavish Technicolor costume drama, and they didn't. There was, like, not enough Technicolor film in the world that they. They could use because Gone with the Wind and wizard of Oz.

[B]

My gosh, that's amazing.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, so I'll have a curveball pick, also based on a short story. I'm gonna see if you two can guess it, because I know, Mr. Banks, this is one of your favorite films too. This is my Curveball, a short story by Stephen King, who wrote under a thin name.

[C]

Oh. Oh, well, now I'm not sure.

[A]

Should I say it?

[B]

Say it.

[A]

Shawshank Redemption.

[B]

Oh, did he write that one under a pen name? I knew that. Richard Bachman, I think, is the pen.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

He did a number of books that way.

[A]

Yeah. Redemption is a fabulous film. It's one of. It's one of the best movies ever made, frankly. And when you. When you realize it's a Stephen King short story, you have this moment, you're like, wait, he's gifted.

[C]

He can write anything.

[B]

Also. Maybe then you give him credit. Stand By Me also does that for me. I just rewatched that brilliant film, Stand.

[A]

By Me, also a brilliant film.

[B]

It's a rare film also, where all the kid actors are really good actors in that movie. River Phoenix is amazing in that role.

[C]

Yeah. Well, they all ended up very successful actors after that, one way or another, so they're very, very talented.

[A]

Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption are both some of where I remember thinking, stephen King is not who I think he is.

[C]

Right. I think they were published together, if I'm not mistaken, in a short story collection. Yeah, I think it's called Different Seasons or something like that.

[A]

Yeah. He sort of got put into this box of what Steve, like, he has become a brand, and when he wanted to, you know, kind of break out of that, he had to write under a different name. I mean, he also wrote the Running Man, Green Mile. All of those were under another name.

[C]

I forgot he wrote the Green Mile under another name. Oh, that was a good pick. That's a really good pick. That's, like, considered like, a modern classic, like one of the greatest movies of all time.

[A]

Genius. That is a genius movie.

[C]

So good.

[A]

All right, anybody else got another curveball?

[C]

Yeah, I've got a curveball editing my.

[A]

List as we go, so I'll have one left.

[C]

I'm having a little trouble because I know this is an adaptation, and I've seen it and I've read The thing it's based on, but I haven't done either in a very long time, so I need some help here. Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? Is an adaptation of the Odyssey.

[B]

Odyssey.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yep. No, that's a good pick. That's a good pick. Very good, Ali. It is the Odyssey.

[B]

It's the Odyssey as a Southern pickeresque story. And since Odysseus is kind of the original picaresque hero, it actually works very well. Yeah.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

The title of that movie is an homage to one of my favorite 1930s comedies called Sullivan's Travels. Joel McCray and Veronica Lake. Veronica Lake. I love that movie. Preston Sturgis. And the. The main character in it is this Hollywood screenwriter who's mostly known for goofy comedies, who wants to make something serious, like an homage to the plight of the working man. And his. His. The title he's going to give his film, which he never makes, is oh, Brother, where Art Thou?

[C]

Oh, I never knew that.

[B]

And yeah, it's so that. So the movie is a tip of the hat to. Yeah.

[A]

How do you know so much about Moody? You're so entertaining.

[B]

Well, thank you.

[A]

I might marry you. Okay.

[B]

I'll say yes.

[A]

Okay, perfect. You heard it here, folks. It's legally binding. All right. Okay. All right, I got one. Okay. I think this will be my last one. And then I can ask this for, like, one terrible movie based off.

[C]

But.

[A]

Okay, we can just maybe think of one off the top of my head. So this one is only, like, a curveball. Controversial pick because this is an example of a film that has very. It made. Make wild changes to the book, but I thought fundamentally captured the spirit of the book. And I was delighted from beginning to end. That is the new David Copperfield with Dev Patel.

[C]

Oh, Dev Patel. That was really good.

[B]

It was a remarkably good.

[A]

He was fantastic. And it was so unfortunate. Came out in 2020 and with COVID and it just. It just didn't find an audience. It was so good. And I thought, again, the changes were brilliant and worth. And the breaking of the fourth wall worked. Repeating of some actors in different roles and just. It just totally works because David Copperfield is a book about someone writing a book and about them writing the story of their life and crafting that story. And so the fact that they drew attention to the fact that they are crafting this life just completely worked. And I also thought it was a great example because we've certainly seen some bad ways that people have done this, but they took, you know, a white book of white characters in London and they made it a completely multi cultural diverse cast. And it totally worked. It worked. And. And I think part of the reason it worked is that they didn't make a big deal about the fact that David Copperfield was not white. And so you. Yeah, you just accepted him in the role and it wasn't heavy handed and it was just kind of the same way in. Hamilton's got a multicultural cast and it just completely works.

[C]

You just accept it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's fine. You know, oh, Thomas Jefferson is, you know, a black man. And it just would work. Works. It works. It's not. It. It's not a problem for the imagination. There are certainly. There are other versions where you feel like you're being hit over the head with the fact. Hello. Hello. We'd like to virtue signal that we have a diverse cast and then it just breaks the spell. This was an example of it just really, really done. And I don't even remember who the director was, but I was very charmed by that. Very charmed by that. And I. Yeah, we need to watch it again because I really. I really enjoyed that.

[B]

I'd like to point someone next to the. What's the next. Is it. I think George Cukor. I think your guy at least I think.

[C]

Yeah. Actually 30s, didn't he.

[B]

I think he has double WC fields as Mr. Macabre is like a kind of alcoholic. Oh, macabre.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And yeah, I'd like to watch it back to back with that one because I understand that's meant to be kind of a classic in its own right.

[C]

Yeah, it is.

[B]

At least I've heard that somewhere.

[C]

There's. I think. I think there's also a 90s TV version of David Copperfield with Daniel Radcliffe before he did Harry Potter. And like Maggie Smith's in it too.

[A]

It wasn't Oliver Twist.

[C]

Oh, that was it. Sorry.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[C]

Never mind. I'm making just.

[A]

It's Dickens. Whatever. They're all.

[C]

It's the same thing.

[A]

Orphan in London has trouble. Yes.

[C]

Let me. Let me look.

[A]

I think it is all of a twist.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

No. Harry Potter books made movies made our less magic.

[C]

Oh, it is David Copperfield.

[A]

It is.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, wow. You were right. I was wrong.

[B]

So. Ones we hate.

[A]

Yes. Okay.

[B]

Ms. Stanford, I think you should ladies first here.

[A]

Ladies first. All right. This is just off the top of my head because we didn't prepare this ahead of time. But if I'm going to pick a really bad movie based on a book I really like it's going to be a Tie between Francis Ford Popalish Dracula and Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein Time.

[C]

Okay. You have to speak on Frankenstein because I haven't seen it.

[A]

I saw it when it came out. I was so excited because he called it Mary Shelley's Friend. Yeah, it was gonna just. Just what? What Francis Ford Coppola did about calling his Bram Stoker's Dracula. Right. So it was. It was like in your face. Like, it's not going to be like the crazy Bride of Frankenstein. This is really going to be the book. And it was something. I mean, at one point, I don't know how familiar you are with the plot of Frankenstein, but at one point, when Elizabeth dies, Kenneth Branagh tries to bring her back to life and makes her a Frankenstein monster. And. Oh, yeah, I just. It just fundamentally changed the meaning of the book. Yeah, I mean, I guess it had more in common with the book than.

[B]

Some of the other states. Like, sitting down with you to watch the new one, I was wondering if you guys have seen any sharp objects, including your knitting.

[A]

Maybe. Maybe I'm. I shouldn't speak out before I have seen it, but let's just say some people that I really, really trust rage narrated their way through the movie to me.

[C]

Don't tell me.

[A]

And so I. I'm prepared to be very angry.

[C]

That's very sad, because Guillermo del Toro makes such good stuff.

[A]

I like him. And we both like him. And we were both looking forward to it.

[B]

We both love Night in Her Alley. I. Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite.

[A]

But, you know, we were thinking of. We were talking about this the other day, that Guillermo del Toro is either spot on perfection or horrifically bad. Can't watch it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And maybe that's the mark of genius on. Honestly.

[B]

Maybe.

[A]

But like, Crimson Peak, that was terrible.

[C]

Oh, yeah. Definitely hated that one.

[A]

Wait, no, you didn't hate it. It was so bad.

[C]

No, I liked it.

[A]

No, I liked it because people have been saying this is the best Guillermo del Toro movie since Crimson Peak. And we're like, well, that's. We heard enough.

[C]

Terrible. I didn't hate it.

[A]

Wow. You're fired.

[C]

I think. Didn't I recommend that to you? And I never.

[B]

I don't think so.

[C]

Okay, good.

[B]

We saw it before we met you, I think.

[C]

Okay, that's good.

[B]

We just got married. I think we're on the time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Anyway. Okay. There's so many. And this is actually the hardest part of my list because.

[A]

Oh, well, give us more than one.

[B]

One. Okay. I will admit I did not finish watching this film, but I'm gonna say Persuasion with that.

[A]

Yeah. The Netflix person, Dakota Johnson. We couldn't finish it. It was just unwatchable. We're all in agreement on this. Yes. You're not gonna.

[C]

I never. I never even watched it. I didn't bother to watch it.

[B]

It was. Yeah, that was a train wreck combined with the Titanic symphony.

[A]

So imagine. Imagine if. Okay, yes. Imagine if a Jane Austen novel is being filmed like an episode of the Office.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And the main characters are always looking at the camera, like rolling their eyes.

[B]

And making this exasperated sort of almost interview style with. I think it's audience.

[C]

I think it's riding on the coattails of things like. Like fleabag.

[B]

Yeah. That was. That was. I think it was self consciously.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's not what an Austin heroine is like.

[C]

No, it's not.

[A]

And so here's the weird thing, and this might be a controversial thing for me to say, but I liked the Bridget Jones's Diary book because. And it's Pride and Prejudice, Right. It's based on Pride and Prejudice. And I thought she did a really interesting way of translating the essential things of Pride and Prejudice into this other modern London thing. And I thought it worked. I don't think it works in reverse. And that's what happened in Persuasion.

[B]

They tried to the modern sensibility, but still in period.

[A]

So they tried to turn Anne Elliot into Bridget Jones. Like, you can turn. You can take Lizzie Bennett and you can put her in modern England and you can make her be a little more modern, but you can't take Bridget Jones and stick her back in Pemberley. And that's what they did in Persuasion. And it didn't work. It didn't work because.

[C]

Well, it's like when they try to put.

[A]

Elliot is not an ironic, sarcastic person. What are you going to say?

[C]

It's like when they put modern music in and period.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

Movies. It just doesn't. Doesn't do it for me.

[A]

It's very jarring. All right, Atlee, what's going to be your pick.

[C]

For a terrible one? Oh, for terrible. I remember distinctly not liking the Giver when they came out with that a couple years ago.

[B]

That also was disappointing. And that was a book that. I mean, it wasn't like an essential feature of my childhood, but I did like it. And yeah, I felt let down by that one.

[C]

Yeah, we reread it in middle school and it was one of those things where we just really immersed ourselves in the book. Like we took weeks to read it and we talked about It A lot. And then I guess probably when I was in high school is when the movie came out and it just fell so flat. I think there are some books that can't be adapted. It seems like it should because the whole idea of a black and white world and going into color. Oh, spoiler alert. But there's something about, if I remember correctly, I think in the Giver, like, you don't realize that you're not seeing the world in color until you do. When you're watching the movie and it's in black and white and it starts transitioning to color, it ruins it. Yeah. So I don't know, it just. It just missed the mark. I don't think it's. I think it's just the nature of the book, I think, is not gonna. It's not gonna do it.

[B]

Okay. I. I just thought of a title that. There's a side of me that wants to like this film because of the people associated with it with it. The director, the cast.

[C]

But the 80s Dune, that was on my list too.

[B]

Yeah, I know. Like, that's a film that, like, I. I watched it again some years ago and I thought, like, maybe there's some redeeming elements in this and. No, I think there's good reason why.

[C]

Yeah, well, he is David. Yeah. David Lynch. Yeah. He disowned it. I remember hearing that they. They had to, like, put theater cards. Like, they had to give the audience theater cards to kind of explain the backstory that's of the movie.

[B]

Like, someone in marketing should have intervened at that point.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

Before you watch the film real quick here. Yeah. During the intermission. Yeah.

[C]

Well, Dune is. So.

[B]

I like the new one. I like the V and.

[C]

Yeah, the new. Yeah, the new one's really good. Yeah, they split it. They split it in two parts and now they're, you know, they're kind of going into. They're making more. They're making film versions of the sequels.

[B]

Oh, yeah, the original. The story feels rushed and. Yeah, it seems that there. It seems that there a lot was just the editing process. I don't know what happened to the movie there, but, yeah, it's. It seems like you can almost feel people fighting in the background about Final cut and that kind of thing. So. Yeah, that's another one of those films that I think.

[A]

As opposed to the new one, which I watched and then read the book because I was so intrigued.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I enjoyed the book.

[C]

Yeah, I love. I love the book and I need to read the other ones, but. Yeah, that Was on my list, too. Of. Of worst.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

All right. Any final thoughts or movies you want to shout out before we say goodbye?

[C]

Yeah, I had. I have a couple curveballs. I'm just gonna list them out. So one is a knight's tale, and I don't. I've never read A Night's Tale, so.

[A]

It has nothing to do with this.

[C]

Movie, I promise you.

[A]

Chaucer story.

[C]

Okay. That's good to know. I wanted to get your opinion on that on the air. Another one was naked.

[B]

Jeffrey Chaucer in it, though.

[A]

That's something spot on is what that is.

[B]

I really wanted to see that.

[C]

Another one was another Shakespeare that I forgot I had. So I didn't have two. I had three. West side Story. The original west side Story.

[A]

Is that Romeo and Juliet?

[C]

Romeo and Juliet, Yeah. The original one. Not the new one. The new one's okay.

[A]

And I presume you like west side Story. This is not a list of bad ones.

[C]

Yes. This is just kind of curve balls. Things I like.

[A]

All right.

[C]

Curveballs. West side Story was good. This was. This was the curveball. I didn't want to say, but I'm gonna say it anyway, because we're very. We feel very strongly here at House of Humane Letters about movies based on fairy tales. But this is ever after with Drew Barrymore. I remember thinking that, yeah, it's a cute movie. I think the problem is if you try to call it. Try to say it's based on Cinderella. Yeah, that's the issue. They have again, they have a framing device where the Grimm brothers are going to this. This castle to talk to this woman who's just read their. Their household tales, their fairy tales. And she's upset with the way that they portrayed Cinderella because this is what really happened. This was the true story, because this is my ancestor or whatever. And so she's sitting there with the grim brother, since she's telling the story.

[A]

I didn't like that part. No, I wouldn't like that.

[C]

Yeah, I think you would hate it. But it's such a good movie, regardless. Like, I don't know. I think it could be a separate thing from the fairy tale itself. So that's a great movie. And my last one, I don't even know if you could call it an adaptation. It's an adaptation of a game, and it's Clue. I like Clue.

[A]

I like that movie, too. We watched it together, and remember, I made you watch it when we first.

[B]

I had never seen that.

[C]

Yeah, you had never seen it before. That's shocking. Honestly, it's. It is a classic.

[B]

I thought it was a fun. Yeah, that was fun.

[A]

Yeah, I know. I love that. My kids used to watch that.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But it's like, it's, it's sort of based on the story of the game and there's not really a book or anything to base it on, so I wasn't sure if I should. Should include it in here, but I.

[A]

Figured out I like it.

[C]

That's the real curveball. That's what I'm saying. For last.

[A]

I like it. All right. I think this was a fun episode.

[C]

I think so, too. Now I'm gonna go watch all this stuff again and again and again.

[A]

Yeah. Hopefully we've given you some titles and some suggestions to explore or perhaps not to explore over the Christmas holidays. Don't forget about our Christmas sale. It's going to run through the end of the year through December 31st. So that's HouseOfHumaneLetters.com and you can go to CassiodorPress.com to pick up your copy of Jason Baxter's why Literature Still Matters, which would be a great Christmas gift for somebody. And join us here next week when we will start Moliere's play Don Juan.

[B]

Hear, hear.

[A]

Which I have never read, so I hope you're going to be planning to take the lead on that. I'm just gonna skate. I believe I will gonna skate through the next few weeks. All right. At least. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. It was a delight, as always. We appreciate your.

[B]

Yeah, your expertise is valued, certainly.

[A]

Absolutely.

[C]

Oh, I'm happy to hear it being called expertise and not just frivolity. Thank you guys for having me.

[A]

Thanks so much for being on the show. Stick around until the end of this podcast because Mr. Banks will have a special poem to recite to you. Until next time, keep crafting your literary life because stories will save the world. Thank you for listening to the Literary Life podcast brought to you by our loyal patreon sponsors. Visit HouseOfHumaneLetters.com to find Angelina and Thomas and to sign up for our newsletter with podcast schedules and more. And keep up with [e-mail] Join the Conversation at our member Only Patreon forum or our Facebook discussion group. Visit patreon.com theliterarylife to find out how you can sponsor this podcast and get great bonus content. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and check out our sister podcasts, the New Mason Jar and the well read Poem. And now for a poem read by poet Thomas Banks. It out.

[B]

Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it. By Anthony Hecht. Tonight my children hunch toward their western and are glad. As with a Sunday punch. The good casts out the bad. And in their fairy tales the warty giant and witch get sealed in doorless jails. And the Match Girl strikes it rich. I've made myself a drink. The giant and witch are set to bust out of the clink. When my children have gone to bed. All frequencies are loud with signals of despair. In flash and Morse they crowd the rondure of the air. For the wicked have grown strong. Their numbers mock at death. Their cow brings forth its young, their bull engendereth their very fund of strength. Satan bestrides the globe. He stalks its breadth and length and finds out even Job. Yet by quite other laws my children make their case. Half God, half Santa Claus. But with my voice and face a hero comes to save the poor man, beggar man, thief, and make the world behave and put an end to grief, and that their sleep be sound. I say this childer mass, who could not at one time have saved them from the gas.