Based on the Novel

The topic of taking books I've enjoyed and making them into movies had me curious: how many of the 20 books from my First Line Quiz (a random collection of sorts, right?) ever made it to the screen? I was certain of at least ten; I was surprised to discover fourteen, a high percentage, I think.

In order of release then, here are the novels from that list that were made into movies:

Moby Dick:   (1930)   Starring John Barrymore; followed by John Huston's version with Gregory Peck as Ahab (1956); an animated version (1977); and a four hour TV miniseries featuring Patrick Stewart (1998).

The Stranger:   (1967)   Released in Italy as Lo Straniero (1967) and starring Marcello Mastroianni; later released in France as L'Etranger.

Catch-22:   (1970)   The book was a best-seller, but the movie flopped: it got trumped that same year by Robert Altman's M*A*S*H, but what an unbelievable ensemble cast appeared in Catch-22: Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford, Buck Henry, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Paula Prentiss, Martin Sheen, Jon Voigt, Orson Welles, Bob Balaban, Charles Grodin, and Alan Alda as an extra.

End of the Road:   (1970)   Originally rated X; starred Stacey Keach as Jacob Horner and James Earl Jones as the doctor. I rented it years ago and it was nothing like I envisioned the novel, but similar to other gritty, realistic, Vietnam-era movies like Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy, Little Big Man, and Straw Dogs.

A Clockwork Orange:   (1971)   A cult classic; also X-rated when it was released—although the violence is unremarkable, literally cartoonish, by today's standards; directed by the remarkable Stanley Kubrick; starring Malcolm McDowell.

Slaughter-House Five:   (1972)   "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." The movie may have permanently imprinted that line for thousands of viewers, but as delightful as it is, that is not the first line of the novel.

Portnoy's Complaint:   (1972)   This one surprised me, although maybe I saw it in a campus theater decades ago. It starred Richard Benjamin and Karen Black. Benjamin, incidentally, also starred in another Philip Roth effort, Goodbye Columbus (1969), with Ali McGraw one year before she gained stardom for Love Story.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest:   (1975)   Directed by Milos Forman and starring Jack Nicholson. A terrific movie, although I recall being moderately disappointed as I left the theater after the first viewing, having made the mistake of finishing the novel the week before—never a good idea.

The Hobbit:   (1978)   Animated. I wonder whether the boys would enjoy it.

Grendel:   (1981)   Surprise, surprise! "Grendel, Grendel, Grendel," was an animation out of Australia featuring the voice of Peter Ustinov. The plot synopsis at www.allmovie.com cracks me up:

In the late 1970s, Grendel by John Gardner was a highbrow best-seller that everyone with pretensions to intellectual sophistication was reading. In it, the author retold the epic Anglo-Saxon hero myth of Beowulf from the point of view of the monster the hero killed, rather than from the hero's vantage point. In so doing, he scored numerous points about the violence and intolerance of human beings and raised more profound philosophical issues. This animated feature was adapted from Gardner's book and never quite found its audience; too simplified for the literati, it was definitely not a children's feature and was not aimed at mainstream audiences.

Gorky Park:   (1983)   Starring William Hurt, Lee Marvin, and Brian Dennehy; I still can't understand why nothing else from Martin Cruz Smith has made it to the screen except for Nightwing (1979).

The Princess Bride:   (1987)   Well, William Goldman is a renowned screenwriter and novelist, after all. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Great Waldo Pepper, the original version of The Stepford Wives, Marathon Man, All the President's Men, and The Right Stuff, among others, all preceded The Princess Bride, which many (Goldman included) think is terrific, but which I still consider disappointing.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:   (1998)   Directed by Terry Gilliam; starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Torro; see also Where the Buffalo Roam (1981) with Bill Murray and Peter Boyle playing Hunter S. Thompson and his attorney.

A Scanner Darkly:   (2005)   In production, as previously discussed.


As near as I can tell, none of the others from that list of twenty have yet been made into an American movie:

M/F:   If it hasn't reached the screen by now, I seriously doubt it ever will.

One Hundred Years of Solitude:   Hasn't made it to American screens, but there was one movie, Eréndira (1983), that was made from a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story. For magic realism fans, try The House of the Spirits (1993) from the Isabel Allende novel.

The Tiger Bride:   Most of Angela Carter's outstanding writing, many of them dark and symbolic derivatives of classic fables, are short stories, not novels; I know of one movie, The Company of Wolves (1984), that was loosely based on her examination of the Little Red Riding Hood tale.

The 158-Pound Marriage:   Not surprising that this one never made it, but The World According to Garp (1982), The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), Simon Birch (from A Prayer for Owen Meany) (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999), and Door in the Floor (2004) (from A Widow for One Year) all came from other John Irving novels.

Rendezvous With Rama:   Surprisingly, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the sequel, 2010 (1984) are the only Arthur C. Clarke novels to my knowledge to make it to the screen. I don't know how that is possible: ever since I first read Rendezvous With Rama in college I began imagining how I would make it into a movie.

Neuromancer:   The rights have been optioned, and at least one old screenplay is circulating in Hollywood, but so far only Gibson's stories Johnny Mnemonic (1995), and something called New Rose Hotel (1998), have made it to film.