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I just stumbled into reading the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest last week (somehow I've never read it before) and it got me to thinking about the process of literary to film adaptation.
So I've decided on a little project wherein I'll compare the great films with the materials they are based on. We'll see how long that lasts and I've decided to use the AFI 100 films list as a guide (simply because they had it presented in an easy format and it is a list of good movies even if not a perfect list of the best).
So, from the top 20, in the next year I hope to cover:
The Godfather by Mario Puzo (Novel)
Everbody Comes to Rick's (Play) by Joan Alison and Murray Barnett - the basis for Casablanca
Raging Bull: My Story (Autobiography) by Jake LaMotta
Gone with the Wind (Novel) by Margaret Mitchell
Schindler's List (Novel) by Thomas Keneally
Cold Sweat: From Among the Dead (Novel) by Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayrand, translated from the French D'entre les Morts and the basis for Vertigo
The Wizard of Oz (Novel) by Frank L. Baum
The Searchers (Novel) by Alan Le May
Psycho (Novel) by Robert Bloch
2001: A Space Odyssey (Novel) by Arthur C. Clarke
The Graduate (Novel) by Charles Webb
The Great Locomotive Chase (Autobiography) by William Pittinger and the basis for The General
A series of articles in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson that were the basis for On the Waterfront
The Greatest Gift (short story) by Philip Van Doren Stern and the basis for It's a Wonderful Life
The only one I've read is 2001 and the only one I dread reading is Gone with the Wind so if I stick to it, it should be interesting. I will, of course, follow the reading with a viewing (and I've already seen all of these movies).
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