Great Books That Made Great Flicks
UPDATE: Grimmy weighs in with Band of Brothers : E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, by Stephen Ambrose, and Band of Brothers, the fine HBO series that is one of my favorites because of its fidelity in depicting real events in the lives of real people. Grimmy adds a new category. Great books that will make great flicks. “The Pacific is a similar series being produced by HBO. It’s based on With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Lekie.”
LCDR Joe D with a couple of suggestions spawns a new section at Crittenden’s Boutique Right-Wing Warmongery:
The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna. The Sand Pebbles, director Robert Wise, starring Steve McQueen.
Das Boot: The Boat by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. Das Boot - The Director’s Cut and Das Boot - The Original Uncut Version, director Wolfgang Petersen, starring Jürgen Prochnow.
From yesterday’s post, along the same lines,
Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, Nechama Tec, researched history on which Defiance, the recent film of Jewish resistance, is based.
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. One of the greatest novels of all time, upon which the film Apocalypse Now is based.
Your suggestions welcomed, including mediocre/bad books that made great movies and great books that made mediocre/bad movies.
We have a taker. Peyton likes Starship Troopers by the great Robert Heinlein, deems Starship Troopers the B flick “ridiculous,” which sounds about right for the 10 minutes or so I’ve seen of it. Meanwhile, this also popped up, Starship Troopers Trilogy, 2008, have no idea what that is.
Peyton also likes the Gregory Peck flick Twelve O’Clock High as a leadership study. He wasn’t sure whether it’s a book or not, neither was I, and guess what, it is. Out of print and going dear, Twelve O’Clock High (Great Classic Stories of World War II). Amazon reviews:
Twelve O’Clock High! is the story of the 8th U.S. Army Air Force in England during World War II. Written by authors Beirne Lay and Sy Bartlett, both original staff officers of the 8th Air Force, this novel draws heavily from actual experiences of airmen in battle and their commanders on the ground. This is “must reading” for any serious aviation enthusiast or historian, as the book weaves a spell-binding and realistic tale of drama, action, and human suffering. A chronicle of patriotism, Twleve O’Clock High! is the novel of America’s “Gettysburg in the Sky.”
Twelve O’Clock High is, of course, one of the best works of fiction about the air war in Europe ever to be published. But that is not why it’s still required reading at America’s service academies. The book is a fascinating study in the psychology of command and commanders. It explores the satisfaction of command - taking a dispirited air group and turning it around to become the point of the 8th Air Force’s aerial spear, and changing a group of crybabies into a disciplined, proud unit. It also shows the price in human lives and mental anguish inflicted upon a commanding officer who must, time and again, order his men into battle with the certain knowledge that some of them won’t be coming back. It further offers hints on how a commanding officer can deal with the stress he must needs inflict upon himself, and shows clearly the fine line a leader walks between familiarity and emotional disassociation. In some ways the book is almost a roman a clef, particularly in the characters of Savage, Bishop and McIlhenney, with the action itself a composite of various air actions, including the notorious “Black Thursday” raid of October,1943 on the Schweinfurt ball bearing works. But for all that, it’s still a compelling read for all who are interested in what makes miltary leaders tick. This book cannot be recommended too highly, and it is so superior to the movie that there is no comparison. I rate it as a “must-read.”
OK, in other great books/flicks, Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae, considered a must-read in military officer circles, was not the source of the great CGI-enhanced film 300, considered a must-view in basement-dwelling loser circles and the Crittenden household. That of course sprung whole from 300, the illustrated novel by Frank Miller.
Topics: A Right-Wing Warmonger's Boutique Bookshop, Hollywood, books
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:14 pm on Wednesday, May 27, 2009
5 Responses to “Great Books That Made Great Flicks”
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May 27th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
“Bayonet! Forward”: My Civil War Reminiscences by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. No movie involved, but it ties in well with Shaara’s “Killer Angels.”
May 27th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
A great book on citizenship, commitment and leadership in combat that became a completely ridiculous, sadly shallow, wonderfully fun popcorn muncher: “Starship Troopers.”
I’m not sure if it’s based on a novel, but I believe that the finest war movie and leadership study, ever, was “Twelve O’Clock High.”
May 28th, 2009 at 3:11 am
Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose became Band of Brothers, the HBO mini series.
The Pacific is a similar series being produced by HBO. It’s based on With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Lekie.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Science fiction novels tend to end up as poor movies because the novels are usually very complex in nature. Starship Troopers is no exception and as Peyton notes much of the book was about human qualities, with shorter sections containing what the type of action that would make a good movie. Those sections are the only ones that survived the transition to cinema and so we have a cartoonish movie adapted from a decidedly not cartoonish book.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
The rights to Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell just got picked up by Universal Studio. If they can stay honest to the story, it will be a complete blockbuster. A movie which unabashedly tells the story of true American military heroes fighting to the death in a modern-day war hasn’t seen the light of day. Lone Survivor could be truly incredible.