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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 23, 2022 18:06:37 GMT
The hope of this thread is that members will share any thoughts, impressions, reviews, comments, etc., they have on books about the making of movies, about actors, about studios and, definitely, about books that are the actual original source material for movies. So please put up a full review, or just one comment, or a note about a new book that's coming out or a note about a very old one that you don't want to be forgotten.The idea is to have fun chatting about books we love and maybe inspire someone to read a book you love.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 23, 2022 18:18:42 GMT
Laura the book, like its famous movie of the same name, is an entertaining noir mystery with a romantic overlay. Set in Manhattan, its unsolved murder tosses together wealthy New Yorkers, loyal "domestics," a southern "gentleman" and a hard-boiled detective.
Titular Laura is a beautiful "selfmade" New Yorker. Like many who come to the big city when still young, poor nobody Laura reinvents herself into a sophisticated and elegant advertising executive.
Helping her in this metamorphosis is nationally syndicated columnist Waldo Lydecker, a fat, condescending and pretentious man who "educates" Laura in the "finer" things in life.
Lydecker, carrying a torch for Laura, can't stand Laura's fiance, Shelby Carpenter, a strikingly handsome Southerner who has old-world charm and manners, but no money (which successful Laura can supply).
You can almost see the story starting to play out except Laura is killed right when the book opens leaving us to learn about her through flashbacks as New York City detective Mark McPherson begins his investigation.
Author Caspary uses the investigation of Laura's murder to mix up the social classes as dandy Lydecker and from-the-streets McPherson become frenemies.
The "domestics" such as Laura's maid Bessie and Lydecker's Filipino "houseboy" (if ever a man would have a Filipino houseboy, it would be Waldo Lydecker) come out of the shadows as their observations carry equal weight with McPherson.
All charm and "breeding" Carpenter is forced to answer questions and other "indignities" as murder investigations make no exceptions for Southern breading.
Caspary makes the most of her stirred pot as neither sophisticated New Yorkers nor polished Southerners look all that smart or composed under the relentless analysis and interrogation of an experienced, street-smart detective.
But Laura is no straight-forward murder mystery as fans of the movie already know, because about a third of the way in, Caspray flips the plot upside down.
From there, the story changes, but the mystery, investigation and buffeting of the social classes continues. An odd and intriguing romantic angle also develops, but to explain that would force a reveal of the aforementioned major plot twist.
Laura's charm and engagement, though, is less its very cleverly crafted murder mystery, which does drop a few too many clues along the way, than it's well drawn characters. This is accomplished in part by having the protagonists each narrate one or two sections of the novel, which fully brings out their personalities and weaknesses.
Pompous and effete Lydecker pines for Laura, but is too proud to admit it; intelligent McPherson carries a chip on his shoulder for the wealthy and "smart" New Yorkers he's investigating and cool, kind and arrestingly pretty Laura can still feel like the insecure "hick" she was when she first arrived in the City.
With a 2022 perspective, Laura is a very modern novel. Laura herself is a successful advertising executive who has chosen not to get married and give up her career. Even her pending marriage is really to a man who would be, in the traditional sense of the role, her wife. The past is never as black and white as our modern Cliff Notes version avers.
In another affront to our modern view, while Laura has no need for a man "to take care of her," she does begin to see that she wants a man to "be a man" in the traditional sense of the word. By implication, this means he is strong, honest, confident, decisive and kind. She wants neither a Neanderthal nor an overly sensitive man. It's an interesting 1940s take on our present-day debate about manhood.
The movie Laura made some changes to Laura the book, but most of the story is still there on the screen. Yet the novel provides additional background and the opportunity to spend more time with the characters that many first met through the movie.
Whether you've seen the movie or not, though, for fans or noir mysteries, especially if they like it with a heavy shot of romance, Laura is a smartly constructed and witty page-turner that is well worth the read.
[Comments on the movie Laura, now generally recognized as a classic, can be found here: classicfilmtvradio.freeforums.net/post/128/thread]
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Post by BingFan on Oct 24, 2022 1:09:06 GMT
Thanks for the informative and insightful review! You’ve convinced me to read the book, which I bought several years ago at a used book sale but haven’t gotten around to reading yet. I guess I always thought that the movie, which I watch on a yearly basis, provided me with enough of the story. But from your review, it sounds like there’s s bit more to the story and characters in the book, making it worth reading even for someone who knows the movie backwards and forwards.
It’s interesting that the book describes Waldo as “fat,” which Clifton Webb obviously isn’t in playing the role. But “fat” fits the character, given that Waldo is supposedly based on the rather large Alexander Woollcott. (Woollcott wasn’t a murderer, of course.)
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 24, 2022 8:44:10 GMT
Thanks for the informative and insightful review! You’ve convinced me to read the book, which I bought several years ago at a used book sale but haven’t gotten around to reading yet. I guess I always thought that the movie, which I watch on a yearly basis, provided me with enough of the story. But from your review, it sounds like there’s s bit more to the story and characters in the book, making it worth reading even for someone who knows the movie backwards and forwards.
It’s interesting that the book describes Waldo as “fat,” which Clifton Webb obviously isn’t in playing the role. But “fat” fits the character, given that Waldo is supposedly based on the rather large Alexander Woollcott. (Woollcott wasn’t a murderer, of course.)
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Post by topbilled on Oct 24, 2022 15:25:52 GMT
Great thread.
One book I have been wanting to read (if I can find a copy) is King's Row by Henry Bellamann which was published in 1940. As most folks know, Warner Brothers ran into a lot of problems with the production code office when making the film in 1941-1942...so the resulting movie is very watered down. I'd like to go through the book to discover what was left out of the movie.
Forever Amber, made by 20th Century Fox in 1947, is another novel I've been wanting to read for the exact same reason.
Often, because of the code, these spicy stories had rather tepid screen adaptations.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 24, 2022 15:56:13 GMT
I've seen that book in used books stores and on used book sites (I frequent both too often), but have passed because the movie so depressed me that I don't want to read it even though, as you note, it's fun to see how the story was changed for the movie.
One book I would recommend, and will post my review here at some point, is "Kitty Foyle" as the book's very good story got mangled for the Motion Picture Production Code when it was turned into the still good movie staring Ginger Rogers.
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Post by cineclassics on Oct 24, 2022 18:33:24 GMT
Fading Fast, based on your review of Laura, I have just placed an order for the book. It's one of my favorite classic films and I look forward to reading the original source material.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 24, 2022 18:36:43 GMT
Fading Fast, based on your review of Laura, I have just placed an order for the book. It's one of my favorite classic films and I look forward to reading the original source material.  ). |
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Post by Andrea Doria on Oct 24, 2022 23:07:30 GMT
Olive Prouty wrote two of my favorite books into movies, "Now Voyager," and, "Stella Dallas," so I got my nice library to find them for me and then I found some more of her books online.
I really love reading books written actually in a certain period and not a contemporary writer setting his story in the past, usually with all our modern opinions oddly superimposed on people of the past.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 24, 2022 23:24:30 GMT
Olive Prouty wrote two of my favorite books into movies, "Now Voyager," and, "Stella Dallas," so I got my nice library to find them for me and then I found some more of her books online. I really love reading books written actually in a certain period and not a contemporary writer setting his story in the past, usually with all our modern opinions oddly superimposed on people of the past.
Recently, I've read several James Hilton novels, an author who's best known for "Lost Horizons" and "Random Harvest," which are outstanding reads, but his novel "So Well Remembered" (which was made into a good movie) is also a very well-written book. Next up is "Time and Time Again" by Hilton, but a few other books are in my queue ahead of it.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 25, 2022 16:20:33 GMT
Sometimes a good short story will catch my interest. Example...about a year ago I watched RACHEL AND THE STRANGER (1948)...Waldo Salt did a nice job with the screenplay but I was eager to seek out the original source material. The film is based on Howard Fast's short story 'Rachel' from 1941.
Of course, when trying to find a single short story online or with the help of a librarian, it becomes a matter of determining which book or collection of short stories it will be contained in.
Another example...I really enjoyed the MGM western TRIBUTE TO A BAD MAN. It's based on a short story by Jack Schaefer entitled 'Jeremy Rodock' (the name of James Cagney's character in the film). I found it in an anthology called 'The Big Land.' I purchased a copy of 'The Big Land' from Amazon.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 25, 2022 17:37:58 GMT
Sometimes a good short story will catch my interest. Example...about a year ago I watched RACHEL AND THE STRANGER (1948)...Waldo Salt did a nice job with the screenplay but I was eager to seek out the original source material. The film is based on Howard Fast's short story 'Rachel' from 1941.
Of course, when trying to find a single short story online or with the help of a librarian, it becomes a matter of determining which book or collection of short stories it will be contained in.
Another example...I really enjoyed the MGM western TRIBUTE TO A BAD MAN. It's based on a short story by Jack Schaefer entitled 'Jeremy Rodock' (the name of James Cagney's character in the film). I found it in an anthology called 'The Big Land.' I purchased a copy of 'The Big Land' from Amazon. |
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Post by topbilled on Oct 25, 2022 23:21:11 GMT
Sometimes a good short story will catch my interest. Example...about a year ago I watched RACHEL AND THE STRANGER (1948)...Waldo Salt did a nice job with the screenplay but I was eager to seek out the original source material. The film is based on Howard Fast's short story 'Rachel' from 1941.
Of course, when trying to find a single short story online or with the help of a librarian, it becomes a matter of determining which book or collection of short stories it will be contained in.
Another example...I really enjoyed the MGM western TRIBUTE TO A BAD MAN. It's based on a short story by Jack Schaefer entitled 'Jeremy Rodock' (the name of James Cagney's character in the film). I found it in an anthology called 'The Big Land.' I purchased a copy of 'The Big Land' from Amazon. |
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Post by thompson on Oct 29, 2022 23:08:03 GMT
I think Sterling Hayden is a great actor, charisma galore, but his novel Voyage is impossible to read, not in the sense of a James Joyce novel but more in the sense of a novel by Bob Dylan, Tarantula. Boy was that bad. Now in all fairness I haven’t read Voyage (but for about five pages which was enough) but somehow I get the feeling I’m better off not reading it.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 29, 2022 23:32:24 GMT
The Graduate by Charles Webb first published in 1963The movie is better than the book is not something you hear often, but it is true for The Graduate. While the book adds some enlightening character background information, the movie is both funnier (thank you Dustin Hoffman) and better at capturing the zeitgeist of the sixties angst and cultural pivot from "Ivy League" to "hippie" style. (Comments on the movie here: www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/what-was-the-last-movie-you-watched.20830/post-2886202 )Benjamin Braddock is an overachieving Ivy League student who returns to his upper-class west coast home after graduation completely disaffected with life. While his parents and their friends want to celebrate Ben's scholastic accomplishments, including a graduate school scholarship he's won, he's moody and withdrawn to the point of rudeness.In what would become a pretension of those of a particular bent in the later sixties (and on), "rebel" Ben leaves home to live amongst the "regular" people of the world. Yet he returns a few weeks later when he discovers farmers, shop clerks, firefighters and truck drivers aren't the romantic heroes his condescending elitist arrogance led him to believe they were.Now indulging his discontentment from the safe and luxurious confines of his parents' home, he floats around in their pool all day drinking beer and acting glum as his tolerant parents only modestly question him about his future. It's the classic hypocritical rebellion of "I don't like your values or your money," but it's easier to be against those things while still enjoying them.Enter Mrs. Robinson, his parents' married forty-year old close friend who has known Ben his entire life. Like a lioness stalking a kill, she culls him from the herd, comes on to him hard and, after a little hesitancy by Ben, they begin a sexual affair all but devoid of emotion or even conversation. Enter Elaine Robinson, Mrs. Robinson's home-on-break-from-Berkeley daughter and contemporary of Ben. Clueless-to-it-all Mr. Robinson begs Ben to date Elaine, while Mrs. Robinson, in some of the only pillow talk she and Ben share, "forbids" it. After Ben is all but cornered into taking Elaine out, and after his aborted attempt at sabotaging the date, Elaine and he hit it off. Enter the nuclear option. Mrs. Robinson (who is probably psychotic) threatens Ben with exposing the truth of their affair to Elaine if he sees her again. Ben, launching the missiles first, tells Elaine the truth (good God), which leads to her melting down and wanting nothing to do with Ben anymore (the one good decision anyone ever makes in this book, but it is sadly reversed later).She's sent back to college, while Ben pines away for her until he decides to go up to her campus at Berkeley. But first he announces to his parents that he's going to marry her, despite Elaine herself having no knowledge of this plan. Yes, Ben has many issues.Ben rents a room in Berkeley and hangs around the campus until he runs into her. From Elaine, he learns her mother claims Ben raped her, which is untrue, but which, for a time, deeply alienated Elaine form Ben. Ben, single mindedly, insists they should get married, staying on point even when Elaine notes many practical problems to the idea. You want to scream, "run Elaine, run!"After much back-and-forth discussion and hesitation over the next weeks, Ben begins to win her over, until Elaine's father swoops in and takes her away. Ben then goes in search of Elaine, finally finding her at the church where bride Elaine is walking down the aisle in a hastily-arranged marriage to a "nice college boy."(Spoiler alert) Ben disrupts the affair and she and Elaine run off together with a hint of discord or regret or something unsettling between them as the book ends. One doubts that happily ever after is in the cards for these two. In the movie, Ben isn't quite likable, but he seems more confused than selfish. In the book, he is an insufferable snob and hypocrite, who bullies people to get what he wants. His default setting is passive aggressive, which becomes simply aggressive when he meets resistance. One can only hope Elaine sees this before marrying him. Other than that he is quirky and passionately wants to marry her (that's always an ego boost), she seems to understand that he is unhinged from reality. The book version of the story also lacks the atmosphere of the movie. You don't feel the sixties; you don't feel Ben's youthful angst as anything but an indulgence, and you don't even feel the sexual spark between Ben and Mrs. Robinson.The Graduate is an okay and quick read if you want to learn a bit more about the characters than you do in the movie, but it is one of those rare times where the movie is better than the book. |
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