Better Than the Book
These films surpass the book they were based on ("Little Women" [2019] may also be better, but I haven't read the book.).
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- DirectorLloyd BaconStarsJohn BarrymoreJoan BennettLloyd HughesIn this extremely loose adaptation of Melville's classic novel, Ahab is revealed initially not as a bitter and vengeful madman, but as a bit of a lovable scamp. Ashore in New Bedford, he meets and falls for Faith Mapple, daughter of the local minister and beloved of Ahab's brother Derek. Faith herself quickly returns Ahab's love, as Derek is drab and ignoble. On his next voyage, however, Ahab loses a leg to the monstrous white whale Moby-Dick. When upon his return to New Bedford he mistakenly believes Faith wants nothing to do with him because of his disfigurement, Ahab returns to sea with only one goal in mind -- to find and kill the great white whale.More upbeat because it has a happy ending!
- DirectorPeter BrookStarsJames AubreyTom ChapinHugh EdwardsSchoolboys marooned on a Pacific island create their own savage civilization.
- DirectorFred HainesStarsMax von SydowDominique SandaPierre ClémentiIn the bourgeois circles of Europe after the Great War, can anything save the modern man? Harry Haller, a solitary intellectual, has all his life feared his dual nature of being human and being a beast. He's decided to die on his 50th birthday, which is soon. He's rescued from his solipsism by the mysterious Hermine, who takes him dancing, introduces him to jazz and to the beautiful and whimsical Maria, and guides him into the hallucinations of the Magic Theater, which seem to take him into Hell. Can humor, sin, and derision lead to salvation?
- DirectorRobert BentonStarsAnthony HopkinsNicole KidmanEd HarrisWhen a disgraced former college dean has a romance with a mysterious younger woman haunted by her dark, twisted past, he is forced to confront a shocking fact about his own life that he has kept secret for fifty years.
- DirectorAnand TuckerStarsSteve MartinClaire DanesJason SchwartzmanA film adaptation of Steve Martin's novel about a complex love triangle between a bored salesgirl, a wealthy businessman and an aimless young man.