12/7/2014 – The Critical Line

I watched noir classic The Maltese Falcon again last night, and again I was struck by how faithful the movie is to the book by Dashiell Hammett. Even much of the dialogue is the same. The film received rave reviews and continues to enthrall audiences. Would that this could be true for other books vandalized by the film industry.

Films are a different medium with different requirements. I understand that. Screenwriters are necessary to translate a book into a movie. The question becomes where to draw the line in changing plots and characters to fit a different medium. We’ve all seen the often unhappy results. Characters are warped