Book to Box Office

     With two film versions of classic novels due to premiere later this year - Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby - my thoughts have turned to other books that have been adapted for the "big screen."  I always await them with apprehension and harbor a secret fear that they will disappoint me.  Some have been beautifully faithful to the text, others haven't, and sometimes (I hate to admit it) it doesn't matter.
     Here's a list of best, worst, etc. from the past:

• A Movie That Was Better Than the Book:  The Last of the Mohicans (sorry James Fenimore Cooper) 

• A Movie That Was a Perfect Adaptation of a Novel:  Rebecca - with Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, and Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers 

• A Favorite Movie Version of a Book That Has Been Done Multiple Times:  Jane Eyre - with William Hurt as Rochester and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane  

• Two Movie Versions That Are Equally Great in Their Own Way:  The Innocents (a version of the Turn of the Screw) starring Deborah Kerr and The Turn of the Screw starring Jodhi May 

•  Good and Bad Adaptations of a Novel:  Good - The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (with James D'Arcy, Sophia Myles, and Lee Ingleby) and Bad -  Nicholas Nickleby (with Charlie Hunnam, Romolai Garai, and Anne Hathaway)