1947: Miracle on 34th Street

Screenplay by George Seaton
Adapted from a story by Valentine Davis

After a painful divorce, Doris Walker wants to do everything in her power to keep her daughter, Susan, from facing the same bitter disappointment by teaching her not to believe in things that aren't real, including fairy tales, games of make-believe, and especially Santa Claus. Naturally, when the nice old man Doris has hired to play Santa Claus at Macy's, Kris Kringle, claims to actually be Santa Claus, Doris thinks he is insane, but he has been so successful at spreading the Christmas spirit that even Susan begins to believe in him, and Doris herself may be forced to face the fact that some things are worth believing in even when common sense says otherwise.

This is a rather unorthodox Best Adapted Screenplay winner in that the book and the film were released around the same time. Valentine Davis came up with the story, then George Seaton wrote and directed the film, and only then did Davis put in into book form. Consequently, the book was influenced by the screenplay, which makes it seem rather odd that it was eligible for this award in the first place. But I guess since the screenwriter didn't come up with the story himself, it couldn't be considered an original screenplay, so it kind of makes sense to put it in this category. I wasn't sure if I should skip it like I did with Going My Way, since the screenplay wasn't based on a published work, but since this story was published in book form eventually, I decided to read it.

Once I found out that the book was written after the screenplay, I was expecting them to be pretty much exactly the same, but that wasn't actually the case. Granted, they are very similar, but the book shows more from Kris Kringle's perspective, whereas the movie makes him a little more mysterious. The book starts with Kris being kicked out of the retirement home he lives in because of his so-called delusion, and he stays with his zookeeper friend (who is amazed by Kris's rapport with reindeer) until he moves in with Fred (Doris's neighbor who later becomes Kris's lawyer). The movie also starts with Kris, but it just shows him walking up to the parade as it's lining up, without giving the audience any backstory until much later. Incidentally, the zookeeper friend doesn't exist in the movie, and Kris doesn't have to move out of the retirement home; he just moves in with Fred to be closer to work.

In the book, Kris is directly responsible for Fred and Doris becoming more than friends, whereas in the movie, he encourages Fred, but plays a much less active matchmaking role. In addition, the circumstances under which Kris ends up on trial in each version are similar, but the details of how they came about are considerably different. But apart from these and a few other minor discrepancies, the story, including most of the dialogue, is essentially the same. Somehow, the movie ended up significantly less cheesy than the book, which isn't saying much, but is still a desirable achievement.

Side note: 8-year-old Natalie Wood is adorable and talented and utterly convincing and probably should have at least been nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but nobody asked me.

Next up: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, based on the novel by B. Traven

1946: The Best Years of Our Lives

Screenplay by Robert Sherwood
Adapted from the novel Glory for Me by MacKinlay Kantor

This is the story of Al, Fred, and Homer, three men returning home from World War II to the same town, and their struggle to return to normalcy after the horrors of war.

This movie won Best Picture, and I'd watched it several times before, so I was curious to see how the book compared. I was surprised to find that it was written in blank verse, since, though I think this is a very good movie, I would never have described it as "poetic". Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of the verse style of the book. It worked really well in a few sections, but mostly I thought it was awkward and borderline cheesy. But it still managed to tell a story compelling enough to turn into a movie, albeit with several significant alterations.

One of the biggest differences is the way Homer was wounded. In the book, Homer has spasticity on his left side, which causes difficulty walking, speaking clearly, and using his left arm. The effects are counteracted by alcohol, so he begins drinking heavily upon his return, and begins spiraling downward until he eventually tries to kill himself. In the movie, Homer lost both his hands, so he uses hooks, and has no trouble walking or speaking. I believe this change was mostly due to the fact that Harold Russell actually lost his hands, and the producers saw him in a war documentary and wanted him to play the role of Homer. The movie also eliminates Homer's alcoholism and attempted suicide, but its portrayal of the struggles of a wounded veteran and his loved ones are otherwise fairly consistent with the book's. In general, I've been finding that the adapted films are significantly less dark than their original counterparts, so seeing many of the darker aspects of Homer's story eliminated or modified wasn't really surprising.

Similarly, Al and Fred each had dark moments in the book that were omitted from the movie. Book Al loses his job after yelling at a customer; movie Al has trouble adjusting to his civilian job but still works there at the end. Both versions of Fred lose their job, but book Fred becomes so desperate for money that he almost robs a bank, whereas movie Fred does no such thing. However, there is one significant instance in which this pattern is reversed, and the movie is actually darker - or at least more scandalous - than the book. In both versions, Fred got married only a few days before going overseas to someone he barely knew, and they end up separating after he finds another man in their apartment with her. In the book, this happens as soon as Fred returns home, so his wife isn't very important at all, but in the movie, they don't separate until towards the end. Again in both versions Fred falls for Al's daughter, Peggy, but in the book he's already left his wife before anything happens between them, whereas in the movie they kind of start having a thing while he's still living with his wife. Peggy even announces her determination to break up Fred's marriage to her parents, which leads to a fight between Al and Fred that never happened in the book. I'm not entirely sure why this change was made. Perhaps making this storyline more dramatic was meant to make up for toning down some of the other drama. Or maybe they just wanted an excuse to flesh out the character of Fred's wife. Who knows?

Coming up next: Miracle on 34th Street, based on a story by Valentine Davis

1945: The Lost Weekend

Screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder
Adapted from the novel The Lost Weekend by Charles R. Jackson

Don Birnam is supposed to go away with his brother for a nice, long weekend in the country, but he worms his way out of it and instead spends the whole weekend on an alcoholic binge.

While the book is written in third person, it mostly consists of Don's thoughts, memories, and delusions. It would be inaccurate to claim that nothing happens in the book, because there are various episodes of action between the introspective passages, but nothing particularly special happens in the book. It's implied that Don has had many weekends like this in the past, and that he plans to have more like it in the future. Nothing is gained, and all that is lost is a few more days to add to the long list of days Don Birnam has lost to alcohol. The film, as usual, makes the stakes much higher, and provides a much more satisfying ending. The character of Helen, Don's sort-of girlfriend, is much more developed and significantly different. Book Helen is already pretty much done with Don, but she still takes care of him when he's drunk because she feels bad for him and still loves him in spite of herself. Movie Helen is just getting to the point where she's done with Don, but she plans to cut him out of her life altogether, until she realizes that he's about to kill himself. In the book, by the time Don becomes suicidal he has literally no energy left, so he can't do anything about it, but in the film he actually goes far enough to get a gun and write a note before Helen convinces him that he could write a great novel if he stops drinking long enough. It's up to the audience to decide whether to believe that he'll actually stop drinking, but at least the film presents that as his intention. The book, on the other hand, ends with Don hiding bottles around the house, then sitting back to wait for his brother to return, satisfied that he made it through this particular weekend, wondering why people make such a big deal out of his binges. There are other differences between the two versions, but it mostly boils down to this: in the book, Don drinks a lot more and learns a lot less than he does in the movie.

When I wrote about this movie on my Best Picture blog almost seven years ago (has it really been that long?) I talked about how impressed I was at its departure from the typical Hollywood portrayal of alcohol and alcoholics. This is definitely a valid observation, but the book makes the movie seem remarkably tame, idealistic, and even glamorous by comparison. The book is so extremely dark and gritty - not to mention rather risque - that I don't think anyone would have wanted to see a direct adaptation on screen, especially in 1945. The screenwriters - who were also the producer and director - did a remarkable job of making something that was barely readable (because the story was so painful, not because it was poorly-written by any means) actually watchable, managing to clean up the story and tie it together without going as far as sugarcoating it, so I feel that they thoroughly earned this Oscar.

Next up is yet another Best Picture winner, The Best Years of Our Lives, based on the novel Glory for Me by MacKinlay Kantor, after which there will thankfully be three non-Best Picture winners in a row. Nothing against Best Picture winners, but it will be nice to have a little more variety.