Has anyone here seen the movie version of Something Wicked This Way Comes? I'm still debating whether to see it for the same reason I haven't looked at the photo albums of Waukegan here. Lets discuss! I guess this would go in the resource section.

Yes, I've seen it, and I quite like it. It's probably the best screen adaptation there has been of a Bradbury novel. Not a great film, but an OK one.

Why should you watch it? Because Ray wrote it himself (albeit with some script tampering by the director and the late John Mortimer). Because Ray supervised much of the final work on the film. Because it does actually look pretty much as you might imagine the book SHOULD look.

And because Jason Robards is pretty good, and because Jonathan Pryce is terrific.

And because the library scenes are spot on.

If you don't like it, you can always read the book again.

It's his second best film.

What was his first? The Illustrated Man?

quote:

Originally posted by Kukai_Aoki:
What was his first? The Illustrated Man?

You make me chuckle.

The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is both his and mine!

Yes, my thoughts went to this movie when I read this earlier. Ice Cream Suit - we have watched as a family at least a dozen times. It is poetic, musical, humorous, sincere, action packed, poignant, and magical. What would you expect from a Bradbury film that has his fingerprints all over it!?

"Don't hit him....hit me!!!!"

Unfortunately the studio never gave it a chance. It would have done well promoted as a family movie. (Of course, the screen play of Melville's Moby Dick is Mr. B's work, also. That stands as one of the great adaptations of all times.)

That brings me to a question that has never been posed here before, "Where are movies of Fahrenheit 451 (remake) and Dandelion Wine?" Has RB done a screenplay of these that lay in a file somewhere? In the right hands these could be great successes, you think!?

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Originally posted by fjp451:
..."Where are movies of Fahrenheit 451 (remake) and Dandelion Wine?" Has RB done a screenplay of these that lay in a file somewhere? In the right hands these could be great successes, you think!?

RB has done a screenplay for F451 (several, I believe!), but the last we heard Frank Darabont was still trying to get HIS screenplay produced. (I have seen Darabont's script, and it's a good one.)

I don't know if RB has done a screenplay for DW. Received wisdom is that DW doesn't have a strong, single plotline, and therefore might be better suited as a TV miniseries. However, RB has written a DW stage play which DOES have a strong, single plotline. This proves the concept of a DW movie is plausible.

The key is your final sentence: "...in the right hands..." Bradbury has never been blessed with having great film-makers tackling his work:

Truffaut is great, but his F451 was compromised by working in a language he barely spoke. (I have read that Truffaut much preferred the dubbed French-language version of F451, and saw this as the definitive version!)

Jack Clayton had moments of greatness, and Something Wicked could have been one of his greatest works, but the disastrous previews of his first cut of Something Wicked led to the film being taken out of his hands, so we will never know what he might have refined it into.

And that's it: no other major director has tackled Bradbury.

I found the film both disappointing and inspiring and think you should see it.

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

You make me chuckle.

I try my dandiest!

Phil, Right! The F451 "Q" facetiously goes back to the start of the Board...to the Mel Gibson fiasco. As for DW, I think in the hands of an imaginative producer/director (T Burton, P Jackson, D M Evans, J Johnson), the magic could be brought to the big screen. We need a good retro-family-adventurous-dark-at-times-coming-of-age-rich-in-characters movie once in a while, don't we?

Mr. B would be thrilled, but things in Hollywood seem to move at less than a snail's pace, unless the big players have a hand in them. Think of the marginal titles that have received huge $ backing only to land on the respective posteriors.

I really liked it, I found that it clarified some parts of the book, and it was a little different, in an interesting way. It doesn't follow the book exactly, but expresses the spirit of the book.

I wonder if the original cut of the film, with the Georges Delerue score, still exists? (I have portions of that score on CD; while I love the James Horner music, this alternate soundtrack would have worked well also, I think. In at least one instance---the dancing girl scene at the carnival---the Delerue music actually works better than the Horner score.)

This would make a great "special edition" DVD, containing both versions of the film and some behind-the-scenes information, commentary track, etc. Problem is, it's probably never going to happen; I don't think Disney cares much about this film... Frustrating thing is, there WAS a commentary track recorded for this film (with Bradbury's participation), but the current DVD doesn't include it; I can't imagine why...

quote:

Originally posted by theoctobercountry:
...Problem is, it's probably never going to happen; I don't think Disney cares much about this film... Frustrating thing is, there WAS a commentary track recorded for this film (with Bradbury's participation), but the current DVD doesn't include it; I can't imagine why...

I doubt if Bradbury would let it happen as, by all accounts, it was a pretty traumatic production. Neil Sinyard's book about Jack Clayton suggests that the first cut might well have been the better one, but Bradbury had a serious falling-out with Clayton which they never patched up.

Bradbury did a commentary on the Laserdisc version of the film (ah, Laserdisc! How futuristic the past was!). Some other people from the production team also contributed to the commentary, such as the director of photography.

Alas, as you say, Disney don't seem terribly bothered about this film - nor about The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, which has still never been commercially released on DVD (only as a "special" disc for Disney club subscribers, or somesuch). Perhaps we should all write to Disney, requesting a Bradbury-90th-birthday release... (Or perhaps we should have done a year ago, when there was still time!)

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
Jack Clayton had moments of greatness, and Something Wicked could have been one of his greatest works, but the disastrous previews of his first cut of Something Wicked led to the film being taken out of his hands, so we will never know what he might have refined it into.

I've just finished seeing The Innocents, Clayton's adaptation of the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw, for the first time as an adult (after it scared the crap out of me as a kid) and was left saying, "If only!" Such a shame he had to "screw" up the first attempt, by, first of all, tossing Ray's script!

This last year I've been studying the surviving documentation from the making of SOMETHING WICKED. It's not just a simple case of Bradbury-good, Clayton-bad. I think Ray's script would have been perfectly serviceable, but so would Clayton's - they just would have been two different tellings of the basic story. What really wrecked everything was the loss of confidence in the Clayton version, which led to a panic to re-shoot part of the film.

It will all be covered in the penultimate chapter of my PhD thesis. Coming soon...