No, but I Saw the Movie

[AuntShecky]

I stole a title from the works of Peter DeVries for this week's quizzz(yawn) zzzz. "No, But I Saw the Movie."
I assume the phrase comes from cocktail party chatter, as an answer to the question "Have you read {such and such.}?" Similarly, high school students have been known to slough off the heavy lifting of reading assignments by merely renting a video of the movie version. The practice may keep the slackers off the hook if the teacher's test consists solely of plot elements, but even that collapses if the movie script veers from the original. Sometimes the movie has the effrontery to change the TITLE!

In any event, the object of this quiz is to identify the original title and author of the classics which "inspired" the following movies:


1. Kiss Me Kate (1953)

2. Clueless (1995)

3. Forbidden Planet (1956)

4. Apocalypse Now (1979)

5. The Heiress (1949)

6. My Own Private Idaho (1991)

7. A Place in the Sun (1951)

8. West Side Story (1961)

9. Becky Sharp (1935)

10. The Stingiest Man in Town (1978)

11. The Innocents (1961)

12. Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

13. Short Cuts (1993)

14. Jubal (1956)

15. Simon Birch (1998)

16. Star Wars (1977)

17. Desire Under the Elms (1958)

18. Nosferatu (1922)

19. Greed (1924)

20. A Funny Thing Happened to the Forum (1966)


Answers:
1. The Taming of the Shrew, Wm. Shakespeare
2. Emma, Jane Austen
3. The Tempest, Shakespeare
4. The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
5. Washington Square, Henry James
6. Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2), Shakespeare
7. An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
8. Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare
9. Vanity Fair, Wm. Makepeace Thackeray
10. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
11. The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
12. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare
13. Various short stories by Raymond Carver
14. Othello by Shakespeare
15. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
16. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell
17. Eugene O'Neill's play was inspired by Hippolyta by Euripedes and Phedre by Racine.
18. Dracula, Bram Stoker
19. McTeague by Frank Norris
20. Three comedies by Titus Macchias Plautus (ca 245-184 B.C.)

sources: Reel List (Arany,Dyja and Goldsmith), Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever, IMDB, and Yahoo!

[papayahed]

Wow I think I knew 1.

[DickZ]

Thanks for coming up with another head scratcher, Auntie. I was only able to get five: #1, #4, #8, #9, and #10.

I've been going steadily downward since this series began. You're making the New York Times crossword puzzles seem easy in comparison.

There's just no getting around it - I obviously have to start seeing more movies.

[DickZ]

... high school students have been known to slough off the heavy lifting of reading assignments by merely renting a video of the movie version...

Back in my day, well in advance of when one could rent videos, the technique in vogue was reading the Classics Illustrated version. Now I never used a comic book for a book report myself, but I heard of people who did. And I had a pretty nice collection of Classics Illustrated, just for some extra reading material.

As I remember (my collection is long gone), there was always a suggestion at the end of every edition to "go out and get the full-length book, which you'll enjoy even more than this abridged version."

And CONGRATULATIONS, Auntie. With this post, you reached your 1,000 milestone.

[Lily Adams]

I knew #3, (LOVE THAT MOVIE!!!) #4, (also much love to this movie!!) #8, #16, (I know this because of my hero myth obsessed 10th grade English teacher) and #18.

Pretty cool. I like this. Thanks!