Quiz Monkey
What do you want to know?
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Quiz Monkey |
| Arts & Entertainment |
| Films |
| Source Writers |
A popular type of question is "Who wrote the book on which (such–and–such a film) was based?"
This page should answer most questions of this type. I've included some details about the films, and in some cases about the sources, where I think this adds interest – but if the film is really famous, I haven't bothered.
| A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg, 2001) | 1969 short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long |
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Brian Aldiss |
| National Velvet (1944) – starring Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp and Elizabeth Taylor | 1935 novel |
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Enid Bagnold (Lady Roderick Jones) |
| Crash (1996) | 1973 novel |
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J. G. Ballard |
| Empire of the Sun (1987) | 1984 novel | ||
| The Wizard of Oz (1939) | 1900 novel (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) |
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L(yman) Frank Baum |
| Whistle Down the Wind (1961) – starring Hayley Mills, Bernard Lee and Alan Bates; also a 1996 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman | 1961 novel (wife of John Mills and mother of Hayley) |
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Mary Hayley Bell |
| Jaws (1975) | 1974 novel |
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Peter Benchley |
| Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997, directed by Clint Eastwood) | 1994 novel (based on a true story) |
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John Berendt |
| The Exorcist (1973) | 1971 novel (see also Film Series) |
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William Peter Blatty |
| Psycho (1960) | 1959 novel |
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Robert Bloch |
| Room at the Top (1959) | 1957 novel |
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John Braine |
| Life at the Top (1965) | 1962 novel | ||
| Destry Rides Again (1939) – Western, starring Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart | 1930 novel (has only the title in common) |
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Max Brand |
| The Dam Busters (1955) | 1951 WWII non–fiction book |
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Paul Brickhill |
| Reach for the Sky (1956) – starring Kenneth More | 1954 biog (of Douglas Bader) | ||
| The Great Escape (1963) | 1950 WWII non–fiction book | ||
| The Thirty–Nine Steps: 1935 (directed by Hitchcock, starring Robert Donat); 1959 (Kenneth More), 1978 (Robert Powell) | 1915 novel |
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John Buchan |
| The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) – biopic starring Ingrid Bergman | The Small Woman (1957 biography of British missionary Gladys Aylward) |
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Alan Burgess |
| A Clockwork Orange (1971) – directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Malcolm McDowell | 1962 novella |
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Anthony Burgess |
| The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) – remade in 1981 staring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange | 1934 novel |
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James Cain |
| Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) – starring Audrey Hepburn – and various other adaptations | 1958 novella |
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Truman Capote |
| The Big Sleep (1946) starring Humphrey Bogart (as Philip Marlowe) and Lauren Bacall; remade in 1978, starring Robert Mitchum and Sarah Miles | 1939 novel |
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Raymond Chandler |
| Farewell My Lovely (1975) – starring Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe | 1940 novel | ||
| The Long Goodbye (1973) – starring Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe | 1953 novel | ||
| The Hunt for Red October (1990) – starring Sean Connery | 1984 novel |
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Tom Clancy |
| Patriot Games (1992) – starring Harrison Ford | 1987 novel | ||
| How to Train Your Dragon (2010, and two sequels) | Series of 12 children's books, 2003–15 |
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Cressida Cowell |
| The Andromeda Strain (1971 film, 2008 TV mini–series) | 1969 novel |
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Michael Crichton |
| Congo (1995) | 1980 novel | ||
| Jurassic Park (1993) | 1990 novel | ||
| Disclosure (1994) – starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore | 1994 novel | ||
| The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) | 1995 novel The Lost World (see also Arthur Conan Doyle) | ||
| Paths of Glory (1957) – directed by Stanley Kubrick | 1935 novel (title comes from Gray's Elegy) |
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Humphrey Cobb |
| Gigi (Broadway musical and 1958 film) | 1944 novella |
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Colette |
| Raise the Titanic! (1980) – starring Richard Jordan as Dirk Pitt | 1976 novel |
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Clive Cussler |
| Sahara (2005) – starring Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt | 1992 novel | ||
| The Lost World (4 films: 1925, 1960, 1992, 1998; also a 2001 BBC TV adaptation) | 1912 novel (see also Michael Crichton) |
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |
| Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971); Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) | 1964 children's novel (Charlie ... ) |
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Roald Dahl |
| Blade Runner (1982) | 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | |
Philip K. Dick |
| Total Recall (1990) | Based on the 1966 short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale | ||
| Minority Report | 1956 novella | ||
| The Commitments (1991) | 1987 novel |
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Roddy Doyle |
| The Snapper (Irish TV film, 1993) | 1990 novel | ||
| The Van (1996) | 1991 novel | ||
| Rebecca (1940) – directed by Hitchcock, starring Joan Fontaine | 1938 novel |
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Daphne du Maurier |
| The Birds (1963) – directed by Hitchcock, starring Tippi Hedren | 1952 short story | ||
| Don't Look Now (1973) – starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland | 1971 short story, in the collection Not After Midnight | ||
| Up the Junction (1968) – starring Dennis Waterman and Suzy Kendall, with soundtrack by Manfred Mann | 1963 short story, in a collection with the same title (see also Television: Source Writers) |
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Nell Dunn |
| The Horse Whisperer (1998) – directed by and starring Robert Redford | 1995 novel |
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Nicholas Evans |
| Spartacus (1960) | 1951 novel (see Note in Literature – Authors: General) |
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Howard Fast |
| The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1998) – with Brad Pitt in the title role | 1922 short story |
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F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Gone Girl (2014) – starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike | 2012 novel |
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Gillian Flynn |
| The African Queen (1951) – starring Humphrey Bogart (in his only Oscar–winning role) and Katharine Hepburn | 1935 novel |
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C. S. Forrester |
| Georgy Girl (1966) | 1965 novel |
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Margaret Forster |
| Cold Mountain (2003) – written and directed by Anthony Minghella, starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellwegger | 1997 novel |
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Charles Frazier |
| The Collector (1965) – starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar | 1963 debut novel |
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John Fowles |
| The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) – starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons | 1969 novel | ||
| The Poseidon Adventure (1972 disaster movie, remade in 2005) | 1969 novel |
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Paul Gallico |
| Death Wish (1974) – followed by 4 sequels | 1972 novel |
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Brian Garfield |
| The Beach (2000) – starring Leonardo Di Caprio | 1996 novel |
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Alex Garland |
| Marnie (1964) – directed by Hitchcock, starring Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery | 1961 novel |
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Winston Graham |
| Brighton Rock (1947) | 1938 novel |
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Graham Greene |
| The Third Man (1949) | Screenplay, and subsequent novel | ||
| Love on the Dole (1941) – starring Deborah Kerr and Clifford Evans | 1933 novel |
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Walter Greenwood |
| Hotel (1967) | 1965 novel |
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Arthur Hailey |
| Airport (1970) | 1968 novel | ||
| The Maltese Falcon (1941) – starring Humphrey Bogart | 1930 novel |
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Dashiell Hammett |
| Chocolat (2000) – starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp | 1999 novel |
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Joanne Harris |
| The Silence of the Lambs (1991) | 1988 novel (for more details, including sequels, see Films: Series) |
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Thomas Harris |
| The Go–Between (1971) – starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates | 1953 novel |
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L. P. Hartley |
| The Girl on the Train (2016) – starring Emma Blunt as the eponymous alcoholic and out–of–work divorcee Rachel Watson | 2015 best–seller |
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Paula Hawkins |
| Strangers on a Train (1951) – directed by Hitchcock | 1950 novel |
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Patricia Highsmith |
| The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) | 1955 novel | ||
| The Woman in Black (2012) | 1983 novella |
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Susan Hill |
| Lost Horizon (1937) | 1933 novel |
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James Hilton |
| Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) | 1934 novel | ||
| Kes (1969) | 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave |
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Barry Hines |
| Blackboard Jungle (1955) | 1954 novel |
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Evan Hunter |
| Blood and Sand (1921) – starring Rudolf Valentino | 1908 novel Sangre y arena |
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Vicente Blasco Ibáñez |
| The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) – starring Rudolf Valentino | 1908 novel | ||
| The Torrent (1926) – starring Greta Garbo | 1900 novel Entre naranjos | ||
| The Temptress (1926) – starring Greta Garbo | 1922 novel La Tierra de Todos | ||
| Cabaret (1972) – film version of a 1966 Broadway musical, based on John Van Druten's play I am a Camera, which in turn was based on ... | Novels Mr. Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939) |
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Christopher Isherwood |
| From Here to Eternity (1953) | 1951 novel – title comes from Kipling's ballad Gentlemen Rankers |
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James Jones |
| Zorba the Greek (1964) | 1946 novel |
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Nikos Kazantzakis |
| Schindler's List (1993) | 1992 novel Schindler's Ark |
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Thomas Keneally |
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1963) | 1962 novel |
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Ken Kesey |
| The Shawshank Redemption (1994) | Novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption – published in the 1992 collection Different Seasons
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Stephen King |
| Babe (1995) | 1983 novel The Sheep–Pig |
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Dick King–Smith |
| Lassie Come Home (1943) | 1942 novel Lassie Come–Home |
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Eric Knight |
| The King and I (1951 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, filmed in 1956 starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner) | 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam – based on the memoirs of Anna Leonowens |
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Margaret Landon |
| The Constant Gardener (2005) – starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz | 2001 novel |
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John le Carré |
| Rosemary's Baby (1968) – directed by Roman Polanski, starring Mia Farrow | 1967 novel |
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Ira Levin |
| The Stepford Wives (1975) | 1972 novel | ||
| The Boys from Brazil (1978) – starring Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier and James Mason | 1976 novel | ||
| A Kiss before Dying (1956, starring Robert Wagner and Joanne woodward; remade in 1991 starring Matt Dillon and Sean Young | 1954 novel (Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel) | ||
| Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) – starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell; based on a 1949 Broadway musical starring Carol Channing | 1925 novel |
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Anita Loos |
| Death in Venice (1971) – directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Dirk Bogarde | 1912 novella |
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Thomas Mann |
| Whisky Galore! (1957) – Ealing comedy | 1949 novel (without the exclamation mark!) |
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Compton Mackenzie |
| No Country for Old Men (2007) | 2005 novel |
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Cormac McCarthy |
| The Road (2010) | 2006 novel (Pulitzer Prize, James Tait Black Memorial Prize) | ||
| Peyton Place (1957 film, and ABC soap opera 1964–9) | 1956 first novel |
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Grace Metalious |
| Gone with the Wind (1939 epic historical romance) | 1936 novel – the only one published in her lifetime |
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Margaret Mitchell |
| The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011 comedy drama, with an ensemble cast led by Judi Dench) | 2004 novel These Foolish Things |
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Deborah Moggach |
| War Horse (2011 film, based on a 2007 stage play) | 1982 children's novel |
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Michael Morpurgo |
| The Railway Children (1970) | 1906 novel (originally serialised in 1905) |
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E. Nesbit |
| Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) | Two children's books, first published in 1943 and 1945; for details, please see Authors: Series |
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Mary Norton |
| The English Patient (1996 – 9 Oscars, including Best Picture) | 1992 Booker Prize–winning novel |
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Michael Ondaatje |
| Fight Club (1999) | 1996 novel |
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Chuck Palahniuk |
| Now Voyager (1942) – famous Bette Davis line "Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the Moon. We have the stars." | 1941 novel (title comes from the two–line poem The Untold Want, in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass) |
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Olive Higgins Prouty |
| The Godfather (1972) | 1969 novel |
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Mario Puzo |
| The L–Shaped Room (1962) | 1960 novel |
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Lynn Reid Banks |
| All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) – Lewis Milestone won the first Best Director Oscar | 1929 novel (originally serialised in 1928; German title Im Westen nichts Neues, literally Nothing New in the West) |
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Erich Maria Remarque |
| Interview with the Vampire (1994) – starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt | 1976 novel |
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Anne Rice |
| Fanny By Gaslight (1944) | 1940 novel |
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Michael Sadleir |
| A Bridge Too Far (1977) – directed by Richard Attenborough, with a star–studded cast | 1974 WWII non–fiction book |
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Cornelius Ryan |
| Frankenstein (Wikipedia lists 11 film adaptations, the first made in 1910, the most famous probably those made in 1931, directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff as the monster, and in 1994 directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring himself and Robert de Niro; another Wikipedia page lists around 50 "derivative" films, plays and TV programmes) | 1818 novel, subtitled The Modern Prometheus; written aged 18, as holiday entertainment for herself, her lover (whom she later married and by whose surname she is known) and Lord Byron |
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Mary Shelley |
| The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) – Maggie Smith in the Oscar–winning title role | 1961 novel |
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Muriel Spark |
| The Grapes of Wrath (1940) – directed by Henry Ford, starring Henry Fonda | 1939 novel |
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John Steinbeck |
| East of Eden (1955) – starring James Dean in his first major role | 1952 novel (on whose second half the film was loosely based) | ||
| Dracula (Wikipedia lists 12 films and one sequel; the best known are probably the 1931 version starring Bela Lugosi, the 1958 version starring Christopher Lee, who revived the role in 1970's Count Dracula, and Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 version starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves) | 1897 novel |
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Bram Stoker |
| The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) – starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo | 1961 novel |
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Irving Stone |
| Lust for Life (1956) – starring Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh | 1934 novel | ||
| This Sporting Life (1963) – starring Richard Harris in the first of his two Oscar–nominated roles | 1960 debut novel |
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David Storey |
| Mrs. Miniver (1942) – influential, multi–Oscar–winning romantic war drama | 1940 novel (about a character created in 1937 for a series of columns in The Times) |
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Jan Struther |
| Sophie's Choice (1982 – Meryl Streep won the Best Actress Oscar) | 1979 novel |
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William Styron |
| The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) – Orson Welles's second film, after Citizen Kane | 1918 Pulitzer prize winning novel |
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Booth Tarkington |
| The Hustler (1961) – starring Paul Newman as small–time pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson | 1959 debut novel |
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Walter Tevis |
| The Man who Fell to Earth (1976) – directed by Nicholas Roeg, starring David Bowie | 1963 novel | ||
| The Color of Money (1986) – directed by Martin Scorsese, but having little in common with the novel other than the title | 1984 sequel to The Hustler | ||
| Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) – starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt | 2007 novel |
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Paul Torday |
| The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) – directed by John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart | Novel, first published in German in 1927 and in English in 1935 (mysterious author, about whom very little is known) |
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B. Traven |
| Mary Poppins (1964) – more Oscar nominations than any other Disney film | Series of eight children's novels, 1934–88 (five of them had been published by 1964) |
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P. L. Travers |
| The Witches of Eastwick (1987) – starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer | 1984 novel |
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John Updike |
| Myra Breckenridge (1970) – starring Raquel Welch in the title role, often cited as one of the worst films of all time | 1968 novel |
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Gore Vidal |
| The Color Purple (1985) – directed by Steven Spielberg, featuring Oprah Winfrey's first screen role and Whoopi Goldberg's second; received 11 Oscar nominations, but no awards | 1982 Pulitzer prize winning novel |
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Alice Walker |
| Ben–Hur (1959) – starring Charlton Heston in the title role, it won a record 11 Oscars | 1880 novel, subtitled A Tale of the Christ |
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Lew Wallace |
| The Graduate (1967) | 1963 novella |
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Charles Webb |
| Trainspotting (1996) | 1993 debut novel |
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Irvine Welsh |
| The Sword in the Stone (Disney, 1963) | 1938 novel, republished in 1958 as the first part of the tetralogy The Once and Future King |
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T. H. White |
| The Mouse that Roared (1959 comedy starring Peter Sellers in three roles) | 1955 novel |
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Leonard Wibberley |
| The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) – with Tom Hanks miscast as Sherman McCoy; co–starring Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith | 1987 novel |
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Tom Wolfe |
| The Caine Mutiny (1954) – starring Humphrey Bogart | 1951 Pulitzer prize winning novel |
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Herman Wouk |
| Beau Geste (1926 starring Ronald Colman, 1939 starring Gary Cooper, 1966 starring Guy Stockwell) | 1924 novel |
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P. C. Wren |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–23