RTW: Book-To-Movie Successes

I totally love this week's Road Trip Wednesday prompt--it's something about which I have very strong feelings.

What movie have you seen that actually (gasp!) improved on the book?

I like how positive they are, so I will try not to spend this entire post loudly complaining about blonde girls playing brunette characters (Shirley Temple and Liesel Matthews, I'm looking at you guys.  Sara Crewe did. not. have. blonde. ringlets.)

Nope.

Instead, I'll talk about a trend I've noticed--the weirder and more whimsical the book, the more I love the movie.

So, naturally, a few of my favorites are adaptations of Roald Dahl books.

 1) Matilda.  This might be my all-time favorite movie based on a book (depending on whether we're counting Anne of Green Gables with Megan Follows as a movie or a miniseries.)  However, like Anne of Green Gables, and also like Little Women (the one with Winona Ryder), I love the book so much that I'm not sure it's right for today's post.  In all three of those cases, I feel like the movie is worthy of the book--but can I say better?  I don't know.

2) Ok, here's one where there was no contest for me as a kid.  The movie is hands down better than the book.  It is also terrifying.  I found the book a little hard to follow and therefore kind of slow-moving.  That said, we're talking about my experience when I was like, six, so I may owe the book another go.  (The movie, on the other hand, has continued to hold up over twenty years of frequent viewing.)

3) My winner today is surprisingly not a Roald Dahl adaptation.  It's an Ian Fleming adaptation.  "Oh," you're thinking, "one of the James Bond movies, huh?  Interesting, interesting--"

WRONG.

It's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

 I tried to read this book as a kid.  I really tried.  I wanted to love it.  But I just couldn't.  BUT THEN.  I must have borrowed the VHS tape from the library, I think--we certainly never owned it--then I discovered the bizarre glory of this movie.  Whistling sweets, a flying car, Dick van Dyke pretending to be a wind-up toy...I can't even.

AND HEY GUESS WHO WROTE THE SCREENPLAY:

That's right--Roald Dahl.  So, kid, the moral of today's story is that Roald Dahl is the king of book-to-movie adaptations.  Whatever you're doing on this fine summer afternoon, raise a glass of lemonade or snozzberry juice or whatever to the very pleasantly deranged and dearly departed Mr. Dahl.