MovieChat Forums > Champion (1949) Discussion > I just read the original story

I just read the original story

posted 11 years ago by mercury4
3 replies | jump to latest

I just read the original story by Ring Lardner. Very very different. Midge in the story is also very unlikable. He makes Jake LaMotta look like a choir boy. The Kirk Douglas version of Kelly is kind of a jerk at times and you see him change, but the Kelly in the story is a real creep from beginning to end. When Kelly leaves Emma after the shotgun wedding, you can understand why he was mad. In the story he gives her a nice big smack before he leaves. Even leaves her with a bruise. When he leaves his manager Tommy, you disagree, but you can understand his motives in the movie. In the story, he has no real reason. Kelly even abuses his mother and brother in the story. Connie isn't even in the story except for one part in the beginning when Kelly knocks his crippled little brother to the floor and takes his money. The story begins with Kelly being 17. His brother is 14. Emma isn't in the story either. He meets her and actually knocks her up in the story. She ends up having a kid. Lew in the story isn't Emma's father, but her brother. Grace is in the story, but totally boring and not fleshed out at all. She is "expensive" like in the movie and she influences him in the story, but not fleshed out at all. When Kelly leaves her it is almost exactly the same as in the movie. For some reason this is the only bit of dialogue the screenwriters kept in the movie. I guess they really liked it. The ending is very different in the story. The movie keeps one small idea from the ending, but I don't want to give the ending away. I thought Midge Kelly was a scumbag in the Lardner story. He is the only character really fleshed out. Lardner never describes him, but he has the most dialogue and you get to know him more; what he's like, what he's feeling, thinking. If anyone would like to discuss the story, I'd be more than happy to.

[–] mjlangenbru 8 years ago

Thanks for sharing, very interesting stuff. I am curious as to how the story ended if didn't end the same way as the film.

[–] mercury4 8 years ago

Hi, did you ever get to read the story? I didn't mention details about the ending because I didn't want to give anything away.

[–] momur (107) 3 years ago

Personally, I think Midge in the movie is also incredibly unlikeable almost from the very beginning; not to the extent as in the original but still unlikeable and a clear jerk (seriously, I know it's a little thing and it was probably done with the best intentions given the circumstances - and it is still nicer than how he treated Connie in the original story - but what kind of guy just shoves his crippled little brother out of a moving train and then stays onboard for a fight rather than jumping off with him to make sure he's okay..?), it's just that Kirk Douglas' natural charm that makes his less-than-pleasant moments early on seem not so bad. Also the fact that we're dealing with a full-length movie rather than a short story means that a lot of his bad behaviour is more spaced out so that we're given periods of lighter moments in between him screwing everyone over. It's been ages since I read the original story but from what I remember of it, it would have been very hard to make a film adaptation of it just as it was, especially in the 1940s. As it is, it's one of those very rare occasions where both the original story and the film are arguably as good as each other, just in very different ways.