I Read the Book

William Wellman's film version of Walter van Tilberg Clark's novel is quite faithful with one major omission. In the book, when the brothers slept, they all had dreams which were narrated in detail. All of this was left out except for a brief statement by Arthur at the beginning and a slightly longer one by Hal close to the end. They added considerably to the development of the characters and conflicts, especially for Hal. Plus we got a fantastic element in the otherwise down-to-earth narrative. I can see how filming the dreams would have posed difficulties, including whole new sets and characters. Still I wish more could have been done. As it is, both the book and the movie are interesting but not as good as Clark's earlier novel, also filmed by Wellman, The Ox-Bow Incident.