Movie vs.play (spoilers)
I have never read or seen the play. How much like the play is the movie? What are the differences? Is the ending the same in the play?
shareWell, not quite like. Some may say, not like at all. Though the plot is the same, in average, the character too, but the play has no humour and spark or ... buffoonery we can see in the movie.
The topic of the play is deadly serious, in the first place.
It's about the problem of divorce - the ex-wife would be tainted as a fallen woman by society in those times, no matter if she's guilty or the victim. That was the problem then, though the institution of divorce in early XX c. became much easier to get one, but for women the result was the exclusion from a good society for sure.
Can't be so detailed describing many small shiftings with the plot, and the characters too, but for example, we never told who Larita was or where she came from - nothing about her before she met John. As John himself, we are ignorant of her past and like mustn't be interested - John just fell in love and trusted the woman, blindly.
First, she's not an American, she's not a racing driver - she's none of, she's nobody.
And that's what bothers John's family, in the first place. It's a nonsense then. The person must have a reliable background, a nobody won't be accepted in high society. That's why they started to fish some dirty bits about her past, and with success.
Well, in short, no killed dogs, no bare bottoms, no hot tango - and no impromptu elopement with Jim. Larita simply went to nowhere, as she got from nowhere in John's life. Though in the play, Jim was sympathetic with Larita too.
There was 1928 Hitchcock silent movie after the same play, by the way. Very interesting to compare, too.
Interesting. Thanks! Is it good though, still?
The play is interesting I may say, as a piece of literature and concerning the problems of the time, but it's hard to tell if even contemporary viewers found it entertaining. I'm just no theater expert at all, of those times less so. But modern audience hardly would get the plot in full, for sure wouldn't find it fun.
So the changings we can see in the film were quite understandable and even welcome, if you could take that kind of diversion.