MovieChat Forums > My Boy Jack (2008) Discussion > Big Differences In TV Version .............

Big Differences In TV Version .................. As Compared To The Play

posted 16 years ago by layton59
8 replies | jump to latest

Big differences in TV Movie version as compared to the play.

SPOILER ALERT:

The play has Jack dying in a much more PAINFUL and GRAPHIC manner.

A review of the play is at this link has a full accounting of the play:

http://www.bensilverstone.net/myboyjack.asp

Eventually Bowe remembers what happened to John and begins a terrifying and extremely moving account: “Well sir” he says, “We went over the top and would you believe it, we saw soldiers playing football! That’s how mad it was over there! We ran, and ran and managed to get to the first stage without too much trouble. Again the lieutenant (John) blew his whistle and we were running for the woods again.

Someone said the lieutenant was hurt so I went back to see and when I found him I couldn’t believe what I saw. All of his lower jaw was missing – shot away - and he was crying with the pain…” “Did you help him?” Rudyard asks. The soldier is reluctant so say any more and stands quickly and says he should leave, and that he should never have come here. Mr Frankland stops him, and persuades him to go on. “Well sir, I didn’t think the lieutenant would want me to see him like that – me not being an officer and that. It wouldn’t be right would it? I mean, he was an officer, and he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see him like that…” “So you didn’t help him?” Rudyard asks. “No sir, I didn’t. I started to walk away and I’d only got about fifteen yards away when there was a big explosion behind me. I looked back, and where the lieutenant had been standing there was just a big hole…”

Another big difference is that the play has Elsie geting married in 1924 and moving away.

Futhermore, in 1933 Rud and Carrie hear on the radio that HITLER has come to power in GERMANY and they fear that JACK may have died in vain.

http://www.bensilverstone.net/myboyjack.asp

It’s 1933 and Carrie and Rudyard – much older now - are sitting listening to the radio. The BBC newsreader is announcing that Adolf Hitler has been appointed Chancellor of Germany, and that his political party will become the largest group in the new Reichstag. Germany is triumphant.

Rudyard slumps back in his chair and utters the words: ‘for nothing, for nothing, for nothing’. He is beaten, for he knows – and has been tirelessly warning - that Britain will soon be at war with Germany again.

It is then that Rud in the play recites his poem "MY BOY JACK"

There are other changes but I'll let other posters point them out, or not.

I know that the Playwright-Actor David Haig also did the screenplay from his play.

This TV movie was slotted for 2 hours but only lasted 90 odd minutes. So there was time to show some of the ommitted stuff found in the play.

Oh well, I guess the DVD with have some never before seen footage.

***********************************************

Liberals kill with ABORTION.
Conservatives kill with the DEATH PENALTY.
I kill with WORDS.

[–] taylorje 16 years ago

It was graphic enough as it was and so sad. I'm glad that part was deleted from the movie.

[–] maryborrege 16 years ago

After World War 1 the Allies demanded reparations against Germany but refused to honor their war dead and enforce the Versalles Treaty banning German rearmament. Had the Allies imposed international law early on in 1933, instead of waiting until too late in 1939 when Germany had armed to the teeth, 62 million people need not have died in World War Two. That's why World War 1's dead died "for nothing". In the words of David Haig who wrote "My Boy Jack" and who played Kipling in the film, " Rudyard never lost his faith in the rightness of the war but what he couldn't bear was the thought that the country let those boys who fought down".

The hitch ISN'T to convince America that war is BAD--the unsolved problem is how to convince the Napoleons, the Kaisers, the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Imperial Japans, the Iraqi despots, the Islamic terrorists worldwide and like aggressor international thugs from thinking mass murder, genocide and war is a good thing.

PS
Liberals kill innocent victims in abortions.
Conservatives execute killers.

[–] DianaC224 16 years ago

Thanks for the link. I wish they would have included the third act of the play, especially the passages you just quoted, b/c it adds to the tragedy of what happened to Jack.

Check out my reviews:
http://gothamnights.wordpress.com

[–] dottie70438 16 years ago

Good information. Do you have the poem? The mobie was so sad. Thank you

[–] DianaC224 16 years ago

It's in my review on my blog. I copied it for ya:

“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind—
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

Check out my reviews:
http://gothamnights.wordpress.com

[–] dottie70438 16 years ago

Thanks so much. beautiful poem. Kipling must have suffered torments but Jack was where he wanted to be. I just wish he would have lived to see the wars end

[–] dottie70438 16 years ago

Good information. Do you have the poem? The mobie was so sad. Thank you

[–] whoanelly (1558) 3 years ago

I haven’t seen this film in ten years, and I’m choking up just reading this thread.

The depth of sadness for Jack’s loss makes me think of Vera Britten’s memoir about losing her brother, fiance and all the boys she ever danced with in ww1. Testament of Youth