movies writers and directors have attempted to bring popular and classic novels to the big screen.
That tradition continues today The movie industry seems to believe that if the story made a great book it should make a great movie as well. it should make a great movie as well. However, that rarely seems to be the case. More often than not, a great book turns out to be a mediocre movie in the opinion of most viewers. Perhaps that is because readers of the book have already made their own great "movies" in their heads. Then, when they see the studio's or the director's version of the story it does not quite measure up to their expectations. Over the past one hundred years of film production there have only been a handful of movies that have fulfilled the ambition of turning the great book into a great movie. Literary critics as well as movie critics applaud both versions of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The classic children's story, "The Wizard of Oz" was transformed into a classic movie musical that parents and children still enjoy today. Lovers of the historical novel, "Gone with the Wind" continue to be swept away by the movie adaptation starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. Science fiction readers as well as movie critics both hail Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey which was co-written by Kubrick with the novel's author Arthur C. Clarke, as a masterpiece. On the other hand, there have been instances when not so great novels have been transformed into great movies. Mario Puzo's "The Godfather" was quite popular at the time of its release as a novel but critics hailed it more for its entertainment value than for its value as literature.