Recreation

Books into film and television

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The Gambling man
From the 1975 novel The Gambling man by Catherine Cookson
Gangster number one (2000)
From a 1995 stage play Gangster number one by Louis Mellis and David Scinto
The Garden of the Finzi Contini
From the novel The Garden of the Finzi Contini by Giorgio Bassani
Gaslight
From the 1938 play Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton
The General’s daughter
From the novel The General’s daughter by Nelson de Mille
Generation Kill
2008 mini-series based on the 2004 book by Evan Wright and filmed by the team that brought us multi-award winning series The Wire. A narrative on the lives of twenty-three First Recon marines who led the attack on Iraq describes their training and the physical and psychological challenges they faced in skirmishes leading to the fall of Baghdad.
Read the Book ~ About the Series
The Gentle gunman
From the play The Gentle gunman by Roger MacDougall. In Plays of the year, volume 5
Gentleman thief
An adaptation of the classic 1901 novel Raffles, the amateur cracksman by E.W. Hornung
Geordie
From the 1950 novel Geordie by David Walker
George Gently (TV-2007)
Based on the 1961 novel Gently go man by Alan Hunter
Georgie girl
Documentary on Georgina Beyer who tells her story in Change for the better
Get Carter
From the 1970 novel Jack’s return home by Ted Lewis
CoverGet it at Goode’s
Monica Bellucci, Guy Pearce and Miranda Otto are set to star in Bruce Beresford’s upcoming romantic comedy. This adaptation of  Madeleine St John’s delightful 1993 novel The Women In Black has been one of Beresford’s plans for some years. The story concerns the ups and downs of a group of sales ladies and their families at the high fashion salon of a department store in Sydney named Goode’s.
Get Shorty
From the novel Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
Get to the heart - the Barbara Mandrell story
Based on the 1990 book Get to the heart: my story by Barbara Mandrell
The Getaway
From the novel The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Gettysburg
From the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Ghost world (2001)
Based on the 1998 graphic novel Ghost world by Daniel Clowes
The ghost writer
It’s scandalous British politics in the forefront in Robert Harris’s bestselling 2007 novel. It tells the story of a former British Prime Minister who’s in the process of writing his memoirs. When the death of a colleague disrupts his life, a ghostwriter is called in to assist him in completing the book. Naturally the ghostwriter digs up some dirt. The badly behaved politician is played by Pierce Brosnan and the ghostwriter by Ewan McGregor in a film directed by Roman Polanski, an odd choice for such a British tale. The P.M.’s wife is played by Olivia Williams and Kim Cattrall is his secretary. Timothy Hutton, James Belushi and Tom Wilkinson are also in the cast.
Read the Book ~ About the Film
The Gingerbread Man
Based on an original screen story by John Grisham and does not exist in book form
The Girl
From the 1977 novel The Girl by Catherine Cookson
The Girl from Petrovka
From the 1971 novel The Girl from Petrovka by George Feifer
Girl in a swing
From the 1980 novel Girl in a swing by Richard Adams
Girl with a pearl earring
Tracy Chevalier’s 1999 bestseller is an historical novel about a young girl who is a servant in the Delft home of the painter Vermeer. The novel is inspired by the famous painting of the title and the anonymous girl in it.
Read the Book ~ About the Film
The Girl with green eyes
From the 1962 novel The Lonely girl by Edna O'Brien
coverThe girl with the dragon tattoo
What can you say about this except that the book seems to be something everyone everywhere has read and the Swedish film version wasn’t good enough for Americans so they are remaking for the English language market. David Fincher directs a large cast led by Rooney Mara as the tattooed one, Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, Stellan Skarsgard, Christopher Plummer, Robin Wright, Julian Sands, Joely Richardson, Steven Berkoff and Geraldine James.
Read the book ~ About the film
Gisella Perl
From the 1948 book I was a doctor in Auschwitz by Gisella Perl
The Glass virgin
From the 1970 novel The Glass virgin by Catherine Cookson
Glengarry Glen Ross
From the play Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
The Glitter Dome
From the novel The Glitter Dome by Joseph Wambaugh
Gloomy Sunday
From the 1988 novel Das lied vom traurigen Sonntag by Nick Barkow
Glory
Based on the 1965 book One gallant rush by Peter Burchard and the 1973 book Lay this laurel by Lincoln Kirstein
The Gnome-Mobile
From the 1936 novel The Gnomobile by Upton Sinclair
Go tell the Spartans
From the 1967 novel Incident at Muc Wa by Daniel Ford
Gods and monsters
From the 1995 novel Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram
Going all the way
From the novel Going all the way by Dan Wakefield
book cover: Going PostalGoing Postal
The 2004 Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett is a wacky tale that lampoons bureaucracy through the story of story of Moist Von Lipwig, a con artist set to hang for his crimes in the Discworld city-state of Ankh-Morpork. Saved from his nasty fate, he’s recruited to manage the now decrepit Ankh-Morpork postal service, a task made all the more difficult by Lipwig’s new arch enemy, rival postie Reacher Gilt. Richard Coyle plays Lipwig and David Suchet is Reacher Gilt with Tamsin Greig, Charles Dance, Claire Foy and Andrew Sachs in a two-part television adaptation.
Read the book ~ About the film
Going wrong
From the novel Going wrong by Ruth Rendell
The Golden bowl
From the 1904 novel The Golden bowl by Henry James
The golden compass
New Line Cinema has combined with the publisher Scholastic to bring Philip Pullman’s His dark materials trilogy to the screen. The first in the series is based on the 1996 novel The golden compass, the story of a young girl who travels to the far north to save her best friend and meets along the way various witches, shape shifters and other strange characters in parallel universes. The girl is played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards and her father, Lord Asriel is played by Daniel Craig, the latest James Bond. Nicole Kidman is the villainous Mrs Coulter and Eva Green is Serafina, queen of the witches. The novel has been adapted by Chris Weitz, who also directs, and playwright Tom Stoppard.
Read the Book ~ About the Film
The Golden west
From the 1909 novel The Last trail by Zane Grey
Goldeneye
Not based on an Ian Fleming story. However, John Gardner (1996) novelised it
Goldfinger
From Ian Fleming’s novel Goldfinger
Gone Baby Gone
The Clint Eastwood film of Dennis Lehane’s novel Mystic river was such a success that lightning might strike twice with this adaptation of his 1998 novel. It features his series detectives, Boston cops Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, played in the film by Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan, investigating the disappearance of a child in one of Boston’s tougher neighbourhoods. Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris co-star and the director is Ben Affleck.
Read the Book ~ About the Film
Gone in the night
Based on the 1993 nonfiction book Gone in the night by David Protess and Rob Warden
Gone with the wind
From the novel Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell
Goodfellas
From the 1985 book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia family by Nicholas Pileggi
The Good German
Joseph Kanon’s 2001 novel is set in Berlin 1945 when the city was divided into zones of occupation. It is a literary mystery with an American soldier’s body found in the Russian zone while the hero, an American correspondent, searches for the married woman he left behind before the war. Steven Soderbergh is directing George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Tobey Maguire.
Read the Book ~ About the Film
A Good man in Africa
From the 1981 novel A Good man in Africa by William Boyd
Good morning, night (2003)
From the 1998 book, not translated into English, Il prigioniero, by Anna Laura Braghetti and Paolo Tavella
The Good old boys
From the 1978 novel The Good old boys by Elmer Kelton
A good woman (2005)
From the play Lady Windermere’s fan by Oscar Wilde
A good year
Peter Mayle’s 2004 novel is about a successful urban type who loses his job and moves to his late uncle’s 18th century French chateau where he has to try and make a go of the property’s ailing vineyard. The movie version is a change of pace for the actor-director team from Gladiator, Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott. Crowe plays the lead with French actress Marion Cotillard as the female lead and Albert Finney as Crowe’s uncle.
Read the Book ~ About the Film
Goodbye again
From the novel Aimez-vous Brahms? by Francoise Sagan, translated from the French in 1960
Goodbye Mr Chips
From the 1934 novel Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton
Goodnight Mr Tom
From the novel Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian
Gorky Park
From the novel Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
Gormenghast
From the novel Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Grace and Glorie
From the 1990 play Grace and Glorie by Tom Ziegler
The Graduate
From the novel The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of wrath
From the 1939 novel The Grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck
The Grass harp
From the novel The Grass harp by Truman Capote
The Grass is greener
From the 1958 play The Grass is greener by Hugh and Margaret Williams
The Graveyard shift
From the short story The Graveyard shift by Stephen King. In his collection Night shift
Grease
From the musical play Grease by Warren Casey
Great Expectations
Fromthe novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby
From the 1925 novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The great raid
William B. Breuer’s book, originally published in 1994, is about a 1945 raid led by Colonel Henry Mucci and made up of American and Filipino soldiers on a notorious Japanese death camp in the Philippines. The film version, featuring Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes, Marton Csokas, James Franco and Craig MacLachlan, was mostly filmed in Queensland.
Read the Book ~ About the Film
The Greatest store in the world
From the 1999 children’s novel The Greatest store in the world by Alex Shearer
Green grass of Wyoming
From the 1946 novel Green grass of Wyoming by Mary O'Hara
Green grow the rushes
From the 1950 novel Green grow the rushes by Howard Clewes
The Green man
From the 1954 play Meet the body by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat
Green Mansions
From the novel Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson
The Green mile
From the novel The Green mile by Stephen King, originally published in serial form
Grey lady down
From the 1971 novel Event 1000 by David Lavallee
The green zone
Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s 2006 book Imperial life in the emerald city is a work of non fiction that has been adapted by the author and director Paul Greengrass and changed somewhat to a fictional tale set in Iraq’s zone of the title, the safe zone where U.S. troops, officials, media and diplomats reside. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play CIA officers with Amy Adams as an investigative reporter.
Read the book ~ About the film
The Grifters
From the 1963 novel The Grifters by Jim Thompson. In compilation volume
The Grinch
From the children’s picture book How the grinch stole Christmas by Dr Seuss
The Grotesque
From the 1989 novel The Grotesque by Patrick McGrath
A Guide for the married man
From a 1967 book A Guide for the married man by Frank Tarloff
Gulliver’s travels
From the novel Gulliver’s travels by Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s travels (2011)
The 1726 classic by Jonathan Swift is a savage satire that has been adapted for film numerous times and usually watered down to become a bland tale for children. The new version is much bigger and more expensive and is apparently ‘loosely based’ on Swift. It’s been given a contemporary twist by having Jack Black as a mailroom worker who is mistakenly assigned to write a travel article on the Bermuda Triangle and finds himself on an island of little people. Rob Letterman (Shark tale, Monsters v. aliens) directs a large cast that includes Billy Connolly, Emily Blunt, Catherine Tate, Amanda Peet, Jason Segel and James Corden.
Read the book ~ About the film
Gunga Din
Based on the poem Gunga Din by Rudyard Kipling
Guy X
Jason Biggs, from the American pie series, plays the lead in this black comedy adaptation of John Griesemer’s 2001 novel No one thinks of Greenland. He plays an unlucky soldier sent, because of a clerical error, to a secret military base in the Arctic. Once there he finds he can’t escape because he no longer officially exists. Jeremy Northam and Natascha McElhone also star in the film, which has been filmed in Iceland and is set in 1979.
Read the Book ~ About the Film
Gypsy
Based on the stage musical Gypsy by Jule Styne which was based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee
The Gypsy moths
From the 1964 novel The Gypsy moths by James Drought