Book Vs Movie Podcast

Book Vs. Movie: The Last Picture Show The Larry McMurtry 1966 Novel Vs. the 1971 Peter Bogdanovich Film The Margos put on a Texas-sized episode of Book vs. Movie with The Last Picture Show --both the 1966 novel by Larry McMurtry and the 1971 film by Peter Bogdanovich. Both tell the tale of lonely people living in a forgotten Texas city with barely enough room for their hopes and dreams. McMurtry w...

Book Vs. Movie: Blow-Up The Julio Cortazar Short Story Vs. the Michelangelo Antonio Movie The Margos are feeling very mod today with this particular episode. We talk about Michelangelo Antonini , one of the most revered directors of the 1960s & 1970s, with a Palm d’Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Bread, and the Golden Leopard among his film accomplishments. 1966’s Blow-Up is his biggest Englis...

Book Vs Movie: “What’s Love Got to Do With It” (1993) Tina Turner’s 1986 Autobiography “I, Tina” Vs. the Angela Bassett Film RIP Tina! (1939-1983) With Tina Turner finally being nominated for a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nomination as a solo artist--the Margos decided now was the time to take a look at her life story (up to the age of 46) with her 80s bestselling autobiography (co-written by Kur...

Book Vs. Movie: Dragon: The Bruce Lee StoryThe Shannon Lee Book/Memoir Vs. the 1993 Biopic Bruce Lee is one of the biggest martial artists of all time and created the style Jeet Kune Do , which caused controversy within the martial arts community. As a Chinese-American, he wanted to spread the word to anyone eager to learn and not keep secrets. He also believed in pushing himself to the limit in e...

Book Vs. Movie: Laura The 1943 Novel Vs. the 1944 Classic Film The Margos continue with the 1940s with the film noir genre--Laura starring the gorgeous Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews , Clifton Webb , and Vincent Price . Based on the 1943 novel Ring Twice for Laura by Vera Caspary , the story of the mysterious Laura Hunt, who is found murdered (or was she?), was initially serialized in Collier's mag...

Book Vs. Movie: The Thin Man The Dashiell Hammett Novel Vs. the 1934 Classic Film The Margos are looking for actors with chemistry and witty banter, so we had to dive into the fabulous world of Nick and Nora Charles and The Thin Man . What began as a feature in Redbook magazine in December 1933 turned into a best-selling novel by one of the most important writers of the 20th Century-- Dashiell Ham...

Book Vs. Movie: The Best Years of Our Lives The MacKinlay Kantor Novel Vs. the 1946 Classic Film The Margos continue their journey through post-WW2 America with one of the most celebrated movies of the 20th Century-- The Best Years of Our Lives . The film was based on the novel Glory for Me by MacKinlay Kantor , who wrote the story of wounded GIs dealing with trauma in blank verse form. He started...

Book Vs. Movie: The Little Foxes The Lillian Hellman 1939 Play Vs. the 1941 Bette Davis Film Playwright Lillian Hellman is one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th Century who had a complicated life filled with love affairs and massive success and was the toast of Broadway for works such as The Little Foxes , The Children’s Hour and Watch on the Rhine . She was also a House Committee on Un-A...

Book Vs. Movie: Octopussy The Ian Fleming Short Story Vs. the 1983 Roger Moore Bond The Margos are feeling very Bond-- James Bond that is with 1983’s Octopussy based on a short story by Ian Fleming in the posthumously released Octopussy and The Living Daylights . Fleming, a former British Agent and the creator of Bond, passed away in 1964; he had left several short stories and novels that helped t...

Book Vs. Movie: Rear WindowThe 1942 Short Story Vs. the 1954 Classic Film The Margos are swooning throughout this episode for one of the greatest movies of all time, adapted from a short story by a very interesting (and prolific) author. Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of his finest works based on the short story; It Had to be Murder by Cornell Woolrich. Woolrich is considered one of his gen...

Book Vs. Movie: Touch of Evil The 1956 novel Badge of Evil Vs. the 1958 Film Noir Classic The Margos dive right back into one of our favorite genres--film noir! The 1958 Orson Welles’s directed film Touch of Evil is based on a 1956 novel by Whit Masteron titled Badge of Evil . The book sold reasonably well at the time, but at the time, the movie was given mixed reviews due to Welles not staying un...

Book Vs. Movie: Kinky Boots The True Story Behind the 2005 Movie & 2013 Broadway Musical (and the 2019 movie!) The “Month of Musicals” concludes with Kinky Boots , the true story of a footwear company in Earls Barton, North Hamptonshire, UK-- WJ Brooks . The factory was in Steve Pateman’s family for decades when in the 1990s, they started losing money to the cheaper, faster competition. Patema...

Book Vs. Movie: La Cage Aux Folles & The Birdcage The Original Film and Broadway Musical Vs. the 1996 Film The “Month of Musicals” continues with the 1996 film The Birdcage , which took its influence from the play turned into Broadway musical La Cage Aux Folles . The original 1973 french play takes place in Saint-Tropez, where a gay couple meets an ultra-conservative family member. It was a hu...

Book Vs. Movie: Hairspray The 1988 John Waters Movie Vs. the 2007 Adaptation “Musicals in March” The Margos continue their look at “Musicals in March” with the John Waters classic Hairspray , which started with the 1988 movie starring Rikki Lake , Divine , and Debby Harry . Based on his experiences of being a fan of the 1957-1964 Baltimore teen dance TV program-- The Buddy Deane Show , Waters was...

Book Vs. Movie: Hedwig and the Angry Inch The 1999 Off-Broadway Musical Vs. the 2001 Movie“Musicals in March” The Margos kick off “Musicals in March 2023” with one of the best rock musicals based on a gender-bending lead c character-- Hedwig and the Angry Inch created by multi-hyphenates John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask . Created in the late 1990s Off-Broadway, is the tale of misfit Hedwig...

Book Vs. Movie: BlacKkKlansman The True Story Ron Stallworth The Margos visit the world of nonfiction with the too-nutty-to-not-be-true story of retired police officer Ron Stallworth who in the late 1970s infiltrated the Kuy Klux Klan in Colorado Springs, Colorado. On his journey, he met racists throughout the region who were not precisely clever but had designs of terrorizing nonwhites and Jewish...

Book Vs. Movie: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom The August Wilson Play Vs. the 2021 Movie Pittsburgh native August Wilson (1945-2005) is one of the most successful playwrights of the 20th Century; with a collection of works that came to be known as The Pittsburgh Cycl e, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice in his career and was inducted into American Theater Hall of Fame in 2006. His 1984 work Ma R...

Book Vs. Movie: Duel The Richard Matheson Short Story Vs. the Steven Spielberg TV Movie In 1971, a 24-year-old budding director named Steven Spielberg was given a story by his assistant. This fiction story appeared in a recent issue of Playboy magazine, written by one of his favorite Twilight Zone writers, Richard Matheson . The story Duel was about a man driving through the California desert bein...

Book Vs. Movie: 12 Angry Men The 1954 Teleplay Vs. the 1957 Classic Film The Margos close out a month of theatre vs. films with 12 Angry Men , which began as a teleplay in 1954 and was adapted to film by Sidney Lumet, with Henry Fonda serving as the lead actor and producer of the 1957 movie. The story centers on a young man who is accused of stabbing his father to death, and a group of 12 jurors m...

Book Vs. Movie: Casablanca The 1940 Play Vs. the 1942 Classic Film This January, we are saluting plays that were turned into films, and this episode covers one of the most beloved and celebrated films of all time-- Casablanca. Yes, it was a play first by playwrights Murray Burnett and Joan Allison , who was offered $20,000 in 1940 (over $300,000 in today’s costs) for their story about a cafe in Af...

Book Vs. Movie: Biloxi Blues The 1984 Neil Simon Play Vs. the 1988 Mike Nichols Film The Margos continue their month of plays in January (we have “Musicals in March”) with Neil Simon’s middle offer of the “Eugene Chronicles” with 1984’s Biloxi Blues . The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Simon about Eugene Morris Jerome of Brooklyn, NY, and his time as an enlisted soldier in Biloxi,...

Book Vs. Movie: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf The Edward Albee 1962 Play Vs. the 1966 Mike Nichols Film The three-hour anger fest that is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf is one of the most celebrated and controversial of the 1960s. Edward Albee’s 1961 play is about middle-aged couple George & Martha, who have been drinking and battling for years, and one unfortunate evening they have with new fr...

Book Vs. Movie: "The Poseidon Adventure" (1971) The differences between the super gross book and the entertaining movie (We are not going to hide our bias here!) At Book Vs. Movie, whenever people say, "Duh--the book is always better than the movie!" the Margos would say, "yeah--have you ever read Jaws ?" Well, now we have another book-to-movie adaptation that features a horrible, racist, sexist,...

Book Vs Movie: “ The Homecoming: A Christmas Story” (1971) The Basis of the Waltons TV Series Started as a TV Movie! The Margos decided to get into the Depression-era holiday spirit with a look at “ The Homecoming: A Christmas Story ,” which was written by author & creator of The Waltons TV series-- Earl Hamner, Jr. Hamner has a fascinating career as a writer with several scripts of “The Twili...

Book Vs. Movie: The Little Mermaid The Hans Christian Anderson Story Vs. the 1989 Disney Classic The Margos continue “Disney in December” with the all-time classic 1989 animated feature The Little Mermaid , which began as a fairy tale by Danish author Hans Christian Anderson in 1837. The film was responsible for bringing Disney studios back into animation leaders after decades of so-so films and l...