Stephen King Goes to the Movies [Mass Market Paperback]

Just so we're clear - this is an anthology book. There's no new fiction from the King here, what you see are 5 "short" stories culled from other volumes that have been made into popular films and been gathered into this one book. What are the stories? "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", "1408", "Low Men in Yellow Coats", "The Mangler", and "Children of the Corn".

Purists might argue that these are the wrong choices. After all, nearly all of King's books have been turned into great films. "The Shining", "Carrie", "Misery", "The Body" (Stand by Me), "The Green Mile", "Cujo", "It", to name but a few. So in a way if you want to read some great movies, pick up any King book and chances are it'll be even better than the film. You could also argue a book of short stories that were turned into great films already exists - "Different Seasons" features 3 of 4 stories that were made into tremendous films. But anyhoo, I think the publishers wanted to explicitly point out to anyone not in the know that Stephen King has written a lot of great stories that have been turned into a lot of great films. And here it is.

"The Mangler" is an odd choice, a crappy story about a haunted laundy mangler. Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds and I've never heard of the film. I'd read "1408" and "Shawshank" before and of course seen the amazing film adaptations. The new ones for me were the deliciously trashy "Children of the Corn" (Wicker Man meets Lord of the Flies) and the 300+ page "Low Men in Yellow Coats" filmed as "Hearts in Atlantis".

The last King fiction I'd read was the godawful "Lisey's Story" which put me off King for 5 years. "Low Men" brought me back to the fold. No messing about with idiotic colloquialisms, lack of plot, bad characterisation - here was the King I loved. A fantastic coming of age story of tragedy between a young boy, his unloving mother, and a mysterious lodger in the attic. It's the start of "Treasure Island" crossed with King's own "Dark Tower" books. The character of Ted Brautigan was endlessly fascinating and his relationship with Bobby was brilliantly realised.

I'm not sure why this collection was published but I'm glad it was if only for me to spend some time on holiday in King's fantastically written world of 1960's east coast America. For King fanatics they'll buy it for the 5 pages of new material introducing each story but for those who're fans and have read a lot of his work then chances are you'll have read most of what's in this volume already. "Low Men in Yellow Coats" though, wow. Loved it, just for that.

I am a King fan. Truly. Hence, I was bought this collection for Christmas. I was very excited by it, even though I'd already read all of these short stories, King's apraisal of their adaptaions interested me greatly.
As a writer myself I know how attached I get to my characters. I cannot imagine how difficut it must be to see them portrayed on the screen for poeple's viewing pleasure. My excitement at the prospect of reading Mr. Kings analysis of this interpretation of his own work, was short lived. I knew the short stories had been meerly re-printed, but I expected a good, meaty dissection of the televisual adapttions from the author himself. Yes, each story has a meagre introduction, but not nearly in-depth enough. I find it hard to believe that he gave the 'o.k' to this publication, which even his most devoted fans can see is just for an easy monetary gain. Tut-tut.

I enjoyed reading this. if you have seen any of the films you will notice how much some of them have been padded out to make the film longer, such as room 1408. but when you have such a great story teller, it sure helps.