Man From The South Movie Vs Book

“Man From The South”, written by Roald Dahl and published in 1948, is a short story that features a preposterous man who makes purposeless bets and when the facing person loses the bet, the man, Carlos, chops off one of the opposing person’s fingers. In the story “Man From The South”, Carlos makes a bet with a young naval cadet that if the naval cadet can light his cigarette lighter ten times in a row without missing once, the naval cadet wins a sleek, pale-green Cadillac. If the naval cadet loses the bet, he will be deprived of the little finger on his left hand. The film adaptation is very different than the book version, making the film very confusing and the book more preferable. The film adaptation of “Man From The South” came out on …show more content…
In the short story, the young English woman was a proper lady; she doesn’t smoke or drink. The text states, ‘He offered the cigarettes to the girl and she refused.”(Dahl 56). However, in the movie, the lady drinks brandy and smokes cigarettes unlike the English woman in the book. The lady sits at the bar and says, “A brandy please.” (AHP) and “Thank you.”(AHP) when she accepts the cigarette from the young man. Usually, a woman is proper in public so she doesn’t draw negative attention, but in the film adaptation, the young woman doesn’t seem to care about those around her think. Not only is the English girl changed by Hitchcock’s director, Norman Lloyd, the wife of Carlos also has a bit of an attitude compared to the way she acted in the story. In the story, the woman is very commendable and the reader knows that because the wife of Carlos says, “I am ashamed and very sorry about it all.”(Dahl 68). However, in the film adaptation of “Man From The South”, the woman seems to give a little bit of an attitude by saying, “How foolish young people can be.” (AHP). Overall, the way Norman Lloyd changed the film changed the way the reader looked at the story’s plot and most can agree that the story is more