Hanover Street
Maureen Gregson, "Hanover Street"
English | 1979 | ISBN: 0552110329 | 224 pages | EPUB | 0.88 MB
English | 1979 | ISBN: 0552110329 | 224 pages | EPUB | 0.88 MB
This is a good novelization for a film that has a good cast–Harrision Ford, Christopher Plummer and Lesley-Anne Down–and a great music score by John Barry. The screenplay by directory Peter Hyams is the weak link here, with some major plot points poorly handled. There is also a tonal problem with the film, as it wobbles unsatisfactorily between old-fashioned love story and action film. Still, the film is not uninteresting. Harrison Ford shows glimpses of the action star he would become. The bombing raid sequences are well done via miniatures. The film obviously had a big budget and it looks like it all made it on the screen. Given all of the faults, it nevertheless still makes us care about the lead characters.
The novelization fleshes out much more than the movie can, and as a result the story plays out more naturally. We learn more about everyone, and war-time London is described with reasonable realism. The scripts big issues are still weak here–Harrison Ford snapping on his final flight, for instance–but I ended up liking the novel more than the film. Your mileage may vary, of course.