I'm another fan of Dog Soldiers. I've always thought of it as
pretty hardboiled. As a matter of fact, I first read it as an
HB novel. Reading it led me back to literature, though, after
having fallen into a pretty steady diet of hardboiled for a
year or so. Now my reading is again more balanced and
eclectic, but still as much as half HB.
Dog Soldiers is also interesting for its Beat connections.
The Ray Hicks character is based on Neal Cassady (down to the
walking along the train tracks scene), whom Stone knew while
"on the bus" with Ken Kesey.
Besides being a good movie, the film adaptation is
interesting in pointing out differences between the forms of
novels and films. I read that Stone worked on the initial
screenplay, but was unable to let anything go from the
original novel. The script was cluttered with numerous
subplots (which work great in the book). Finally, Judith
Rascoe was brought it to doctor it. Stone thought she was
ruthless, but right in streamlining the script down to a
makeable and very tight film, but admitted he was way too
close to the material to do that.
Mark
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