I don't know why they changed that in the film. Maybe to show off the street setting and the collateral death of the young mother (damn commies). It was a forest in the book. One other, rather annoying change, was that at the end Prideaux shoots Haydon with a rifle whereas in the TV series he breaks his kneck with a blow. This is how he died in the book, and although Prideaux isn't expressly named as the killer in the book, it's made clear because earlier he killed an injured owl in the same manner. In the TV series this is acknowledged with the call of an owl over the scene.
I suppose old TV shows and films will be remade and plundered for ever. Some are good, some are not so good. Battlestar Galactica is in a different league to the cheesy original series - so say we all. Edge of Darkness 2010 (Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone) misfires badly in every possible way, whereas the original TV series 1985 (Bob Peck, Joe Don Baker) is just brilliant. Same director as well. I recently watched the new Ipcress File TV series. It has plenty of shout-outs to the 1965 film (Michael Caine) for example almost frame by frame copies of some scenes, naming the lead Harry Palmer as per the film, whereas in Len Deighton's novel he's un-named. Neither film nor series are all that close to the book. I like the film very much so I wasn't expecting much from a remake. I was pleasantly surprised and in spite of the self-conscious borrowing, it's very different.
Ah, we just started another Len Deighton / Caine (is he really myopic, or are the specs an affectation?) spy jobby: Funeral In Berlin. FYI, Mrs.D is rounding this stuff up as my taste leans more towards
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Death Race 2000. Saw that in the cinema in 75 or 76. Quite fun. Also saw Emmanuelle around the same time. By contrast, that was so dull that we left early preferring a couple of pints to yet more soft-core moaning and groaning.
Turns out that Michael Caine does have (and did have) poor eyesight and did favour heavy frames to disguise the thickness of his lenses. I see that recent snaps show him with lighter frames, but I'm sure he's rich enough to have had all the lasering that's available.
I was surprised how good DR2K is, balls-out trashy where e.g. Besson is delusionally coy. He even managed to work in some half-assed social satire! I think it may be the only Corman flick I've seen that really works for me, most so terrible I couldn't get past the first ~15-minutes. Ace performance by Carradine. For him, I mean.
I knew one of Corman's assistants in Halifax NS, where he was trying to produce a Buddhist CDROM title I worked a few months on, "Bardo," unfinanced and therefore unfinished (AFAIK).
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