Of Mice and Men

This paper compares and contrasts John Steinbeck's short novel, Of Mice and Men, with its two movie versions, the first released in 1939 and directed by Lewis Milestone and the second released in 1992 and directed by Gary Sinise. Steinbeck initially conceived of his story as a theater script or a screenplay; the resulting book, a bestseller when it was first published and an enduring classic, translates effectively to film's visual demands.

Each of the book's six chapters begins with evocative descriptions which set the scene. The balance of each chapter consists primarily of dialogue which conveys the characters and their relationships. Much of Steinbeck's original dialogue survives intact in both screenplays. Both films provided their stars with remarkable opportunities to create memorable characterizations of George and his slow-witted friend Lennie, and each film version is representative of the era in which it was produced.

John Steinbeck was a somewhat successful but relatively unknown writer when he began work on the novel he initially planned to call Something That Happened. Although interested in writing scripts for theater and films, he recognized that he had no experience in these forms of writing. Instead, he set out to write a novel that was as close to being a script as possible. Before the book was published, he asked Broadway director George S. Kaufman to review the manuscript and make suggestions that would strengthen the piece as the basis of a

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y and highly theatrical presentation helped make it an instant bestseller and obvious material for a play. Shortly after the book was published and the stage version opened on Broadway, both in 1937, Hollywood began considering making a movie of Steinbeck's touching story. James Cagney convinced Warner Brothers to buy the rights with an eye toward playing George on film (Parini 197). Director Lewis Milestone, who had won an Oscar for All Quiet on the Western Front, began to work on a screenplay with writer Eugene Solow. Eventually, he cast Burgess Meredith as George and Lon Chaney, Jr., as Lennie, one of the best possible pieces of casting available at the time. Brian St. Pierre observes, "The film established Burgess Meredith as a movie star, if an offbeat one, and gave brief respectability to the acting career of Lon Chaney, Jr." (103). The two created a believably touching relationship onscreen that was largely responsible for the film's success at the time. Steinbeck himself was happy with the result; he wrote, "It is a beautiful job . . . Milestone has done a curious lyrical thing. It hangs together and is underplayed" (237). The film's subtlety, not always typical of films of the period, is an important reason t

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