Christine (1983)

No,  you aren't seeing double in the blog post titles. Christine set some kind of world record for page-to-screen time, with the movie released barely seven months after the publication of the novel. In fact, I've been so lame about posting here, almost more time has passed between the book and movie posts than the releases of the actual book and movie (I'll do the mature thing here and blame Covid). I wouldn't be surprised if the early production of this film predates the book's release, which would have made for an odd start and practically guarantee a movie that doesn't resemble the book. Thankfully it didn't go into Lawnmower Man territory though.

It seems like a natural fit for John Carpenter to direct a Stephen King adaption, but this is the only time this has ever happened. Then again, it doesn't seem like anyone (except maybe Mick Garris) has a fondness for directing these, and it isn't the first time a big name director took the helm, but follows the tortured tradition of Cronenberg and Kubrick's trips to the well. 

Like many movies from this period, the action was lifted from where the book takes place (in this case, Pennsylvania) to Southern California. So if your favorite part of the book was the vivid backdrop of winter, you aren't going to get this in the movie. For me, I was disappointed that the heroic sewage tanker Petunia was written out of this. Again, you can't squash a 500+ page novel into a 100 minute movie; something's got to give.

So, given this limited running time, Christine necessarily pivots to the more two-dimensional "demon car" narrative and the LeBay character is marginalized and merged into the character of his brother. Recall that in the book, the car is more a vehicle (no pun intended) for Roland LeBay to terrorize (1950's style) in the afterlife. In the movie, the car is born bad, killing a guy on the production line right in the opening. Plus, the movie is more clear that you can't kill Christine, which regenerates much quicker and it is made very obvious that crushing her (literally, not just emotionally) doesn't solve anything either, but just passes the buck to the next poor sap.

Finally, just like there are a lot of fun stories about how to make a dog act in a movie like Cujo, Christine has its share of mostly car-related trivia. I won't replicate that here. As for Keith Gordon and John Stockwell, both relatively new actors who played friends Arnie and Dennis, both later ditched acting and went into directing, although I have to say Keith made the smarter move directing good television, while John pivoted to crummy movies.