This is only vaguely based on "The Final Diagnosis" by Arthur Hailey; if it were a proper adaptation, it would have been a good half-hour longer and less sugarcoated than, say, your average Gobstopper. What we don't see is the subsequent death of the Alexander baby, the difficulties Coleman and "Cathy" (Vivian in the text) face in their relationship, and a certain final plot element that serves to hammer home the problems of a static hospital management style. That line in the beginning of the film about a hot water system malfunction? In the book, it leads to an outbreak of typhoid, as apparently Pathology forgot to check its food service staff to figure out if they'd hired any carriers. Oops.
As a film, it's not a failure; casting wasn't bad, although Dick Clark seemed oddly wooden as Alexander during that crucial last fifteen minutes. I agree with an earlier reviewer who noticed Cathy's stunning hair post-amputation. If she hadn't just come out of surgery, I'd shrug it off as some nurse's kindness to a sick colleague, even in such a gritty take on the sixties medical drama. The adaptation does not do the character justice; in the book, she has a lot more personality. She becomes depressed over the missing leg, a grief which permeates the rest of her relationship with Coleman. As I recall, they are never truly happy together, because she can't get past the "deformity" that saved her life.
The book, with its whole plot intact, would have been filmable, which is why I object to the pruning here where I've shrugged off major changes between book and film in other situations. Sometimes, when you bring a book to life on screen, you have to squeeze, push, pull, prod, and otherwise manhandle the source material into submission. I get this. I've done enough comparisons to get it. This is what I want to do someday, for pity's sake, and had I been at the helm of that project? Yes, I would have taken that third plot point and put it in, precisely because it shows how many people live and die on the decisions of our medical personnel, and why hospitals must change with the times and with the demands of the public they serve. By making it a purely personal tale, the writers lose the point of the novel. I can only wonder what Hailey himself thought of the changes, and whether he understood what I can't.
As a film, it's not a failure; casting wasn't bad, although Dick Clark seemed oddly wooden as Alexander during that crucial last fifteen minutes. I agree with an earlier reviewer who noticed Cathy's stunning hair post-amputation. If she hadn't just come out of surgery, I'd shrug it off as some nurse's kindness to a sick colleague, even in such a gritty take on the sixties medical drama. The adaptation does not do the character justice; in the book, she has a lot more personality. She becomes depressed over the missing leg, a grief which permeates the rest of her relationship with Coleman. As I recall, they are never truly happy together, because she can't get past the "deformity" that saved her life.
The book, with its whole plot intact, would have been filmable, which is why I object to the pruning here where I've shrugged off major changes between book and film in other situations. Sometimes, when you bring a book to life on screen, you have to squeeze, push, pull, prod, and otherwise manhandle the source material into submission. I get this. I've done enough comparisons to get it. This is what I want to do someday, for pity's sake, and had I been at the helm of that project? Yes, I would have taken that third plot point and put it in, precisely because it shows how many people live and die on the decisions of our medical personnel, and why hospitals must change with the times and with the demands of the public they serve. By making it a purely personal tale, the writers lose the point of the novel. I can only wonder what Hailey himself thought of the changes, and whether he understood what I can't.