C.S. Forester published “The
Good Shepherd” in 1955. It was the last
novel he published before his death. The
novel was personal to him. Although he
is most famous for his novels involving British protagonists, like the
Hornblower series, “The Good Shepherd” is about an American ship captain. Forester had moved to the U.S. early in WWII
and worked for the British Ministry of Information. He played a role in convincing America to
enter the war. The novel was his attempt
to give credit to the efforts of the U.S. Navy once it entered the war as
Britain’s ally. I am a fan of the
Hornblower novels, but I was not familiar with this book until I began reading
about the making of “Greyhound”. I got
the book on Kindle, but waited to read it until after I watched the movie. This is my usual policy when it comes to
books adapted into movies. I don’t want
to know the plo of the movie and reading the book after watching the movie
gives me more details than could be shown in a movie. As my readers know, I usually find that the
movie is better than the book. I believe
that the screenwriter has the advantage of having the book as a template that
he or she can improve on. In this case,
the screenwriter was Tom Hanks himself.
Let’s see how he did.
When I learned that this
American movie was based on a book by Forester, I immediately assumed the movie
had changed the ship to American and changed the plot substantially. (Think “U-571”) I was wrong on both counts. The USS Keeling is an American Fletcher class destroyer (in the book it is a Mahan
class). They were named after Navy and
Marine heroes. Not going with the title of the book was probably
a marketing decision or an attempt to dilute the overt religiousity of the
book.
The mission of the Keeling (code-named Greyhound) is
as outlined in the novel. It leads a
group of four escorts in shepherding a convoy across the North Atlantic in
1942. For two days, while crossing the
area the movie calls the “Black Pit”, the convoy is without air cover and prey
to a German wolf pack. The novel covers
only this period of the voyage.
Although the movie is just 91
minutes long, it covers the book tidily.
The book starts with the convoy approaching the Black Pit (a term not
used in the book) and ends with the Keeling freed to head to port. In between, the film includes most of the
incidents covered in the book. It does
skip over the first u-boat contact, but that is because it involves the Viktor
and James working over a u-boat. From
this point on, the movie adheres to the book closely. There are basically five encounters in the
movie. In the first, Krause (Hanks)
tricks the sub (and rattles his crew) by reversing course to sneak up on the
submarine. In the movie, oil and debris
confirm the kill, but in the movie there is no proof. The sub is actually sunk when the Viktor
joins and they depth charge in tandem.
The second movie encounter is when Greyhound joins the Cadenna in going
to the rescue of a sinking cargo ship.
It does avoid a torpedo as in the book.
Third, they fire at the sub and miss and then rush to the front of the
convoy to face a wolf pack. Later, the
Keeling again fires on a surfaced sub and misses. It gets hit by friendly fire and is fooled by
the “pillenwerfer” (in the book, Krause is not clueless about this type of
decoy). Krause does make the decision to
pick up survivors from the oil tanker. After this incident, the book covers a seven-hour
cat-and-mouse duel with a sub. This ends
in frustration. For the fourth combat scene, the movie picks
up towards the end of the seven hours.
The movie mimics the book closely in the sinking of the broached
sub. (It apparently had a stuck bow
plane due to a depth charge explosion.)
The movie enacts the funeral. At
this point, the remaining hours until reinforcements arrive are fairly
uneventful with no u-boat activity involving the Keeling. Hanks added the scene where the Greyhound has
to dodge torpedoes from two subs and one torpedo glances off the side. The book does not have a second sinking of a
u-boat using deck guns. And there is no
PBY sinking of the other. Hanks also
added the cheering by the convoy.
What you get in the book is you
get inside Krause’s head. You also get
more background that explains his personality.
Hanks does an excellent job as the laconic and imperturbable captain,
but Forester tells you why he is the way he is.
The movie barely touches on the fact that Krause’s career had stagnated
before the war offered him the opportunity for command. The phrase “fitted and retained’ is
mentioned, but the audience probably did not pick up that Krause had gotten
less than stellar performance reviews and had been passed up for command. Of course, it would be hard to guess that
because the movie Krause is a u-boat fighting savant even thought it is his
first combat. In the book, we learn that
he is not as perfect and has his moments of doubt. But, most importantly, the reader has access
to his thought-processes. He weighs the
pros and cons of each major decision.
This is fascinating because you can make up your mind what you would
have done in his shoes. For instance,
would you have stopped for the survivors when other ships were under attack?
Hanks makes major changes with
Krause’s back-story. He throws in the
superfluous flashback to Krause’s jilted proposal to Evelyn to give Krause a
reason to come back alive. In the book,
Krause is more of a bitter man, having been married and divorced from Evelyn. She cheated on him, but he recognizes that he
was part of the problem by placing the service ahead of her (a common war movie
trope that Hanks was perhaps avoiding). Hanks
did not invent the religiousity the movie is noted for. The book Krause is the son of a minister and
quite devout. Forester throws in quotes
from the Bible throughout Krause’s inner monologues. Hanks does a good job of getting this aspect
of his personality across unobtrusively, as when he says grace before eating. What Hanks is not able to clearly portray in
91 minutes is the sheer exhaustion that Krause goes through. The bleeding feet have to stand in for his
whole body. The man was on his feet with
little food and no sleep for 48 hours.
It makes you wonder how many battles in history were decided by poor
decisions based on exhaustion. Not that
Krause makes any really bad decisions.
Hanks wisely develops the
character of Cleveland, the mess mate who tries to get the captain to eat and
later perishes helping pass ammunition to one of the guns. In the book, the character is Filipino and he
is not one of the dead. A less wise, but
undoubtedly entertaining, move by Hanks is the taunting German (voiced by
Thomas Kretschmann!). This cheekiness
evolved from a brief mention in the book of a German making rude comments over
the radio to one of the other escorts.
But overall Hanks was loyal to the book, which was smart because the
novel is very good and easily adapted.
Most of the dialogue, especially the nautical stuff, is straight from
the novel.
So which is better? I would have to say the movie. I liked the changes and additions Hanks made,
mostly. He adheres to the book admirably
and throws in an extra combat scene. He
develops an African-American character. Obviously,
if you are not proficient in naval warfare, the movie makes it easier to follow
what is happening and you can literally see the effects of navigational
orders. However, if you like to
understand what makes characters tick and what their motivations are, you
should definitely read the book. It is a
good blend of character study and action.
It puts you in the slippers of the commander better than the movie.
Book = A
Movie = A
