By Alex Manugian:
Should cinematic adaptations of novels be as faithful as possible to their source material? I would argue no. Often, being too faithful is the downfall of filmed adaptations—just compare the fatally reverent Watchmen movie to the brilliantly adapted Watchmen limited series. Different mediums can and should allow a story to be told in wonderfully different ways. The goal should be to translate the story’s essence in the most impactful and meaningful way.
Then there’s The Natural. The film is an uncommonly faithful adaptation of the novel by the same name . . . until the very end, at which point it turns the entire theme of the story upside down.
In the twelfth grade, we got a charismatic and unconventional new English teacher who I instantly liked. He also was the new head coach of the soccer team and tossed us pints of Ben & Jerry’s after wins. But the thing that endeared him to me forever was when he announced the book we’d be reading in the spring semester: The Natural.
I can’t remember if I knew that the Robert Redford movie was based on a book. What I did know for sure was that it combined my two favorite things in the world: movies and baseball. And unlike the actors in many baseball movies, Robert Redford actually looked like he could play. The Natural debuted May 11, 1984. The story felt mythic, meaningful in ways I could only feel and not articulate. With a Randy Newman score that has become one of the most recognizable pieces of our universal soundtrack, the whole experience was transporting.
Turns out that mythical feeling was very intentional and not very complicated. Even as a 12 year old, I probably should have caught that the story incorporates the King Arthur myth throughout. Like the sword Excalibur pulled from a stone, main character Roy Hobbs and his dad fashion the magical bat "Wonder Boy" out of a lightning-struck tree. Young Roy must face strange and uncommon foes, like the Whammer (Joe Don Baker as an unlicensed Baby Ruth) and the mysterious Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey), who shoots him nearly to death fifteen minutes into the film. When he finally emerges sixteen years later, he joins a team called the New York Knights. The Knights, it turns out, are sorely lacking in bravery and chivalry. They need someone to lead by example.
I could not wait to read this book.
Written by Bernard Malamud, The Natural was published in 1952. Like the movie, it tells the story of Roy Hobbs, a young pitching phenom in the early part of the twentieth century whose career and life are derailed when he is shot by a mysterious woman. He returns 16 years later as 35-year-old rookie outfielder for the worst team in the league. No longer able to pitch, he now can merely slug more home runs farther than anyone else. He’s a reserved man with a chivalrous code he is determined to follow. The King Arthur undercurrent is there, just like the movie. He’s faced with many foes and temptations, just like Redford’s character. And in both the book and the movie, Roy Hobbs learns that his old bullet wound has come back to claim his career. He can only play one more game, after which he’ll need to hang ‘em up or die. Then Roy is offered a big payoff by a powerful gambler to throw that final game.
Here's where the stories finally diverge. In the movie, Redford’s Hobbs doesn’t consider taking the money for an instant—even though other players on the team have already been paid off. And in the end, he saves the day, hitting the most spectacular, light-tower-demolishing home run in history. He retires in peace, fulfilled. In the book, Hobbs reasons with himself that he can take the money and still try to win. He gets his chance, coming up to bat in the bottom of the ninth with the season on the line. He strikes out. The team loses. His career is over. And word will most likely get out that he took the bribe money.
When I was a kid, my dad told me a cheer his high school football team used to yell. It went “Ra Ra Ree, kick him in the knee! Ra Ra Rass, kick him in the other knee!” I thought this was so clever, so funny. I shared it on the bus the next morning. No one laughed. Then Todd Swiecza yelled out, “Ra ra rass kick him in the ass!” And everyone laughed. This is how I imagine Bernard Malamud must have felt when he learned that his story had gone from a tale about a very noble man gaining stark enlightenment through failure to a tale about a completely noble man succeeding completely.
I think many of us have an idealized—and false—impression of the Arthurian legends.
We like to imagine men of unassailable character completing near-impossible quests. But the stories of the Round Table tend to focus more on human frailty, and most of the quests don’t succeed. As disappointing as those stories often turn out to feel to me, they are a reflection of real life. Still, it does sound nice to be able to see them all succeed. When I imagine the writers, director Barry Levinson, and Redford adapting The Natural, I can appreciate that they may have had the same wish.
The Natural is a fullhearted expression of the mythic hero as a viable aspiration for real people. It stirs the heart and makes one yearn for true-life heroes such as Roy Hobbs. It’s probably more accurate to say Roy Hobbs is a certain kind of white American heroic ideal—the humble, non-showboating hero who just puts his head down and runs the bases even after hitting a game-winning home run. Regardless, it works.
When asked what Malamud thought of the adaptation, his daughter reported he felt it validated him as an author. I find that to be a gracious way of saying Malamud liked his theme, but the other version has value as well.
Alex Manugian fell in love with movies at four years old, when his father took him to see a screening of the original King Kong. He has written original screenplays and adaptations for Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount, New Regency, and others. Alex co-wrote and co-starred in James Ward Byrkit's 2013 film Coherence, which has achieved worldwide cult status. In 2017, Alex joined the writing staff of Grey’s Anatomy for two seasons. Most recently, he began teaching Script Analysis at Pepperdine University. He has also been a film critic, development executive at Cartoon Network, and a highly sought-after housepainter on both sides of the country.
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