Commentary: The movie can improve the book (or not)

I’ve been a reader since we kids voluntarily went to the library to get books to read during the summer. You couldn’t just roller skate, play in the creek, ride bikes and play hide-and-seek and tag and “cootie.”

I’ve also been a movie lover since I was a child. My family went to the movies when it was convenient for them — seldom at the time the movie began. This gave rise to my father’s famous saying — used when we kids rambled on — “This is where I came in.”

After we moved to Los Angeles after World War II, my mother took me to premieres. To me, the pink searchlights were as enchanting as the fur-clad actresses.

Jeanne, Sharon and I went to free movies on Saturdays. The theaters showed cartoons, a cliff-hanger, and an old feature film, maybe “National Velvet,” maybe “Frankenstein.” There were no G or R ratings then. If the Legion of Decency approved, it was fine with our folks.

FYI: “Frankenstein” gives little kids nightmares.

For many years, I liked reading a book if a movie was to be made of it.

The book “Rosemary’s Baby” (1967) scared me so much I had to say the Rosary before I could fall asleep. I hadn’t been so frightened since I’d seen “Frankenstein,” and I hadn’t said the Rosary since the 1950s.

Of course, that didn’t stop me from seeing the film. I took Jan with me. She’d read “Rosemary’s Baby” too. The movie was just as good, but because we knew how everything turned out, the scare factor was pretty much eliminated.

Sometimes books are better than movies, and sometimes vice versa. Sometimes I’d read a book and didn’t want to see the movie, like “The Exorcist.”

Some people who’d read “Snow Falling on Cedars” didn’t want to see it because they were afraid the movie might ruin it. But I thought the book made the movie better, and the movie made the book better.

Being a writer, if I’ve read the book, I tend to consider whether the movie is true to the author’s intent.

My most heart-swelling movie experience was seeing J. K. Rowling’s fantastical visions actualized in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

I cried. I cried because I saw staircases move. Because I saw Quidditch being played. Because the author’s words were given life, perfectly.

I read “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” and then saw the movie, and I liked the book better. Seemed to me the movie made unnecessary changes and cuts and added much that wasn’t even in the book. So boo on the producers!

I read “The Girl on the Train” before seeing the movie.

The book was good, but I didn’t care for the movie version at all. It seemed to be all close-ups of a distressed woman whose hand shook too much to put on lipstick but apparently could apply mascara to smudge beneath her widened eyes in every scene. (That’s just my favorite complaint, not my only one.)

My friend June had warned me, and my friend Eileen said she’d walked out.

So I wondered whether it worked better to see the movie, and if I liked it, then read the book.

I loved seeing “The Dressmaker” and went directly to Barnes & Noble to purchase the book. Ick. The way-better movie started in the middle of the action. I’d read a third of the book before dressmaking was even mentioned.

I’ll probably skip buying a book after I’ve enjoyed a movie.

I almost always finish a book I’ve started, but I’ve walked out of three movies.

Author LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.