Talk:East of Eden (1955 film)

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There are some plot mistakes on this page--for example, Kate and Adam were married. She was not a prostitute at the time of Cal's birth.

In the book they are married before she becomes a prostitute and are never divorced, but the movie never makes that clear. And since the movie is almost entirely different than the book in all but a short handfull of scenes, it's hard to say what the intended perception was meant to be. Needless to say, extrapolating plotlines from the book to the movie doesn't work.

I would be interested, if anyone knows, is the screenplay meant to confound the story of Cal and Aron with the story of Adam and Charles? That's the only thing I could make any sense of; as the movie and book share nearly nothing in common. And moreover, does anyone know any trivia on why the part of Lee is essentially removed from the screenplay?

It's also notable that Jo Van Fleet plays Cathy/Kate in a very unusual way. In the book she is soft and quiet, manipulating everyone around her with sweetness and illusion. She is protrayed as a sociopathic schizophrenic who has no emotional core to her being, and is thus able to decieve others by playing against their emotional needs. But Jo Van Fleet's version of Cathy is brusque and human - hard-edged and bitter. I mean, the two stories - the screenplay and the book -- really share no common themes, and I would be especially curious to know anything about what Steinbeck may have said or felt about the disparities between the two.

[edit] Neutral POV?

The summary for the movie reads more like a review than anything else. Someone needs to edit it.