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>>Reminds me of the story of the producer of the "Crime and punishment" series. When told that the title can't be used, because it's Dostoyevsky's, he (allegedly said): "I don't care - find the guy and pay him off".
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>Dirk Bogarde tells the story of the U.S. producers of "Death in Venice". They thought they were getting a movie based on a famous book - a love story set in Venice. What they got of course was a movie about an aging homosexual who falls in love with a young boy while everyone around him is dying of cholera. After the very first screening all was very, very quiet...... finally one of the producers, looking for something positive to say, said "we love the music". When told it was by Gustav Mahler (on whose symphony the book was based) he said "well, we'd like to hire him".

As I was reading this I thought "Oh God, THAT pile of Eartha Kit - the only good thing about it was Mahler's music!" :-)

BTW, having never read "Death in Venice" I thought that the book was about "... an aging homosexual who ..."
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