Who’d Want to Hide Such a Beautiful Face? from James W. Ziskin

Is there a movie better than the book? And name a book that you think defies adaptation?

When I was a young man, I was a film buff. A cinephile. I loved watching movies, especially foreign films and classics. Somewhere along the line I lost my enthusiasm for the seventh art, at least to the extent that I no longer enjoy sitting in movie theater seats that have been sat in by people I don’t know.

Anyway, back when I was a devotee, I used to say that great books rarely made great movies. And not-so-...