Kevin Power’s debut Bad Day at Blackrock is being made into a film, which frankly only adds to a pile of books (currently topped by Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road) that must be perused before I’ll allow myself the luxury of the big-screen version of events. But am I deluded in believing that in the divine order, book should come before film, at least when it comes to experiencing a story? I’m not one to be repeating the “are better” mantra in general, though am stumped now in my attempt to come up with an example of a film of a book that really outshone its literary predecessor. The Merchant Ivory Room With A View was at least as good as E.M. Forster original, while One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was fabulous on page and scrren, though I’d be hard put to pick one over tother. Are we talking apples and oranges here? Is there even a point to comparing two very different ways to tell a story? I would extol the film versions of The Godfather or Dangerous Liaisons, yet both are predated by books I never read. So I need help: what films are better than the books that inspired them?