Book v Movie: The Hunt for Red October

I have to admit that when I first saw the movie “The Hunt for Red October” is when I first thought of a series of articles comparing the book against the movie. I saw the movie first then read the book (I think) and the insights I had into the process of both mediums are still striking to me, and have stuck with me all this time. While each medium is telling the same story they were wildly divergent in the presentation of the material that the extremes of each would be illustrative in the dissection of each. “The Hunt for Red October” still seems a very relevant movie today because the movie is on high rotation with cable channels, and on any given day of the week you can probably run across it flipping through the channels.

The Story

For those of you who have somehow not seen the movie or read the book, it’s actually quite a straightforward story which switches between the dual protagonists of Marko Ramius, legendary Russian submarine captain, and Jack Ryan CIA analyst. Having been originally published in 1984 the setting is during the Cold War of the 80's. The novel opens with Ramius taking command of the Red October, a new type of submarine, one that has a vast number of nuclear weapons and a new propulsion system nicknamed “the caterpillar” that is like a jet engine for submarines and silent. Ryan, discovers the Red October’s existence and sets out to raise the alarm on the ship to American intelligence, but as he’s doing so the Red October sails from Russian waters on its shakedown cruise. Unknown to Ryan, the U.S. and Russian governments, Ramius plans to defect to the U.S. with the submarine as an inducement for asylum. To this end, Ramius has selectively recruited officers who share his desire to defect, and Ramius has sent a letter to the Russian authorities announcing his intention. Soon he has the entire Russian navy chasing him with orders to sink the Red October. In the interim Ryan has discovered the nature of the Red October’s propulsion system, and has figured out Ramius’ intention to defect and is sent out to facilitate Ramius’ defection.

The Book

“The Hunt for Red October” was Tom Clancy’s first novel. He was an insurance salesman and as the legend goes he wrote on his way to work on the subway, and you can kind of tell that in that every sub-chapter is about the length of a train ride. Clancy makes a first novelist’s mistake of including all his research into the subject and he tries to work all that information into the story which leads the story to meander off into digressions that take the reader’s focus away from the main objective, the story, which leads to a tedious read. It’s probably a good thing Clancy’s original publisher was a military publishing house (note to all writers, make sure you do your research to find the right publisher for your book).

Clancy’s effort to create the verisimilitude of the world he’s trying to create usually deals with the logistics of Ryan getting the word out to the proper agencies and authorities on the Red October, or some action out in the Atlantic which adds a lot of sub-plots and ancillary characters that lead nowhere and we don’t see again. Going between the book and the movie is almost a course in concise writing, an easy example of that is the death of Ramius’ wife. In the book it’s a two or three page digression into the backstory, and told too dryly to elicit much if any emotion. While Ramius’ backstory in the movie is boiled down to a few lines at strategic moments that let us know the breadth of Ramius’ grief that leads him to his motivation to defect.

As far as writing goes there’s not much artifice or literary finesse demonstrated aside for the descriptions of technology or character development that takes the form of info dumps instead of using the information more skillfully and adding it at a more strategic point in the story. Clancy does have the chase in the book but he’s buried it. Remarkably, Clancy seems to have had a faculty with writing dialogue, it’s crisp and moves the scene along when he uses it.

The Movie

The movie “The Hunt for Red October” has a cast that a lot of movies would kill for and would be considered “star-studded” with Sean Connery playing Ramius, Sam Neill, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Tim Curry, and although he was the star Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan, Baldwin was a relatively unknown and known as an up and comer in Hollywood, and wasn’t considered for the role until Kevin Costner passed on the role.

The movie cuts right to the chase and does away with a lot of the sub-plots and leaves out forays into the technology except where it’s needed for the audience to understand it’s importance to the plot and moving the plot forward. The movie is also more adept at revealing the human sides of the characters as well. The relationship between Raimus and his first officer Borodin (Sam Neill) is a perfect example as they talk about their hopes and aspirations about their defecting besides letting us get to know the characters better and to care for them.

The screenwriters Larry Ferguson and Donald Stewart at first wrote a screenplay that was a faithful rendering of the book (following director John McTiernan’s lead), but was too onerous and Ferguson taking a second try at the screenplay dug the basic story from the background noise of Clancy’s novel. Gone were the political sub-plots and distracting characters who appeared and disappeared in the book. Ferguson would also play Chief of the boat in the movie.

The performances are above average. While the actors in “The Hunt for Red October” have been in bad movies, they all have reputations as good actors and I think the caliber and reputations of all involved pushed them to a good performance. The presence of Connery especially with his legendary status helped each actor elevate their performance. Courtney B. Vance should be singled out, he took a routine, stereotypical role of the sonar-man Jonsey (what submarine or naval movie doesn’t have a character named Jonesy?), a role which could have blended into the background and he gives it just enough to stand-out without stealing a scene or being over the top.

One misstep of the movie was the telegraphing of Raimus’ defection, which in the book is Ryan’s first suggestion of what Ramius is doing, but in the movie they try to build tension by having the American generals and admirals not sure of Ramius’ intentions. But the defection is featured prominently in the movie’s trailer, so when Ryan has a revelatory moment in the CIA briefing that Ramius is defecting seems anti-climatic or was already assumed by the audience.

The Verdict

To answer the question which is better the book or the movie in this case I’m calling this one in favor of the movie. The movie tells a very straightforward, linear story that Clancy couldn’t quite get control of. If you think my opinion of the book was too rough listen to the commentary from actors, producers and the screenwriter in “The Making of The Hunt for Red October” video below.

The first Book vs. Movie selection was “The Hustler” give it a read!