The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull
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*Farmer Giles of Ham (also in two parts), *Leaf by Niggle, and *Smith of Wootton Major. This series too was issued as a commercial recording (1993).
The Sibley–Bakewell Lord of the Rings was first issued as a commercial recording in 1987. The compact disc issue of 2011 added new framing narration at the beginning and end of each CD, written by Brian Sibley and performed by Ian Holm as Frodo.
A six-hour dramatization of The Hobbit, by Bob Lewis, and a twelve-hour dramatization of The Lord of the Rings, by Bernard Mayes, were made, and first broadcast on National Public Radio in the U.S.A., in 1979. These have been heard on radio (as the ‘Mind’s Eye’ or ‘Radio 2000’ version) and sold on commercial media, though some recordings are abridged. The Lord of the Rings adaptation has been praised for its fidelity to the book – the Tom Bombadil episode is included – but criticized for amateurish or eccentric performances and, at least for some, by the American accents of most of its actors. See further, Christina Scull, ‘Middle-earth on Radio: Tapes from Both Sides of the Atlantic’, Amon Hen 95 (January 1989).
FILM ADAPTATIONS
According to Humphrey Carpenter, ‘the first overtures from the film world’ in regard to Tolkien’s works ‘came at the end of 1957 when Tolkien was approached by three American businessmen who showed him drawings for a proposed animated motion-picture of The Lord of the Rings. These gentlemen (Mr Forrest J. Ackerman, Mr Morton Grady Zimmerman, and Mr Al Brodax) also delivered to him a scenario or “Story Line” for the proposed film’ (Biography, p. 226). Letters in the Allen & Unwin archive at the University of Reading (*Libraries and archives), however, seem to indicate that Al Brodax enquired about the film rights in May or June 1957, and Forrest J. Ackerman (on behalf of Morton Grady Zimmerman) independently in September of the same year.
At first Tolkien was willing (if not enthusiastic) to allow such a project to go forward. On 19 June 1957 he wrote to Rayner Unwin: ‘As far as I am concerned personally, I should welcome the idea of an animated motion picture, with all the risk of vulgarization; and that quite apart from the glint of money, though on the brink of retirement that is not an unpleasant possibility. I think I should find vulgarization less painful than the sillification achieved by the B.B.C.’ (Letters, p. 257). On 4 September he was visited in Oxford by Forrest J. Ackerman and associates, and was impressed by visualizations for the film prepared by artist Ron Cobb, whom Tolkien compared favourably to Arthur Rackham. But he was less pleased with the proposed story-line written by Morton Grady Zimmerman. He remarked to Rayner Unwin on 7 September that this was
on a much lower level of art and perceptiveness than the pictorial material. It is in some points bad, and unacceptable, but is not irremediable, if the author of it … is open to criticism and direction. The ending is badly muffed … it reads like a production of haste, after a single reading, & without further reference to text. … Mr Ackerman’s line of talk was that a big object to the group was ‘pleasing the author’. I have indicated to him that will not be easy. Quite crudely: displeasing the author requires a cash equivalent. Only the prospect of a very large financial profit would make me swallow some of the things in this script! … An abridgement by selection with some good picture-work would be pleasant, & perhaps worth a good deal of publicity; but the present script is rather a compression with resultant over-crowding and confusion, blurring of climaxes, and general degradation: a pull-back towards more conventional ‘fairy-stories’. People gallop about on Eagles at the least provocation; Lórien becomes a fairy-castle with ‘delicate minarets’, and all that sort of thing.
But I am quite prepared to play ball, if they are open to advice – and if you decide that the thing is genuine, and worthwhile. [Tolkien–George Allen & Unwin archive, HarperCollins, partly printed in Letters, p. 261]
On 11 September Tolkien wrote to his son *Christopher: ‘*Stanley U[nwin] & I have agreed on our policy: Art or Cash. Either very profitable terms indeed; or absolute author’s veto on objectionable features or alterations’ (Letters, p. 261). To achieve this, Allen & Unwin negotiated with Ackerman through an agent in the United States knowledgeable about film contracts.
By the end of March 1958 Tolkien still had not given the story-line more concentrated attention. (See further, Todd Jensen, ‘The Zimmerman Film Treatment of The Lord of the Rings’, Beyond Bree, December 1995.) Rayner Unwin pointed out the financial advantages to Tolkien if a film were eventually made; and it was agreed that Ackerman and company should have a free option on the film rights to The Lord of the Rings for six months from the date that Zimmerman received Tolkien’s comments on the initial story-line, so that a new treatment could be produced which would be more agreeable to the author. Tolkien now applied himself to the task, but became even more dismayed. On 8 April 1958 he wrote to Rayner Unwin that the story-line
as it stands, is sufficient to give me grave anxiety about the actual dialogue that (I suppose) will be used. … It seems to me evident that [Zimmerman] has skimmed through the [Lord of the Rings] at a great pace, and then constructed his s[tory] l[ine] from partly confused memories, and with the minimum of references back to the original. Thus he gets most of the names wrong in form – not occasionally by casual error but fixedly (always Borimor for Boromir); or he misapplies them: Radagast becomes an Eagle. The introduction of characters and the indications of what they are to say have little or no reference to the book. …
I feel very unhappy about the extreme silliness and incompetence of Z[immerman] and his complete lack of respect for the original (it seems wilfully wrong without discernible technical reasons at nearly every point). [Letters, pp. 266–7]
In May Tolkien commented that it was vital to secure, if possible,
a revision of the story-line, with the object of removing its more wanton divergences from the book. Especially (for instance) reduction of eagles to their proper place; and amendment of such gross vulgarizations as the fairy-castle and minarets intruded into Lórien: and restoration of the vital scene at the end of the Ring in Chamber of Fire. [letter to Rayner Unwin, 16 May 1958, Tolkien–George Allen & Unwin archive, Harper-Collins]
In June he addressed these issues at greater length in a letter to Forrest J. Ackerman, with an extensive commentary: these are partly printed in Letters, pp. 270–7. His chief points are presented more succinctly, though, in an unfinished letter to Ackerman (probably April or early May 1958) preserved at Marquette University:
The Lord of the Rings is arranged in 6 sections or ‘books’. Each section consists of a series of chapters or scenes; and the placing in sequence of these, as also of the sections themselves, is the result of purpose and thought. In the author’s opinion this arrangement cannot be altered without serious damage.
It must surely be obvious that the author could not be pleased or satisfied with any limitations that make the dislocation of his narrative and its balance necessary; though he may, of course be made to understand the necessity for them, and put up with something less than pleasure or satisfaction.
In fact the whole construction, especially towards the end, has been extremely roughly handled; and I am not convinced that any limitations of time and space can really justify the confusion and violent alterations of the original narrative that are to be seen in the latter part of Series II and in Series III. The ‘interleaving’ of the events in the two main threads, Frodo–Sam and the War, which was deliberately avoided in the original with good reason, produces a jumble, that would be bewildering to any viewers not well acquainted with the book. The latter would not recognize the story as the one that I have told at all: the events, the characters, and the moral significance have all been altered and distorted. This is the crucial point, and I find Mr. Zimmerman’s treatment quite unacceptable. (To instance two minor points: On page 40 we pass with a ‘fade-out’ from one set of persons in a tunnel, to another set in a tunnel, though the events are in the narrative separated in time, and in space by some 500 miles, and have no special connexion. What has happened to Frodo between his capture and the point where on p. 51 he ridiculously ‘leaps through the air’ and tears the Ring from Sam [who has abandoned Frodo in Shelob’s lair and carried the Ring to Mount Doom