In this blog post, I’ll be comparing the film and the book. Hope you enjoy reading this, because I enjoyed writing it. Have you read this book or seen the film? In this review, to save my own momentum, I’ll be looking at what stayed the same between both book and film and at a later stage I’ll be looking at what was changed and then what was left out all together.
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I wanted to compare the two adaptations because I feel like its obscure enough (its apparently out of print) that I could compare both of them and look at how the differences add to or detract from both adaptations while also coming to a slow realisation that 1970s books and films are very weird in a very distinct way.
Seeing the film first definitely helped to set the scene and to give a strong sense of atmosphere to the book, although on the other hand it meant that I wasn’t particularly surprised by the twists and turns of the book’s narrative.
The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane tells the story of Rynn Jacobs, a thirteen year old girl who lives in a big house in a New England coastal town with her poet father but her tranquil life is invaded by the dark presence of Mrs Hallett, the real estate agent who leased the house, and Frank Hallett, her son who has his own insidious motives.
What Stayed The Same
Both book and film start in the same way, with Rynn celebrating her birthday alone by lighting the candles on her birthday cake and singing happy birthday to herself in the mirror. It also has her self conscious of her chipped front tooth, which is a small detail that I was surprised made it across both adaptations as it serves to embody Rynn’s self consciousness as a girl navigating her own sense of self, but at the same time it was interesting to have a book character have such ordinary insecurities.
Rynn’s peaceful idyll is interrupted by Frank Hallett, who turns up to trick or treat her while repeatedly telling her that he’s waiting for his kids. From this moment on, subtle tension can be felt in the undercurrent of the story across both adaptations. Both screen and novel did a good job of solidifying the claustrophobic atmosphere alongside the feeling that something isn’t quite right, even after Rynn cuts some of her birthday cake for Frank’s children and he starts questioning her about her family.
In both book and film, Rynn’s mother is dead and her father is a shadowy figure who she constantly refers to when talking with people. He’s always working, or away, or sleeping. Perhaps the tension of that aspect within the story was lost on me because I looked up the plot prior to watching the film, but I still liked how both exemplified an uneasy tension about the story when Rynn has to constantly lie about her father, because it feels like a deliberate rupture of the traditional family structure as seen in one too many melodramas or cheery cinematic musicals.
Across both book and film there is a strong sense of character. Frank’s mention of his mother, the estate agent who rented the house to Rynn’s father, starts to give a sense of the characters who inhabit the town. Even Rynn’s hamster, Gordon, plays a subtle yet important role in the story in both instances.
The tension is similar when Frank’s creepy predilections come to the fore when he calls Rynn pretty and proceeds to ask her probing personal questions, such as whether or not she has a boyfriend. He also sexually harasses her before rushing out, saying his kids have turned up. While its a somewhat stagey scene in both book and film it still serves to show that there is a strong sense of something not quite right about the town, and no matter what happens within it the ugly underbelly will always remain. This is later shown through Rynn’s later interactions with the policeman, Ron (Mort Shuman), when she talks of her interactions with Frank whose behaviours towards young girls is known but insufficiently dealt with due to the status of the Hallett family in the town.
Both book and film have Mrs Hallett, Frank’s mother introduced to the story because she turns up at the house and picks crab apples and looks in the window of the house to see Rynn practising Hebrew. As previously mentioned, she’s the estate agent who leased the house to Rynn’s father. Mrs Hallett goes to great lengths to rearrange the furniture in the house, much to Rynn’s ire. She also unashamedly probes into Rynn’s living situation and her reasons for being at the house are the same – so she can collect the jelly glasses.
Rynn’s father continues to be a shadowy figure in the margins of the story, with Rynn saying he is in New York when questioned by Mrs Hallett. Mrs Hallett herself is also more than an estate agent – she’s another adult who uses her adult seniority to ensure Rynn conforms to the town’s way of doing things, such as lying to her that she’s a member of the school board, ignoring Rynn’s comments about Frank’s inappropriate behaviour or ignoring her protestations that she should leave the house. Mrs Hallett’s insistence that Rynn help her move the table so they can open the trap door serves as narrative tension in both book and film ahead of later events. Aside from this, I also like how both book and film maintain the small details, such as Rynn’s love of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
Both book and film have Rynn go to find out about the school board, to prove Mrs Hallett wrong. I liked how Rynn used her own intelligence to do this, and it made her efforts to outsmart Mrs Hallett all the more engaging. Even when Mrs Hallett continues to lie about speaking to the school board about Rynn a little later in the story, Rynn has the backbone to threaten Mrs Hallett that she’ll tell everyone about Frank’s inappropriate behaviour. Even Mrs Hallett’s death scene for the most part is the same between the book and the film, with her being knocked unconscious by the trap door.
Rynn meeting the police officer is a scene little changed across book and film with a few differences that I’ll look at in the next section. What doesn’t change is him saying he doesn’t like poetry, and Rynn offers him tea, as well as Rynn buying lottery tickets from him to win a turkey and her saying she doesn’t like turkey. I genuinely love how such seemingly unimportant scenes, such as this one and others, are captured within the book and film respectively.
Aside from a few minor differences, this is the point that Rynn meets Mario, her eventual love interest. A lot of character details remain the same in both the book and the film, with Scott Jacoby (Golden Girls) memorably playing the role on film with a dry wit and indomitable screen presence, not to mention naturalistic onscreen chemistry with Jodi Foster.
In both book and film, Mario is an amateur magician who walks with a cane. He helps Rynn by moving Mrs Hallett’s car (and later, her body) to allay any suspicion and after this a sort of pseudo domesticity evolves between them when, after telephoning his mother and telling her that he was still at a birthday party he was supposed to perform at, Rynn cooks dinner for both of them and they eat with their hands.
Both the book and film have Rynn and Mario grapple for Mrs Hallett’s umbrella which had been hidden. This definitely gives a sense of something more growing between the pair, and this is only stopped when Ron calls at the house and there is a strong sense of banter between uncle and nephew as Mario teases his uncle about his preference for fat women and lies when asked if he has met Rynn’s father.
Both the film and book have a strong indication that Mrs Hallett went to great lengths to hide the truth about Frank’s preference for young girls by marrying him to a woman who had young children. Frank’s visit to the house a short while later after Ron had left remains the same. He probes Rynn with personal questions about boyfriends etc, tries to pit her against Mario and taunts her using her love for Gordon the hamster to get her to capitulate. This ends in Frank killing Gordon and throwing him into the fire. Frank’s interactions with both of them in this instance ends when Mario pulls a sword out of his cane and chases Frank from the house.
In the book and film, Mario becomes an accomplice for Rynn because he helps to move Mrs Hallett’s body from the basement and bury it outside and throws her car keys into the sea. He later becomes alarmed by Rynn’s nonchalance around body disposal, which she says she learned about from reading in the library, and his alarm becomes all the greater when he fears that Rynn has poisoned his tea – in this instance, his fears were unfounded. I think this ambiguity adds a level of creepiness to the story even if his fears prove to be untrue, and gives the story more depth than the standard ‘evil child’ horror movie while also laying the groundwork for Rynn’s later interactions with other characters.
Something else that remains the same is Rynn mentioning that her father drowned himself, which also acts as a focal point around Rynn’s desire to not conform to the stifling ways of the town. Through helping Rynn dispose of the body in the rain, Mario gets cold and Rynn bathes him, later offering to get into bed with him to warm him up. Through this their relationship becomes far more unambiguous and Rynn asks him unabashedly about his romantic past although a short while later, he admits that he would have to lie about Rynn to his family.
When Ron later visits again, while Rynn teases him about his fat date, there is a tangible feeling that the continued illusion about Rynn’s father being around but absent is about to be broken until Ron meets someone who he believes to be Rynn’s father but is just Mario dressed up (there’s definitely some subtext there!), and gets one of Rynn’s father’s poetry books signed.
Later, once Ron had left Rynn and Mario are intimate and promise secrecy to one another. The next scene, Ron and Rynn are talking and Ron reveals that Mario is in hospital with pneumonia, revealing that Mario had been delirious and talking about Rynn. It’s only when visiting him in the hospital that she confesses that she loves him.
The climax of Frank Hallett’s narrative arc has him hiding in the basement of Rynn’s house dressed as Mario, and Rynn’s relief and joy is shortlived until she realizes it is indeed Frank. Frank continues to taunt Rynn, revealing that he found his mother’s hair pin in the basement as well as an errant red fingernail, the implication being that the red nail belonged to Rynn’s mother. It’s subtle, but it’s there.
In a tense scene in a warped sort of domesticity, Rynn makes tea for herself and Frank. It feels like Frank wants to catch Rynn out at last when he demands she switch the cups, in his mind perhaps making her the victim of her quick thinking, because she dared to exercise her own autonomy and question the authority of the adults in her life. This makes Frank a victim too because he tastes almonds in the tea but Rynn assures him that its because of the almond biscuits, and he continues to cough. He touches Rynn’s hair, his fate evident.
As previously mentioned I decided to split this blogpost into 3 parts so it’s easier for me to write and for you, hopefully to read – I’ll be releasing the other two blogposts over the next few days. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this one – I apologize for how long this one was and I have trimmed it somewhat but I just wanted to put across how distinctly weird both this book and film were and I think this is something unique to 1970s books and films.
Every Book Is Beautiful 