Popular Culture Review 30.1 • Winter 2019
Crime and Sexuality in the 1955 and 1981 Adaptations of John Steinbeck ’ s East of Eden
by Daryl Malarry Davidson
ABSTRACT
This article analyzes the two adaptations of John Steinbeck ’ s crime- and sexuality-laden novel East of Eden , which had to undergo transformation of both narrative and style to accommodate translation to Elia Kazan ’ s 1955 feature film and then to Harvey Hart ’ s 1981 television miniseries . The paper uses a critical approach within the contexts of Dudley Andrew ’ s three modes of adaptation�borrowing , intersecting , and transforming�as well as within contexts that are conventional , historical , cultural , and limitary in relation to the different eras of Kazan ’ s and Hart ’ s productions . The analysis indicates that through omissions of characters and scenes , the creation of composite characters , truncation , allusion , dramatic license , and other elements , Kazan , Hart , and , respectively , screenwriters Paul Osborn and Richard Shapiro , render tried-and-true visual forms as well as indications of their own creativity . This paper concludes that censorship affected the evolution of Steinbeck ’ s sprawling tale�from the Production Code Administration ’ s reconsideration of the word madam and its struggle with the onscreen depiction of a brothel in the mid-1950s , to television sponsor Procter & Gamble ’ s objection to the portrayal of adultery in 1981 .
Keywords : adaptation , borrowing , censorship , intersecting , miniseries , transforming
141 doi : 10.18278 / pcr . 30.1.8