You Mean There's A Movie?!?

There's a joke in my family based on an old episode of Cheers in which Sam stays up for five days straight reading War and Peace in a desperate attempt to impress Diane, only to find out at the end of the episode from Frazier that there's a movie version right before the closing credits, to which Sam shouts out incredulously 'You mean there's a movie?!?'

This mantra was repeated just about every time a book report/term paper/capstone thesis was assigned to me or either of my brothers over the course of the past twenty years. But I've never quite found this sentiment as true to life as I did this afternoon when I discovered a movie version of The Brothers Karamazov playing on TCM. It's not just any movie version of The Brothers Karamazov, but one starring Lee J. Cobb (50's Hollywood's go-to pissed-off-guy) as Fyodor, Yul Brynner (Pharaoh) as Mitya, and WILLIAM SHATNER as Alyosha. After seeing twenty minutes of this, I'd feel comfortable listening to the entire Ring Cycle as interpreted by The Village People. I've been trying to finish The Brothers Karamazov for over a year now (still stuck on page 600). My ADHD-scrambled mind can't concentrate on the same book for more than 400 pages. Maybe I just don't have Sam Malone's brains, but getting through Dostoevsky is every bit the chore LOST made it seem (Tolstoy's shorter stuff is another story). Now if only Journey did a cover of WEBERN op. 6, then I'd really be high on life.

PS To his credit, Lee J. Cobb was a real actor who originated Willy Loman on Broadway.

PPS Is it just me or does the trailor give away everything about Smerdyakov?