It (1990 film)
Encyclopedia : I : IT : IT1 : It (1990 film)
It (also referred to as Stephen King's It) is a 1990 horror miniseries based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, the film stars Tim Curry as It (Pennywise the Dancing Clown), Richard Thomas as Bill Denborough, John Ritter as Ben Hanscom, Annette O'Toole as Beverly Marsh, Harry Anderson as Richie Tozier, Dennis Christopher as Eddie Kaspbrak, Richard Masur as Stan Uris, and Tim Reid as Mike Hanlon. The younger actors playing the flashback versions of the older characters were, respectively, Jonathan Brandis, Brandon Crane, Emily Perkins, Seth Green, Adam Faraizl, Ben Heller, and Marlon Taylor.
As in the novel, the central character of the film is the writer Bill Denborough, a thinly-veiled analogue of King himself. One of Denborough's novels, The Glowing, is seen on display in the Derry public library; this is a reference to King's novel The Shining.
Radio Times magazine in 2004 held a survey for the scariest programme aired on television, in which It came first. The X-Files came second. Others on the top ten list included Twin Peaks, Ghostwatch and Tales of the Unexpected.
Storyline
It aired as a two-part television minseries on November 18, 1990, and loosely follows the plot of the novel. The first half of the film, set in 1958, introduces the group of social outcasts, the "Losers", as they met and form a tight-knit group in the face of a cruel and intolerant world. They each individually come into contact with the child-killing monster haunting their hometown of Derry, Maine, which they name "It". It usually appears as Pennywise the Dancing Clown before taking the form of whatever its child victim most greatly fears.
Spurred on by Bill Denbrough's desire for revenge on It for killing his younger brother Georgie, the Losers resolve to locate Its home in the sewers and destroy the threat to Derry once and for all. Despite managing to inflict serious injuries upon the monster, they fail to finish the job, allowing It to escape and recover over the years.
The second half of the film, set in 1990, focuses on the now-adult Losers who reluctantly agree to return home (all of them except Mike Hanlon have left Derry) to locate and destroy It once and for all. The Losers must again face not only the terrible creature and the diminishing of their circle after the suicide of Stan Uris, but also Henry Bowers (the bully who made their childhoods miserable), now a madman under It's influence determined to kill them all.
Novel vs. Miniseries
The television miniseries was done on a fairly modest budget, and thus events in the book had to be ignored, especially if they would have required expensive special effects. Wallace, the director, notes on the DVD commentary that he was unhappy with the final result of the spider-like "true" form of It.
The structure of the story is changed. In the movie, each of the people who were affected by "It" while they were children receives a phone call asking them to return to Derry. When this happens, they each have a flashback from that year, and so this part of the story is revealed bit by bit. It is not until the adults have all arrived back in Derry that the story begins to be presented in chronological order as it was in the book.
Another aspect of the television miniseries that is different from the novel is the treatment of sexuality. In the novel, after the young Losers escape from the sewer, Beverly Marsh has sex with the boys. This element of sexual awakening, and the novel's mention of a gay bar in town and a gay-bashing incident were dropped from the film. On the DVD audio commentary Wallace states that he did not want to get into these sexuality issues.
Some of the major characters' backstories are either ignored or changed. In the novel, Eddie Kaspbrak eventually tells his friends that he married a neurotic woman similar to his mother, but in the television miniseries he tells his friends that he is still a virgin, and there was possibly a homoerotic undertone to his character as well.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.