I would love it.

Three. Of which I rate We The Living as the best.

The opinions and analyses are all over the place. The most common thread I detect is that a movie version of a favorite book usually suffers because of the condensation. In the case of adaptations of Ayn Rand's novels we now have two major examples. The old Fountainhead movie (which I still always get sucked into) is not as good as the book. Which says a lot for the book, of course. That movie was 1949.

And now the recent 3 movie attempt at Atlas Shrugged. Even though that effort suffered from many of the same defects of condensation, the turnover of characters really hurt the effort.

These lessons should be used as a guide towards future treatments of both of these novels. In this era of the popularity of extended mini-series, even across seasons, the opportunity exists to do the best possible job.

Imagine binge watching 39 episodes of Atlas Shrugged!

True.

Unfortunately, the movie is only really appreciated by those who have read the book, because they will understand the real meaning in many scenes.
That said, those who appreciated read the book will never think that condensing it into a movie is a good idea.
Atlas Shrugged suffers the same dilemma.

I am glad they all were produced, although I am not sure I would read The Fountainhead if I saw the movie first and had not read Atlas Shrugged.

It's hard to tell a six hour story in less than two hours. Movie making, especially from a book, is all about compromise.The trick is to tell the story on film without loosing the story on the printed page. Rand had a lot of influence in the making of "The Fountainhead" but because she was already an experienced screen writer she was familiar with the limitations and demands of conversion from one format to the other. She simply made the best of a difficult situation. I like the movie but I like the book better. The movie is a kind of video "Cliffnotes" version of the book. The same is true of AS 1,2 and 3.

The young Gary Cooper who played Sgt. York was the handsomest man I have ever seen. He looked beaten upon in the Fountainhead. The Architect was William L. Pereira who did the exciting UCSD Library and Transamerica in SF He did a good job imagining a new architecture but my favorite scene is Roark looking up at Dominique from the Quarry. That look between them says it all and grounds the story as film.

I Couldn't disagree He would have been good as either Midas or the judge.

I believe it is an Amazon Prime exclusive. I am a big fan of the novel and the series, even though they are quite different. I joined Prime solely to watch the series.

Among the awful was that Gary Cooper obviously had no understanding of the subject.

I would love to see it in a mini series.

Yes to many parts of a great story left out.

For me, Raymond Burr will always be either Perry Mason or Robert T. Ironside. I can't imagine either as anything like John Galt--though I would imagine Burr as Midas. Or Judge Narragansett.

When Robert Picardo appeared in AS3, I flashed back to his performance as the medical hologram in Star Trek Voyager. I was half-expecting him to say, "Please state the nature of the scientific emergency." :-)

"The Man in the High Castle" can you see that on netfix by chance?

In that case he would have been just about the right age to portray Henry Rearden.

But I was just thinking that William Holden would have made a good Henry Rearden.

Ayn Rand wrote the screen play and Choose the director but possibly was not involved with the editing.

Thanks for your input.

If Gary Cooper had been 15 or 20 years younger, he might have been the best Howard Roark anyone could have found. He was 47 years old in 1948 - a bit advanced in years to be just starting out in a career as an architect.

Thanks Temlakos,
I would have loved to see Atlas Shrugged as a 2 part epic in the early 60's With ,Audrey Hepburn as Dagny, Lee,Marvin as Hank Reardon, John Wayne as Ellis Wyatt, Raymond Burr as John Galt, Paul Newman as Ragnar and Marcello Mastroianni as Francisco, Charles Durning as Wesley Mouch, Henry Fonda as Dr Stadler

Agreed. I normally think that 80 pages of a novel will translate into 1 hour of a movie. So The Fountainhead could be a marvelous 9 hour miniseries. I never have thought that Gary Cooper was right for the role of Roark; too much baggage from playing bumpkins in movies such as "Man of the West", "Meet John Doe", and "Along Came Jones". He seemed stiff as Roark, probably because he was being directed to play outside his normal earthy portrayals. I think Ayn Rand picked him as Roark based on his physical attributes, not on his persona. An actor from the Golden Age of Hollywood that would have been a good Roark was Burt Lancaster. On the other hand, Patricia Neal was spot-on as Dominique. I remember that actor Ron Ely tried to remake The Fountainhead in the early '80's, but nothing ever came of it. He starred in the Tarzan TV series of the '60's.

Gary Cooper IMHO is not a good actor. Very wooden.

Agreed. Especially the Monadnock Valley story. That would be worth an entire episode right there--beginning with Roark telling the younger man what he had just built, flashing back to when Caleb Bradley granted him an "interview," and ending with Steven Mallory furiously describing how Monadnock was a con that went sour when it made more money than its builders intended.

Gary Cooper was the best Howard Roark anyone could have found--and if Rand could have gotten the support to do an epic of Atlas Shrugged, on the scale of Joseph L. Mankiewicz' Cleopatra, Gary Cooper would have been just right as John Galt. (With Fredric March as Henry Rearden, Barbara Stanwyck as Dagny, Ricardo Montalban as Francisco, and Chuck Connors as Ragnar.)

That said, I did not approve of Patricia Neal as Dominique Francon. I would have suggested Barbara Stanwyck as Dominique--and Fred MacMurray as Gail Wynand, and George Sanders as Ellsworth M. Toohey.