Julie didn’t react well to my comment in Dilemma: a known plagiarist’s romantic historical novel:
I should point out I rarely trawl the Romance genre for our clients because a) clients have no interest in this genre [because], b) a history of theatrical adaptations tells us that there is virtually no money in it, and c) as a whole, films based on romance novels (with HEA) are notoriously difficult to sell. In fact, the only way to sell it, in most cases, is attach a big name to it. Big names generally don’t like Romance because this film genre is usually seen as a playground of B-list stars, TV actors and has-beens.
She’s pointed out there are several good adaptations of romance novels, such as
- A Room With a View (E.M. Forster’s novel, A Room With a View)
- The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks’s novel, The Notebook)
- Gone With the Wind (Margaret Millar’s novel, Gone With the Wind) [Edit: Margaret Mitchell! Sorry.]
- Just Like Heaven (Marc Levy’s novel, If Only It Were True)
- Brokeback Mountain (Annie Proulx’s short story, Brokeback Mountain)
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Truman Capote’s novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s)
- Romancing the Stone (Joan Wilder’s novel, Romancing the Stone)
- Jane Austen’s novels
- Bronte sisters’ novels
- The French Lieutenant’s Woman (John Fowles’s novel of the same title)
- Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier’s novel, Rebecca)
(Gentle correction for Julie: Romancing the Stone is a novelisation, which was “ghost-written” by romance author Catherine Lanigan. Joan Wilder is the name of Kathleen Turner’s character. There is another under Joan Wilder: The Jewel of the Nile.)
While she acknowledges that these novels aren’t genre romance novels, she feels it shows that it’s possible so people like me should encourage clients to try romance novels.
Well, there are adaptations of genre romance novels, but usually as TV films only. There was a huge number of novels – that I’d classify as genre romance novels – adapted into feature films between 1903 and 1961, but when TV films became commonplace, having a romance novel as the basis of a feature film becomes a rarity.
As far as I know, the only* theatrical film adaptation of a genre romance novel exists, after 1970, is Leopard in the Snow (1978), based on Anne Mather’s M&B novel of the same title. As far as I know, it’s also the only theatrical film Harlequin had produced. According to all sources, it was a box office disaster.
*Yes, I’m aware of Sarah Bird’s fantastic romantic novel The Boyfriend School, which was adapted – by Sarah Bird herself – into Don’t Tell Her It’s Me (1987) starring Shelley Long, Guttenberg, Jami Gertz and Kyle MacLanchlan, but The Boyfriend School was never published nor promoted as a genre romance novel. I think most saw TBS as a chic lit novel, in fact. Oh, we do have loads of chic lit novels adapted for the screen, but for now I’m focusing on genre romance films only.
Harlequin didn’t go near producing again, but entered a partnership with various TV production companies, particularly Alliance Productions (a.k.a. Alliance Films).
- Treacherous Beauties (1994) (Cheryl Emerson’s Silhouette Shadows novel, Treacherous Beauties)
- Another Woman (1994) (Margot Dalton’s Harlequin Super Romance novel, Another Woman)
- A Change of Place (1994) (Tracy Sinclair’s Silhouette Special Edition novel, A Change of Place)
- Broken Lullaby (1994) (Laurel Pace’s Harlequin Intrigue novel, Broken Lullaby)
- At the Midnight Hour (1995) (Alicia Scott’s Silhouette Intimate Moment novel, At the Midnight Hour)
- The Awakening (1995) (Patricia Coughlin’s Silhouette Special Edition novel, The Awakening)
- Recipe for Revenge (1998) (Kristin Gabriel’s Harlequin’s Love & Laughter, Bullets Over Boise)
- This Matter of Marriage (1998) (Debbie Macomber’s Mira novel, This Matter of Marriage)
- Hard to Forget (1998) (Evelyn Crowe’s Harlequin Super Romance novel, So Hard to Forget)
- The Waiting Game (1998) (Jayne Ann Krentz’s Harlequin Intrigue novel, The Waiting Game)
- Diamond Girl (1998) (Diana Palmer’s Sihouette Desire, Diamond Girl)
- Loving Evangeline (1998) (Linda Howard’s Silhouette Intimate Moments novel, Loving Evangeline)
Harlequin also partnered with Yorkshire Television (UK) on make these films:
- Cloud Waltzing (1987) (Tory Cates’s Silhouette Special Edition, Cloud Waltzer)
- Love With the Perfect Stranger (1986) (Pamela Wallace’s Love With the Perfect Stranger)
Meanwhile there are indie companies that focus on Nora Roberts’s novels:
- Midnight Bayou (2009)
- Northern Lights (2009)
- Blue Smoke (2007)
- Montana Sky (2007)
- Angels Fall (2007)
- Sanctuary (2001)
- High Noon (2009)
- Tribute (2009)
- Magic Moments (1989) (based on This Magic Moment, a 1983 Silhouette Intimate Moments. Produced by Arena Films, a French company. Interestingly while they have a decent number of theatrical films under their belt, Magic Moments remains the only TV film they made)
There are two TV films based on Sandra Brown‘s romantic suspense novels:
- French Silk (1994)
- Smoke Screen (2010)
I thought Tess Gerritsen has two of her older romantic suspense novels adapted for TV, but I can’t find them. I think I’ve confused her with another author.
Pamela Wallace – who has also written as Dianne King and Pamela Simpson, a partnership with Carla Simpson (who’s better known as Quinn Taylor Evans) – has quite a few of her category and contemporary romance novels adapted for TV during the 1980s including
- Dreams Lost, Dreams Found
- Tears in the Rain
- Borrowed Hearts
- Straight From the Heart
Her best known work to date? Witness (1985) starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGinnis. According to Ms. Wallace, it’s based on her unpublished novel. She’s also scripted BLT Productions’s TV film adaptation of Linda Lael Miller’s Last Chance Cafe.
Funny enough, I first came across her when I read Forever and a Day. I was surprised at how well she portrayed a process of scriptwriting and the film industry. Well, the story doesn’t revolve around the industry, just a glimpse. The portrayal offered the most ‘authentic’ feel I came across in a romance novel, so I was curious enough to look her up online. That was when I discovered she was a working scriptwriter, which led me to discover the connection between her and Witness.
(Random comment: Her portrayal in Forever and a Day is much superior to the one in Suzanne Brockmann’s Heart Throb. I have to admit I couldn’t finish Heart Throb because many incredulous moments in the story killed my willingness to suspend belief. A lot of readers loved the book, though.)
And of course, there is Barbara Cartland via Gainsborough Pictures (their first batch since the 1940s):
- A Hazard of Hearts (1987)
- The Lady and the Highwayman (1989) (a.k.a. Silver Blade)
- A Ghost in Monte Carlo (1990)
- Duel of Hearts (1991)
There is another TV adaptation based on Cartland’s rom The Flame is Love (1979), which made for NBC (US) by Ed Friendly Productions (US).
(I suppose I should list films, TV films and mini series based on books by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, M.M. Kaye, Jackie Collins, Susan Issacs, Jilly Cooper and the legendary Catherine Cookson,, but I’m using the US criterion of a ‘genre romance novel’ so those don’t count. I mean Cartland’s novels are clearly marked and promoted as romance novels and theirs weren’t, which is why I counted hers and not theirs.)
Anyroad, I’m quite sure I missed a couple more, but if or when I find them I’ll edit them into this post. If you know any, please let me know. 
How were these TV films received? Well, let’s see where should I start.
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Crap. I just realised this is getting too long. I’ll stop here and continue in another post later. I think it’ll turn into a series, actually. There’s so much. I want to do a sum-up of reviews and reactions to these TV films. I think I’d like to list a few early English-language films and romance novels (1900s-1960s including those by Mary Stewart and others). I’ll try to explain why a genre romance novel doesn’t translate to screen necessarily well and illustrate how.
In spite of that admittedly negative attitude, I want to name a number of genre romance novels that would be perfect for the screen and I’ll explain why I think these would work. I’ll also list lesser known romantic films including non-English films I think romance readers will enjoy. Finishing all this off will probably take a couple of months. Or a year. 
Sorry if you hate this sort of topic, but it’s something I had wanted to do for a long time. I’m quite tired of having it all up there in my head so it’d be good to get it all down on paper and move on.
Thanks, Julie, for spurring me to do this.
—EDIT–
I removed a chunk of text to clear up some spelling mistakes and forgot to put it back:
“There is one good TV film: The Outsider (2002) starring Tim Daly and Naomi Watts, based on Penelope Williamson’s western historical romance novel of the same title (it’s a gorgeous novel). Unfortunately, colleagues weren’t impressed. One colleague dismissed this film as “Witness for western fans”. Only because Naomi Watts’s character is a Quaker widow, just like Kelly McGinnis’s character in Witness, and a fact that the widow – in both cases – gave secretive shelter to a wounded man, whom she eventually fell in love with.
I also remember arguing with another colleague when he believed Penelope Williamson “borrowed” the premise from a John Wayne film, Angel and the Outlaw aka Angel and the Badman. (Incidentally, I’ve just discovered there is a remake of Angel and the Outlaw, made last year, starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Deborah Kara Unger and Luke Perry. Heh.)
The only film I thought was good turned out to be, to the others, derivative, which doesn’t help the cause to have more romance novels adapted for the screen.”
Phillipa Ashley’s had a “Little Black Dress” romance adapted for TV:
That’s a new one to me.
I have to admit I forgot to look at Lifetime TV films as I’m quite sure there is a number of romance novel adaptations in their catalogue. I think this oversight is due to their tendency to focus on woman-oriented true crime stories. I’ll investigate the catalogue to be sure, anyroad. Thank you.
A movie was made of Georgette Heyer’s The Reluctant Widow. Georgette-Heyer.com provides links to YouTube clips from it and also mentions a German film of Heyer’s Arabella.
And to go off at a tangent, M&B/Harlequin author Melanie Milburne is apparently writing a screenplay with Paul Margolis.
Heh! I already have Heyer’s books listed in my next segment, which focuses on the 1900s – 1960s period. There are three more adaptations that that site doesn’t list, though. Footsteps in the Dark, This Talisman Ring, and The Inheritance.
Nice to see Milburne’s story, thank you. I’m not sure about their arrangement and also, a good romantic comedy is notoriously difficult to pull off, but I’m chucking a massive dose of good luck her way in hope that their spec script will attract interest.
I’ve always thought that someone could take a few of the Heyer books and cash in on the popularity of Jane Austen movies, which get remade every few years, it seems. Cotillion, Frederica, Venetia or The Grand Sophy, for example. (Iirc, though, you’re not a fan of Heyer, and I know Heyer kinda made up her own fantasy world there, so maybe they wouldn’t work as well as I think.)
There are some nice explanations and theories why, but my honest view? It’s too much of a mess.
My view is restricted to two novels, though. During mid-2000s my former employer wanted to adapt two of Heyer’s historical novels, but we couldn’t make heads or tails of who actually owned the copyrights of those two novels. We’re still not sure if it was honestly a mess or it was part of the estate’s stance against having Heyer’s books adapted for the screen (Heyer was allegedly against having her works adapted for films, due to seeing some of her writer friends’ works “distorted” on screen).
I don’t have a right to outline the two-book situation, but basically, it was too messy for us to consider optioning a Heyer novel again. I suspect other companies experienced same problems all these years. This applies to the UK only, though. I have no idea what the situation is in other countries including the US.
It may have cleared up now as – thanks to Laura V’s link above – the Heyer tribute sites says Choosy Productions UK have optioned all but two Heyer novels. It was a surprise to me because, like I say, the situation seemed too messy to be cleared up within seven years and I’ve never heard of Choosy Prods but hey, good luck to them.
I would like to address the other aspect of your comment as well (sorry for being so chatty!):
“Someone could take a few of the Heyer books and cash in on the popularity of Jane Austen movies, which get remade every few years, it seems.”
1. Jane Austen’s novels are in public domain, which makes it cheap and easier for companies to adapt her novels
2. Jane Austen is much more well known than Georgette Heyer. It’s her name that sells these films and TV mini series.
3. Period drama is notoriously expensive and it rarely makes a profit, so it can be incredibly tough to recoup the costs let alone obtain the money to produce one.
BBC is already struggling to justify making more period drama because so many people – including romance readers and authors, I’m sorry to say – downloaded period drama through illegal avenues. DVD sales have nosedived last few years (DVD sales do help to fund more BBC productions). But yes, they nowadays and generally avoid adapting novels that aren’t in public domain.
Since most of Heyer’s books are not yet in public domain and the fact she’s not well known, producers won’t be so quick to cash in on Austen’s popularity by producing Heyer’s novels.
That’s all very interesting and makes sense, thanks. I’ll admit I had this vague idea based on pretty much nothing that period dramas do really well for the BBC. But I think it’s only that I associate period dramas with BBC which is clearly not the same thing.
When I lived in Ireland, we got most of the British television channels. I remember BBC generally produced more “quality” programmes than ITV. After seven years of not watching British channels, we signed up for digital TV a couple of years ago and the various ITVs and BBCs are included in the package. I definitely watch (or record) stuff from ITV more often than I do from BBC. I wonder how much they make off foreign digital TV subscriptions? Enough to make up for me (and everyone else who has digital TV) never wanting to watch their programmes dubbed into German on the Swiss/German channels?
ITV’s ‘Downton Abbey’ apparently cost £1 million per episode to make. As a result, they had a ton of ads. I was so irritated by this that I recorded the rest of the series to watch later sans ads. I’m assuming they’ve made a profit on it as they’ve commissioned more episodes for next year.
Dear Fancy Reader,
Laura is correct. My first novel, Decent Exposure, was adapted into the Lifetime movie ’12 Men of Christmas’ in 2009. The novel is set in the English Lake District but the screenwriter set the US movie in the Rockies.
I rather enjoyed the experience…