From the Book "Heaven Has No Favorites" (1962) to the Film "Bobby Deerfield" (1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb3MbhHk5WA&t=13s

It can be a problem to take a novel set in 1948 and then move the idea of the book forward to 1977!  The milleu matters, and a translation is far from easy -- and perhaps impossible. Values,  historical and cultural experiences vastly differ, and I think that is one reason why "Bobby  Deerfield" has its critics.

"Bobby Deerfield" was a 1977 film based on Remarque’s Heaven has no Favorites. Directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Al Pacino and Marthe Keller, it fell short of conveying the rather deep notions of life, fear, inevitability, freedom and death. It was a romantic drama short on either romance or drama. The film centered on an American Grand Prix driver who falls in love with a conflicted terminally ill Swiss woman, who by the way is conflicted himself after witnessing a fatal fiery accident. 

While automobiles and racing are very much a part of the film, the inner drama does not blend with the track scenes, that include appearances by drivers James Hunt and Mario Andretti. It was not a Grand Prix or Le Mans sequel. And it was not a Love Story, either.

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