I read the novel (in Welsh's translation) just before watching the film. Since Andrzejewski himself is credited (along with Wajda) for the screenplay, he must have been satisfied with the cutting out of half the characters and half the sub-plots.
Ewa Krzyzewska was lovely, wasn't she? And to think that she was only 19 when it was made--her first picture!
My biggest disappointment--a serious one--was the absurdly melodramatic way in which everybody who dies, dies. Granted, making movies in the '50s was different from today, but this is reminiscent of American gangster films of the 1930s! Wajda himself did much better, even in the same era, e.g., in _Kanal_.
Ewa Krzyzewska was lovely, wasn't she? And to think that she was only 19 when it was made--her first picture!
My biggest disappointment--a serious one--was the absurdly melodramatic way in which everybody who dies, dies. Granted, making movies in the '50s was different from today, but this is reminiscent of American gangster films of the 1930s! Wajda himself did much better, even in the same era, e.g., in _Kanal_.