It's rare that the movie version of the book will cause me to re-evaluate the book itself, but that is the case for Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano. Indeed, this may be the only case I can recall that it has happened. It is a bit less rare that I appreciate the movie more than the book, but I'd say that is also the case here. John Huston has done an incredible job in distilling down the important points of the book and making certain sections more clear. I'll go into more details, but this will involve SPOILERS.
SPOLIERS ahead.
First, there are a few changes that Huston introduced, most of them not too significant. First, there is no German attaché that the ex-British consul meets and basically insults. I presume this was Huston's way of foregrounding the political situation that contemporary readers of the novel would have grasped a bit sooner. I'll return to this theme a bit later, but it actually helped me connect some dots. Second, Firmin is represented as more out of control at a gathering of the Red Cross, going on about the Mexican railways making huge amounts of money from corpses being transported on trains only if accompanied by a first class passenger. Huston is using this to underline the political situation (and to drive home the point about Firmin being an alcoholic), but in the book Firmin is talking to Yvonne (right after her return) about one child in a coffin on a train (and not hordes of coffins) and this actually sets up the scene later when the Consul complains about his wife refusing to have children with him. It should probably be mentioned that Huston cuts the first chapter completely, which establishes that the Counsel died the previous year -- and the rest of the book is a flashback! This structure is reasonable for a novel but probably wouldn't work for a film, though I guess you could argue Citizen Kain is also all flashback. I could mention that I expected that the Consul literally drunk himself to death, but this was more figurative than literal, as his alcoholism led him to make poor decisions around shady characters and indeed to frequent the worst dives in the region (and on more than one occasion since he managed to leave his letters behind in the Farolito). Huston streamlines in other ways. Dr. Virgil makes an appearance, but I believe the character of M. Laruelle (a film maker who had an affair with Yvonne!) is cut completely out of the film, effectively cutting Yvonne transgressions in half. When Yvonne returns home with the Consul, their house is still a bit of a wreck but her cat is alive, though the neighbour Quincey threatens to strangle it, whereas in the novel, Firmin's neglect is more extreme and all their cats are dead, but at some point he watches Quincey's cat torturing insects. The bull fight at Tomalin is a more tawdry affair in the book than in the film, and in fact Hugh rides the bull a bit rather than has a triumphant turn as a bullfighter as in the film. Finally, Huston has Hugh and Yvonne go to the correct bar and find traces of Firmin (leaving only when confronted with evidence Firmin is with a whore) whereas they take the wrong path and wander around. The missed connection has greater resonance in the book, and it might not have workers that well in the film. Huston also reorders the timing of deaths. Yvonne dies at the end of Chapter 11, trampelled by the horse that apparently is recaptured by the local "police" and brought to the Farolito during the course of chapter 12. In the movie, it is the shooting of Firmin that spooks the horse that then escapes and tramples Yvonne. It's definitely a bit of a short cut but the linkage/reordering seems to make sense. However, Lowry probably would have preferred the irony of them dying separately without the possibility of reconciliation, however faint, that Huston offers.
In terms of instances where the movie made certain plot points more clear, the most important was I didn't even realize Yvonne died at the end of chapter 11 (my weak defense is that I was mostly reading this late in the evenings and was tired). Huston also makes it more clear that Firmin is impotent and cannot perform with Yvonne when they are in the house together, before Hugh's return. What is much less clear is whether this is a direct result of his drinking or had emerged as a problem after he learned of her infidelities -- or indeed just possibly it predated her infidelity and might have been a trigger. It's also unclear exactly when the Consul became a heavy drinker -- early in the marriage, after the infidelity was discovered or only after he regretted pushing her out of his life. Was the Consul ever any good at his job, or indeed was he just stuck in a remote part of Mexico that held little interest for Britain to keep him out of the way due to the scandal surrounding his WWI exploits? I will note that Huston implies that the Consul is somewhat haunted by the German submarine officers killed under his watch (more than I got from the book), and it is perfectly plausible to imagine someone with such a heavy conscience to become a heavy drinker and thence a poor husband. But that is fairly speculative. It is ambiguous in the book whether Firmin actually has sex with the prostitute in the Faolito, though I would say it is unlikely, whereas in the film, the probabilities run the other way.
I will say that the characters didn't interest me very much in the novel and the chapters largely devoted to Yvonne's and Hugh's inner thoughts weren't all that compelling (and the film was better in not covering their back stories). Tragic drunks (and particularly the people who try to reform them) are just not my cup of tea, which definitely put me off the novel. The crushing need for intoxication/inebriation doesn't really have to be examined at such length in my view. Of course there are people who think they want something (like having his wife return) but then can't accept the results and spoil things for themselves or more importantly in this case can't bring themselves to fix the original problem, i.e. find enough forgiveness to actually live with his wife after she returned. But that doesn't mean I care to read about it at such length (and frankly do consider the book over-rated). A short story would have been sufficient... That said, Chapter 12 is a masterpiece (even a bit more impactful than the bar scenes in Nightwood), and I'll certainly reread this at some later point. But I think it's fairly unlikely I'll reread the entire novel or watch the film again, though I don't regret having finally gotten around to both of them.
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