Based on the original television mini-series written by David Jacobs, Arthur Bernard Lewis, Camille Marchetta and Virginia Aldridge. It starred Larry Hagman, Ken Kercheval, Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray, Barbara Bel Geddes, Howard Keel, Victoria Principal, Charlene Tilton and Jim Davis.
***
Dallas was an American television series that debuted in 1978 as a five-episode mini-series. It detailed the lives and loves of the Ewing family, and did so well that it was continued as a series. It ultimately ran for fourteen seasons, ending in 1990. Dallas was the prototypical Prime-Time soap opera, and it opened the door to a variety of similar shows in the 1980s such as Dynasty, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest. Dallas was arguably the best of these and was enormously popular in the early 1980's. If you are of a certain age, the question "Who Shot J.R.?" should resonate. Along the way, it even courted controversy by bringing back a character who had been killed off by declaring that the season that occurred while they were off the show was a dream by one of the characters. I watched the show in the 1979-1983 time-frame and remember it fondly.
What is it one wants from a novelization? They were never meant to be anything other than advertising for whatever movie or TV Show they were based on. In all honesty, most are not good reads. So why do people read them? For me, it was always looking for the experience of the film, but with more. More story, more characterization, more dialog--something that gives more insight into the source material. Some novelizations have scenes that were ultimately omitted from the released version; some are based on earlier versions of the screenplay, so they can differ, sometimes substantially. And some are expanded by the author into something altogether different. This last category is pretty rare. You need a few things to line up for something like that to work: the author has to have the leeway to add new material, they have to be invested enough to add new material, and they have to have the talent to add it.
The novelization for Dallas falls into the last category. The author has systematically revised the world depicted in the screenplays into something earthier, perverse, and twisted. This is not a world where good and bad are clearly defined—everyone exhibits dark tendencies. It's a world where everyone walks around looking to get it on, and where murder is mentioned casually. I think it is the author's experience writing erotica that powers this transformation, although this is not to say that the novelization is just about sex. There are other factors at work as well that complete the reimagining.
Lee Raintree is a pseudonym for Con Sellers, an author who published more than 230 books using more than 60 pseudonyms1. He specialized in adventure, historical romances, and erotica. He was hired by Dell Books to write a novelization of the original five-part mini-series, which he wrote in six weeks. The book was successful, ultimately selling over 300,000 copies by 1979. He passed away in 19922.
This is very much a product of the 1970s. The men are REAL men, the women are all big-breasted, the language is rough. And my word, there is a lot of sex. Throw in some of the casual staples of the decade as well--misogyny and racism--and you have a rollicking potboiler.
It technically tells the same story as the mini-series, but the author has expanded the parameters dramatically. The book covers all five parts of the mini-series, so you would expect it to be a little longer than typical, but the first 100 pages take place before the mini-series even starts. These first 100 pages are the complete history of the Ewing family--how Jock and Miss Ellie got together and how the family rose to power. This backstory helps set up some plot points covered in the mini-series, but also establishes the world we are going to read about, which is ultimately quite different from the television version.
You will recognize most of the characters, but there are some divergences as well, and it is in these divergences that the book is most surprising. There are numerous plot points in the book that simply do not exist in the television counterpart. Some of these plot points are character expansions, but some change the overall story being told. I am reluctant to detail them as I don't want to spoil it for anyone who wants to read this, but the world of Dallas depicted in this book is darker, more savage, and ultimately realistic than what could acceptably be shown on television in the late 1970s in America. Murder, rape, extensive profanity, and pretty explicit love scenes abound.
True, the men are misogynistic, but the author is not. He knew who his target audience was--women--and the most dramatic changes made to the story involve the women. They are, with one exception, described as intelligent, strong-willed, and most importantly as women who enjoy sex and are not afraid to admit it. Miss Ellie is shown as a primary partner to Jock in the early years, helping shape how the business grew while she bore him three children. When criminals break into the Ewing house near the end of the story, the television version has the women cowering until the menfolk arrive just in time. The book version has Miss Ellie getting her daddy's Colt .45s and taking care of the criminals herself. Which is entirely fitting given the backstory established in the book, and which is completely absent in the television version.
I am not saying this is high art but it is consistently readable, entertaining and tells the source story much better than the TV show itself. You can't can't ask for more than that.
1. https://lib.usm.edu/spcol/exhibitions/item_of_the_month/iotm_sep_2013
2. https://www.lmtribune.com/obituaries/author-con-sellers-dies-at-69-6383c41c
