September 13 is Roald Dahl Day – the annual celebration marking the British author whose devilishly brilliant works have inspired a clutch of superb film adaptations, from Fantastic Mr Fox to Steven Spielberg’s recent take on The BFG. But despite being universally adored by children and adults alike, there are still plenty of stories in his back catalogue yet to be adapted. Here, Empire considers which of the wicked-minded author's other stories really ought to make the leap from page to screen.
Boy/Going Solo
Underrated in the Dahl oeuvre are these two volumes of memoirs, as entertaining and colourful as any of Dahl's fictional efforts. Boy cherry-picks some memorable stories from the author's time as public school boy; while Going Solo details Dahl's life as a young man, embarking on a colonial adventure into Africa with the Shell company, and then the RAF. Both books have plenty of encounters that would play brilliantly on a big screen – most notably, the so-called Great Mouse Plot of 1924, in which a dead mouse was surreptitiously stashed into a gobstopper jar.
Star turn: Despite being well into his 30s by now, Domhnall Gleeson has the baby-face – and crucially, the acting chops – to portray Young Dahl with the intelligence, curiosity and wit that he demands.
Dream director: Robert Zemeckis loves a true-life tale.
George's Marvellous Medicine
Telling the story of a family of oddballs and precocious talents, it's a wonder Wes Anderson didn't choose this Dahl tale instead of Mr Fox in his attempt to regain the glory of The Royal Tenenbaums. George is a small boy who gets fed up with his grumpy Grandma and so concocts a 'medicine' to cure her of her cantankerousness that inadvertently makes her huge as a house. In his attempt to recreate the potion, he accidently makes something that shrinks her to nothing, while his in-denial Mother and passive-aggressive Father scratch their heads. Irreverent, off-beat and hilarious, this could be the Little Miss Sunshine of next summer.
Star turn: Jesse Eisenberg as the bumbling George whose awkward genius deforms his granny. And probably struggles to get laid.
Dream director: Juno's Jason Reitman, giving the whole thing a folksy, mobile phone-advert style soundtrack.
William and Mary
Dahl wrote a whole host of less-famous-but-still-brilliant stories for adults, and one of the creepiest was William and Mary, the story of a dying man who signs up to be reincarnated as a floating brain with a single roaming eye without telling his wife. Enraged to discover she's not actually a widow but married to a grotesque scientific experiment, the story ends with Mary realizing her potential to exact revenge by lighting a cigarette before William's disgusted but helpless eye. With 130 minutes and a Hollywood budget, William's living nightmare could reach serious psychological depths as Mary experiments with class A drugs, seduces other men and watches the Coronation Street omnibus all before his tearful, impotent retina.
Star turn: Cameron Diaz as the grieving wife-turned-torturer, sharing most of her scenes with a rubber eye-ball on a stick
Dream director: David Cronenberg giving it the full 'body shock' treatment.
Genesis & Catastrophe: A True Story
Dahl's imagining of the birth of Adolf Hitler to a timid, traumatized Mother and a stern Father with a 'little man' complex could be a potential Oscar-winner if handled correctly. Consider the ingredients on offer: heightened relationship-drama, a high-brow concept and, most importantly, a backdrop of Nazism and World War II. Taking a look at Mr. and Mrs. Hitler and how, by simply procreating like the rest of us, they inadvertently started off a spiral of horrific world events should land any director worth their salt at least a nomination from the Academy. Just don't give it to Tarantino.
Star turn: Steve Buscemi barking out Germanic vowels as the man who raised a monster.
Dream director: Steven Spielberg, just so the tagline can be 'Schindler's Twist'.
The Twits
The tale of an unhappy married couple who spend their lives being cruel to one another, this classic stomach-churning Dahl effort has 'kitchen-sink drama' written all over it. Mr and Mrs. Twit's marriage has broken down to the point where they try to convince each the other is going crazy, yet their isolation from the outside world is so profound their house has no windows because 'it didn't occur to them they could look out - only that people might peer in' (oooh, social commentary!). They're also cruel to the local animals, who eventually overcome their indifference towards each another to unite in running the Twits out of town.
Star turn: Kathy Bate 'doing a Brit' as the bitter and twisted Mrs. Twit.
Dream director: Shane Meadows reimagining the animals as a pack of feral Midlands youths.
Lamb To The Slaughter
One of the finest examples of Dahl's perverse genius, Lamb to the Slaughter tells the tale of Mary Maloney, a pregnant young woman who finally tires of her philandering husband and takes him out with a blow to the back of the head with a frozen leg of lamb. When the police show up later to investigate Mary's claim that she came home to find her husband murdered, they stand around scratching their head wishing they could find evidence of a murder weapon – while eating the cooked lamb Mary has kindly prepared for them – it's the kind of twist three years of crime-writing school and dinner with Agatha Christie could still never teach you to write.
Star turn: Christina Ricci as Mary Maloney - who better to suppress a macabre snigger as the police tuck-in?
Dream director: Only Hitchcock could do justice to a crime-thriller this delicious.
The Enormous Crocodile
If Pixar are ever stuck for ideas for their next 3-D adventure laden with adult humour and comedy animals, then they need look no further than The Enormous Crocodile. Dahl's story of a boastful croc who munches children without a second thought until the animals of his forest unite against him is ripe with comic potential, not least of all during the final scene when a giant elephant spins the toothy git around with his trunk and sends him flying into the core of the sun. That'll show him.
Star turn: Morgan Freeman as the crocodile. Since he refuses to play anything but good guys in person, let's finally put Freeman's gruff tenor to wicked use in CGI.
Dream director: Andrew Adamson in his best work since Shrek 2.
My Year
During the final year of his life, Dahl kept a diary, scribbling esoteric thoughts on everything from cuckoos to conkers. It's gentle and slight, but like everything Dahl did, there's life and humour in every sentence. A film of My Year could serve as a fitting postscript for the author: a slightly more cheerful version of About Schmidt, perhaps.
Star turn: As he proved in Mr Holmes, Ian McKellen does a good line in aging heroes.
Dream director: You need a gentle touch for material like this, and it doesn't get any gentler than Ang Lee.