I haven't seen those, but Islands in the Stream with George C. Scott really made me mad. I was really looking forward to it, but about all that seemed similar to Hemingway's book was the title. Imagine filming a Bimini setting in Hawaii! It was supposed to take place on a tiny flat "coral" Bahamian island about 50 yards wide with white sand, not a huge island with mountains and yellow dirt and South Sea jungles.
Imagine taking a Hemingway manuscript and then not paying any attention to it.
It always amazes me how the movie industry comes to the conclusion that the millions of people who came to love a book or other work of art would somehow prefer to see its title alone, attached to yet another formulaic, dumbed-down cheese-fest. I know they have to sell it to a wider audience, but come on! Alienating the thing's original fan base CANNOT be a good place to start.
Fortunately, LOTR seems to be finally putting that philosophy to rest. Once the original, hardcore fans saw the movie, their enthusiastic "buzz" and word-of-mouth did wonders for the box office. New Line Cinema must be commended for taking such a huge (and it was, most certainly) gamble. It's not often that the label "Instant Classic" is appropriate nowadays, but they did it this time.
It's been done. To Have and To Have Not, 1943. The movie retained the name of its main male lead (played by Humphrey Bogart) and little else from the book. Not that it was a bad movie by any means...any movie claiming Lauren Bacall's debut, set on a Carribean island during the war, almost can't miss. It was great in its own right. Even "Papa" himself liked it, according to the legend.
But it was nowhere near the original novel.