The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980) - A Very Questionable Adaptation

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is probably the most well-known work penned by American writer and biographer Washington Irving. Published in the year 1820, It is the famous tale of a superstitious schoolteacher coming to a sleepy New York town and encountering a dreadful apparition known as the Headless Horseman.

This story has been adapted to film several times, however some of these adaptations chose to deviate from the given source material, but in the case of this film especially, I am very perplexed as to why certain changes were made. Although on the surface, they might not seem like large changes, they still are noteworthy enough to merit taking a look at, in my opinion.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a film released in 1980 and starring Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane, is a prime example of an adaptation which does not opt to follow the source material to the letter. The basic premise remains unchanged; Ichabod Crane ventures to an isolated little town called Sleepy Hollow to take a job as the local Schoolmaster, catches the eye of the lovely maiden Katrina Van Tassel, and ends up evoking the anger of Brom Bones, who also seeks after hand of the lovely Van Tassel, in the process. At the end of the story, Ichabod Crane ends up fleeing for his life from the most notorious ghost of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman. However, the sequence of events leading up to this point are vastly different.

Before I delve into those events, I want to first look at the character of Ichabod himself, who in this movie, makes it quite clear to the audience that he is a skeptic who does not believe in ghosts or witchcraft or anything supernatural. This deviates far from his original character, who was an incredibly superstitious man. I am curious as to why they decided to change this part of him; the only reasons I can discern is that they thought it might make him more realistic, or that it would be more engaging to see of man of reason and logic being haunted by ghouls and specters more than a man who already believes in the like of such. A change like this might seem minor, but for me, when reading the tale, it made me sympathize with the terror of Ichabod in his escape from the Horseman all the more, as in that scenario, he is being chased down by what to him is a personal nightmare come to life. I thought removing this aspect from his character in the film to be odd for this reason.

On top of this, the Ichabod in this movie is far more kind and selfless than any previous incarnation of the character. After all, in the original story, part of Ichabod's fondness for Katrina is because of her father's wealth, but in this film, it is shown that Ichabod only loves Katrina, not her money. The only reason I note this change, is because even Disney's adaptation, which people would argue to be made specifically for children, kept him close to his original personality, being a charming if not somewhat self-absorbed man who openly daydreams about inheriting the Van Tassel estate when he weds Katrina. The main reason I bring this up is that it was inherently more interesting when Ichabod was this sort of character; he was our main protagonist, but at the same time, he had some really questionable personality traits, to the point where it made you wonder if at the end of the movie he kind of had his “demise” coming to him. (The story purposely does not specify whether or not Ichabod dies.)

In this movie, Goldblum plays a distinctively watered down version of the character; he does many of the things Ichabod does, yet at the same time, the Ichabod I envision in the story is much different than the version in the story. He is not a bad actor by far and he does look the part quite well; I think it was the writing more than anything else. In the story, he is supposed to be something of a charmer, as he has many talents that women covet, such as his ability to sing and dance. In this, we don't really see him interact much with women, aside from one scene where he is giving a choir lesson. Katrina is also in this scene, but even they don't interact all that much, as Brom Bones and one of his lackeys watch from the window and try to find a way to sabotage the lesson. Overall, Jeff Goldblum looked the part, but didn't feel the part, especially considering the fact that Ichabod was supposed to be superstitious and believe in witchcraft and in this he denounces the idea of ghosts within the first twenty minutes of the movie.

Another odd edition to this version is an eccentric old man named Winthrop Palmer, who meets Ichabod and informs him that he has returned to take his revenge on Brom Bones for tormenting him. However, this man was also one of the schoolmasters before Ichabod and whom everyone in Sleepy Hollow claims has died. It is unclear whether or not he is really a ghost until the end of the film, during a rather unusual chase scene between Brom Bones, Ichabod, and “Palmer” (at least Ichabod believes it to be Palmer at the time.)

One of more debatable facets about Sleepy Hollow is how it ends; does Ichabod survive the Headless Horseman and escape, or is he killed? Some people also would say that the “Headless Horseman” itself is actually Brom Bones in disguise and that it doesn’t exist at all. (This is actually what I think too.) Much in the story is left up to interpretation in this way. However, this movie does play off some of these loose ends in intriguing ways. In this movie, Brom Bones actually is disguised as the headless Horseman, and he had used this guise in the past to scare off potential suitors, (and also Winthrop Palmer.) However, the final chase scene from Irving's tale goes a little differently here; at first, Ichabod believes Brom to be the true Horseman, but then a third rider appears who looks exactly like the Headless Horseman as well. Brom rides off, and Ichabod reasons that it must be Palmer, and he gives chase to stop him from doing away with Brom Bones. Ichabod ends up back at the home of the Van Tassels while the second Horseman rides off and he tries to explain what is happening, but then he finds out that Palmer is not only alive but that he has been elsewhere the whole time. Thus, this leads him to the conclusion that the second Horseman must have been real.

This movie is a conundrum to me. While I recognize that they wanted to take liberties and go about the story a different way, the most notable scene in the entire story is completely altered. All the suspense and mystery about the fate of Ichabod is completely absent from this version, and lets face it, when people think of Sleepy Hollow, that chase is most likely the first thing they think of. Its one of the key moments in the story, what everything prior was building to; its so vital to the spirit of the tale for me that its hard for me to really excuse this movie for doing it so completely different. In the end, Katrina and Ichabod become engaged and presumably live happily ever after, while the real Headless Horseman rides off into the night. It just feels...kind of flat to me. All the tension and mystique of that chase scene is removed completely by having it unfold the way it does. At the end of the movie, I barely felt like I was still watching Sleepy Hollow. With all the changes they made, the core story was still pretty much there; I just wonder why they felt the need to end it so differently.

Overall, this movie I think does add some entertaining bits to the story; Palmer is a pretty fun character, for example, and I like how they made it uncertain at first as to whether he was alive or a ghost. It's just...in a movie based on Sleepy Hollow, I expected it all to be leading up to that chase. And I guess it does...sort of, but mostly, it feels like the spirit of the original tale has been lost, and what they did instead with it doesn’t feel innovative or entertaining enough to warrant such a vast change in the ending. I don't really think it's awful, but I wouldn't watch it a second time either. All I can really say about this one is if you're curious, give it a shot, but don't come in expecting to see “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” adapted verbatim to the story, and keep in mind that the ending they have in store for you is probably going to bum you out a little. All I the advice I can really give is, just go into it with a very open mind.