Man on Fire (1987 film) Conti, "is suitably sinister". Mi Samantha compares Creasy and herself to the main characters of "Of Mice and Men", George Milton and Lenny Small. In regards to Samantha, James stated that "this literary child breaks through Creasy's tough-guy defenses." Sachs said that Samantha "a survivor in her own right - of a troubled marriage, having no friends, etc." but that she is "too smart and adorable to resist." Richardson said "[t]hey talk about the works of John Steinbeck and the fine points of jogging, and before you can say "Lolita", the pair are involved in a kind of romance." Kaufman
John Steinbeck asocial individuals who, in their wild revels, are almost caricatures of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. It has been said that in the United States this book came as a welcome antidote to the gloom of the then prevailing depression." "Tortilla Flat" was adapted as a 1942 film of the same name, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield, a friend of Steinbeck. With some of the proceeds, he built a summer ranch-home in Los Gatos. Steinbeck began to write a series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among common people during the Great Depression.