The secret version of 'The Great Gatsby'

Will the fourth time be the charm for the upcoming DiCaprio-Maguire version of "The Great Gatsby?"

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of jaded morals in the Jazz Age seems to have a kind of curse on it. The first studio adaptation, with Warner Baxter playing the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, is known primarily for being lost to time; about the only thing left is a ragged trailer. The better-known 1974 version, despite starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow at the peak of their careers, was a critical flop and a commercial underperformer.

What most people don't remember is the 1949 version in between. Its cast was terrific: Alan Ladd as Gatsby, a very appealing MacDonald Carey as Nick Carraway and, as the Buchanans, Betty Field ("Picnic") and Barry Sullivan. The supporting players include Shelley Winters and Howard Da Silva as the Wilsons, plus the great Elisha Cook Jr. in a small role as Klipspringer.

Yet even this version is hard to find, reportedly because of copyright issues. It's not on iTunes or Netflix. So where can you see it? YouTube, of course.

Some YouTube user has broken the film into six 15-minute segments. The quality is downright awful, but the movie itself is worth seeing as an example of what Hollywood can do so well, and so very poorly, when adapting a great novel.

It's based partly on a stage version of "Gatsby" (did you know there was one?), so it's hard to tell which of the writers here took all the liberties with Fitzgerald's story. On the one hand, events that Nick wasn't around to see in the novel are brought to life vividly in the movie, particularly in the final sequences. There's also some brief but still-shocking violence. And the acting is fine throughout.

It's also talky and moralistic, but the main problem is this: Fitzgerald's cynicism has been smoothed out, replaced by Hollywood romanticism. I won't spoil anything by giving details, but the altered plot undercuts the whole point of the book, to say the least. No wonder Fitzgerald hated screenwriting.

This was Paramount's third stab at "Gatsby," but the upcoming version is a Warner Bros. production. Will that be enough to lift the curse? Check out the 1949 adaptation, which illustrates why Fitzgerald's masterpiece has been so stubbornly difficult to translate to film.