How does the use of flashback in the 1992 movie Of Mice and Men compare to the book?

Flashback is a dominant feature in the movie version of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

The use of flashback opens the 1992 film.  The image of the woman running in a red dress through a field, and then of the lynch mob that wants to capture George and Lennie influences the viewer.  The viewer's first exposure to both men is one of running and hiding in a ditch from a group of men pursuing them....

Flashback is a dominant feature in the movie version of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

The use of flashback opens the 1992 film.  The image of the woman running in a red dress through a field, and then of the lynch mob that wants to capture George and Lennie influences the viewer.  The viewer's first exposure to both men is one of running and hiding in a ditch from a group of men pursuing them.  In this introduction through flashback, the viewer sees both men as "on the run."

This element of flight is not as forcefully communicated in the novella. When we first see George and Lennie, they are simply moving from one ranch to another.  There is a brief mention of Weed in an exchange between George and Lennie.  However, the reader is not fully made aware of what happened in Weed until Chapter 3, when Slim and George are speaking.  Even then, it is merely shown as one event, and not in the defining way that flashback is used in the film. 

This difference is significant.  The film uses the flashback to help define the life that George and Lennie lead.  They seem to be moving because of the events that put them " on the lam."  However, this is not the case in the book.  The book takes a larger view towards what happened in Weed, suggesting that it is part of the sequence in the life of a migrant worker in 1930s America.