Movie Remakes…how do you feel about them?

SAMANTHA GENTRY

www.samanthagentry.com

 

 

 

 

Movie Remakes”¦how do you feel about them?

 

 

I’m talking about remakes of the original movie rather than sequels.

 

I saw a trailer on television for The Pink Panther 2, starring Steve Martin.  It got me thinking about movie remakes.  And Steve Martin.

 

I have absolutely nothing to back this up, but it seems to me that Steve Martin must be the king of the remakes.  Just off the top of my head there’s The Pink Panther, and now The Pink Panther 2, Cheaper By The Dozen, Father Of The Bride, The Out-Of-Towners, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Little Shop Of Horrors.  And there could be more.

 

An interesting little tidbit about Dirty Rotten Scoundrels“¦at least interesting to me.  This comedy is a remake of the 1964 comedy, Bedtime Story.  The casting is what I found interesting.  You have the story of the suave sophisticated con man who goes for the high dollar scores and then the low level grifter who fancies himself a player but is strictly small time.  Then you have the woman who is their mark “¦ the first one to get the money from her wins.  Bedtime Story starred David Niven as the suave sophisticated con man with Michael Caine taking that role in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  So far, so good.  The woman who is the mark in Bedtime Story is Shirley Jones with Glenne Headly playing that part in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  Again, so far, so good. But the Steve Martin role in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels of the small time grifter was the surprise bit of casting in Bedtime Story.  Steve Martin was playing a role originated by”¦ready for this?  Marlon Brando!  I would never have thought of Steve Martin and Marlon Brando as being cast in the same roles.

 

I have no idea which movie holds the record for being remade the most times, but without researching it I’d give the prize to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None originally made into a movie in 1945.  There were three remakes of the original, all with the title of Ten Little Indians.

 

Any idea which character has appeared in more movies than any other?  Of course, I’m not referring to cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, etc.  Again, I’ve not researched this beyond a couple of minutes with my Leonard Maltin’s 2005 Movie Guide (not even a current movie guide).  But I did find eighteen movies listed under Frankenstein (the first word of the title) and that doesn’t include movies featuring the Frankenstein monster that don’t have the name in the movie title or movies such as Young Frankenstein that would be listed alphabetically under Y rather than F.

 

And then there’s the Dracula character.  I found nineteen listings for titles starting with the word Dracula.  However, one of them was Dracula vs. Frankenstein which wasn’t on my Frankenstein list.  So, that makes it nineteen to nineteen”¦a dead tie (if you’ll pardon the use of the word dead).

 

Hmmm”¦now that I think about it, movies of Bram Stoker’s version of Dracula probably win the prize I just gave to And Then There Were None.  Oh, well.  Easy come””easy go!

 

Is there a movie you think will never be remade?  What immediately comes to my mind is Gone With The Wind.

 

How do you feel about movies being remade?  If you’ve seen the original and enjoyed it, would you see the remake and do a comparison?  Or conversely, if you saw the original and did not like it, would you go to see the remake in the hopes it would be better?

 

What’s your favorite movie that was eventually remade and which did you enjoy more, the original or the remake?

 

And since we’re blogging about movie remakes, please stop by my website and take my movie trivia quiz.  The contest runs through February 28 with the prize winner being drawn on March 1^st.

 

Tomorrow is my last day of blogging here at Coffee Thoughts.  And since it’s Friday the 13^th, what better topic to explore than superstitions?  Stop by tomorrow and share your favorites.