SAMANTHA GENTRY
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remade the most times, but without researching it I’d give the prize to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None originally made into a movie in 1945.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 1st.
Tomorrow is my last day of blogging here at Coffee Thoughts. And since it’s Friday the 13th, what better topic to explore than superstitions? Stop by tomorrow and share your favorites.
0 COMMENTS
Elizabeth L'Inconnu
16 years agoIt’s not often that a remake tops the original in my book. It does happen but it’s rare. It’s hard to re-capture the essence that existed in the original piece and yet inject new blood into it without contaminating the genes of the original, if you get my drift?
However, with the right ingredients, you can make one hell of a good cake – or remake.
Public Enemies has been made before (1996, 1941)but I think this time it will blow you away because it does have a lot of really good genes injected into it. Johnny Depp for starters plays legendary bank robber John Dillinger. How about them genes? 😀 And having witnessed some of the filming, I can tell you it is going to be awesome. Technically to my mind this is not a remake, even though the story has been done before. It has never been done like this. You can bank on this one being more historically accurate even in the finer details, if you’ll pardon my pun. This is one I will see. Probably more than once. It will be one of those movies where you have to see it several times to catch all the little details.
So it can be done. But most remakes are pale immitations of the original. I cannot pass judgment on the new version of The Day the Earth Stood Still as I have not seen it yet. But I have very fond and awed memories of the original and I don’t think it can replace that original “wow” factor even with all the new fancy technology and special effects. I wish they would find more original stories to make instead of revamping oldies. Just because they are old, it doesn’t mean they are bad and have to be remade. It’s because they were good that they are attempting to remake them.
Well, I always say, if it ain’t broke, don’t muck it up – unless you are prepared to put Johnny in it, because he can always find something new and unusual in his characters to bring to light. He’s so clever!
Samantha Gentry
16 years ago AUTHORElizabeth wrote:>>I wish they would find more original stories to make instead of revamping oldies. Just because they are old, it doesn’t mean they are bad and have to be remade. It’s because they were good that they are attempting to remake them. <<
I think that’s the bottom line…just because they’re old, doesn’t mean they need to be remade.
Your comment about the new version of The Day The Earth Stood Still with regards to special effects and new technology not being a good replacement for that ‘wow’ factor of the original is so true. It seems that so many movies of late are relying on the special effects to tell the story rather than having a well written story to tell.
Linda Wisdom
16 years agoVery few remakes are as good or even better than the originals. And some movies just flat out shouldn’t be remade. I think of War of the Worlds. Original was scary. Remake wasn’t. And look at all the versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Sometimes it seems more sci fi movies are remade than others and you have to wonder why.
Linda
Samantha Gentry
16 years ago AUTHORLinda Wisdom wrote:>>Sometimes it seems more sci fi movies are remade than others and you have to wonder why.<<
Linda: That certainly does seem to be true. I think it’s because of the availability of so much in the way of special effects techniques. SciFi definitely lends itself to special effects as does horror and large scale adventure sagas. You can show an invading army of a dozen people and a thousand computer generated images making up the rest of the soldiers. I’m sure the ability to trick up an old movie with the latest technology is very tempting.
Judith Rochelle
16 years agoRemakes to me are just excuses for not having any original ideas. And as Linda said, the remakes are pale imitations. I think one of the worst was having Matthew Broderick play the Robert Preston role in The Music Man. I mean, come on, here!The first remake of An Affair to Remember was actually better than the original but the next one with Annette Benning was a disaster. Change is not always a good thing. Old movies show up all the time on television so whole new generations get characters fixed in their minds. How about something different for a change?
Samantha Gentry
16 years ago AUTHORJudith Rochella wrote:>> Old movies show up all the time on television so whole new generations get characters fixed in their minds. How about something different for a change?<<
Judith: I know what you mean!! Between television and dvd movie rentals, remakes are mostly unnecessary when the originals are readily available to everyone.
Julie Robinson
16 years agoHi Samantha,
My pet peeve is the unnecessary remakes of movies. The remakes don’t have the depth of the original in many cases. Even with a movie like “Parent Trap,” you don’t get the understated sexual tension between the husband and wife that you get with the first one. There’s a reason beautifully produced, well-done art forms, whether movies, books, or music, are called classics.
For instance, Should Shakespeare be rewritten so that the stories like Romeo and Juliet can have an HEA? Or maybe it should be rewritten to include more fight scenes and more graphic sex? Can Van Gogh’s Starry Night be repainted for an updated look? Maybe add a few more buildings or modern street lights so people today can relate to it?
Great pains are taken to reproduce exactly The Sistene Chapel. Why? Because you don’t remake an artist’s work. The producers and actors bring to the screen their own particular charisma, their own interpretation of the script given to them. All artists/entertainers can do afterwards is to emulate. They become wanna-be’s.
I think movies are remade for the same reasons more violence and more sex with less quality writing are a standard in today’s romance novels. It’s either what the publishers think the public wants and/or it’s a slow form of indoctrination, all under the guise of keeping up with the times.:-)
Julie
Angela Caperton
16 years agoI can think of a few remakes, a couple of them worth watching, but sadly, most are painful.
The remake a few years ago of The Italian Job was wonderful. It’s one of my favorite caper movies.
The remake of Bedazzled with Elizabeth Hurley had fun moments, but in my opinion it didn’t surpass the original with Dudley Moore.
Some remakes are just…painful (can you say Kevin Costner as Robin Hood?) and some manage to create their own cult following beyond that of the original. A good example of this is Halloween. The 1978 original remains one of the best horror movies of the modern era, but the remake a couple years ago with director Rob Zombie at the helm has it’s own generation of followers – and some classically original images that are signature RZ.
Lisa Lane
16 years agoWhile I do have to agree that a small handful of remakes are worth watching, I generally find them ridiculous and annoying. The worst is when some genius thinks s/he needs to remake a classic. News flash: just because we have better special effects, these days, that is NOT an excuse to recreate a classic … and, moreover, just because the new movie is cast with the most current popular teeny-bopper, it does not mean that it will be better received than the original.
I cringe when I think of how many people will never see the original B&W filming of The Lord of the Flies, for example, or the ORIGINAL Dracula, or Planet of the Apes, just because a “better, more modern version” is now available. What poor, deprived generations! It makes me wonder: did the filmmakers involved in all of these remakes think, for some reason, they could do a better job with the story that was already well done to begin with? Why mess with near-perfection?
What really drives me nuts is the fact that, as a screenwriter as well as a novelist, I have a dozen ORIGINAL scripts, but the market is so tight-knit, getting any of those ideas in the right hands is like pulling teeth … and then on the other hand, I see SO MUCH regurgitation of old, spent ideas going on in the industry, it just makes me want to start tugging at my hair….
Samantha Gentry
16 years ago AUTHORJulie Robinson wrote:>>My pet peeve is the unnecessary remakes of movies<<
Julie: I know what you mean. I saw a remake of a classic movie where they took what was perfect and attempted to update it with the remake. It was Murder On The Orient Express. I think the remake was a television movie rather than theatrical release. The Agatha Christie book and the 1976 movie were both set in the 1930s. The television remake was brought up to modern times. I could not believe my eyes when they had Hercule Poirot take out his lap top computer to check on something.
Samantha Gentry
16 years ago AUTHORAngela Caperton wrote:>>Some remakes are just…painful (can you say Kevin Costner as Robin Hood?).
Angela: So true … I loved Kevin Costner in Silverado and No Way Out. But Robin Hood? There is only one Robin Hood and that’s Errol Flynn.
Samantha Gentry
16 years ago AUTHORLisa Lane wrote:>>The worst is when some genius thinks s/he needs to remake a classic. News flash: just because we have better special effects, these days, that is NOT an excuse to recreate a classic … and, moreover, just because the new movie is cast with the most current popular teeny-bopper, it does not mean that it will be better received than the original.<<
Lisa: So very true. A lot of expensive special effects do not make a remake of a classic movie better than the original.