Remakes

[mrbaseball]

About a month ago I got the DVD of Double Indemnity. I hadn't seen it in a million years and was really looking forward to seeing it again. It was better than ever! I really like this movie and the 3 main players MacMurray, Stanwick and Robinson were all fantastic. The guy who played the boss of the company was however laughably bad [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]This is the classic film noir in my mind. Stanwick is the perfect ice cold double dealing dame. Edward G. Robinson gives maybe his best ever performance and MacMurray shakes off his My Three Sons/Flubber/Shaggy Dog personna in fine fashion.

Anyway this DVD came with 2 disks. I didn't even look at the box and after watching I popped in the second disk hoping for some neato extras. But the second disk was the 1973 made for TV version starring Richard Crenna, Samantha Eggar and Lee J. Cobb. UHG! I watched maybe the first 20 minutes just out of morbid curiosity. The dialog was almost word for word and Crenna was remarkably bad really making me appreciate MacMurrays seemingly effortless performance all that much more. The one scene I saw with Cobb was okay but I couldn't watch anymore.

How and why would they remake this! The orignal was just about perfect. I can see remaking a King Kong for the technology but nor something like this one. Why would a classic like this ever warrant a remake? Or even The Longest Yard for that matter?

[metsandfinsfan]

Longest Yard remake was excellent imo

[mrbaseball]

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Longest Yard remake was excellent imo

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Really? I thought it was horrible and throughly unneccessary. Comedies generally aren't remade and there was certainly no reason to remake this one. The original holds up well. I thought the remake was just stupid and not stupid in a good way.

[Blarg]

Yeah it's always an impending huge disappointment when things are remade. It rarely works out well.

I feel the same way about colorizing a film or see a pan and scan version.

[diebitter]

Remakes: So unnecessary. IF it was a great film in the first place, why remake it? IF it was terrible or average, why bother?

I guess the only remakes that have any merit are where you take the essence of the first and give it a wholly different setting. Fistful of Dollars was an excellent film and remake of Yojimbo. Django was a decent movie, and a remake of Fistful of Dollars. The recent King Kong had some parts that was a vast improvement on the original (the emotional connect Anne had with Kong, for example, or the terrifying natives), but others where it didn't work too well (the dinosaur stampede was really for the kids, and far too unrealistic and CGI for adults to buy into).

So some remakes I guess are worthwhile, but most are pointless at best (The Omen), destroying the memory of the original at worst (Wicker Man/Get Carter/Alfie/Psycho/etc).

[mrbaseball]

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Fistful of Dollars was an excellent film and remake of Yojimbo

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Never saw Yojimbo but I think that foreign language films are different from just remaking a classic (ie Double Indemnity). In the case of foreign films I think it's okay. Redoing those for your own particular culture seems fine to me.

[andyfox]

Woody Allen on Double Indemnity:

"It has all the characteristics of the clasic forties film as I respond to it. It's in black and white, it has fast badinage, it's very witty, a story from the classic age. . It has Edward G. Robinson, and Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray and the tough voice-over. It has brilliantly written dialogue, and the perfect score by Miklos Rosza. it's Bily Wilder's best movie . . . practically anybody's best movie."

I saw Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct as playing Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. And Peter Falk's Columbo was Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity.

[Coffee]

Ocean's Eleven proved that there is value in some remakes. However, not nearly as many as there are. That said, I would certainly like to see a few movies remade, particularly if they were dependent on special effects that could be more believably realized today.

However, movies that were astoundingly good in their time tend to still be good today...see also Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Psycho. The most troublesome aspect of many remakes is the fact that the casting and the directing choices play a far larger role in the lasting success of a movie. It's the same reason why covers of songs are usually never better than the original...the composer/director tends to have his finger on the truth behind the art itself, rather than just the technical proficiency to sound the correct notes.

[MrMon]

Most remakes are pointless, unless they take the original work and have something new to say. Interpretations of Shakespaere do this all the time, which is why he's a classic. Most flims don't update or reinterpret the work, which makes them worthless.

I can think of two classics that should be remade in the hands of someone competent - "The Women" and "All About Eve". Both could be updated to speak to today in a way that would allow the new works to stand on their own. "Mildred Pierce" could work as well.

Note that these are all flims about strong women, something Hollywood seems to be in short supply of. I know they've tried to remake "The Women" for years, but too many egos (and salary demands) keep getting in the way. Perhaps what they need to do is do it as an indie, with up-and-comers who want to showcase their talent, not stuff their wallet.

[mrbaseball]

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Ocean's Eleven proved that there is value in some remakes

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I'm not so sure. I prefer the original but liked the remake. But this is a different kind of movie. It's basically a reason for a bunch of stars to get together and have fun together making the movie and the fans can ogle and say ooh it's Frank and Dean and Sammy together! Or now George and Brad and Matt. It was never meant to be more than a multi star vehicle for very light entertainment. In 30 years it will probably be remade again with whomever are the Frank/George, Dean/Brad etc of the future.