There was a thread yesterday on Rotten Tomatoes about remakes, and which ones were better than the originals. It actually sparked an interesting discussion about whether or not remakes can be good movies. As usual, there were some who said basically that remakes are completely unnecessary and that they’re only made so frequently now because Hollywood is running out of ideas.
Well, that’s just not true. And it shows a complete lack of knowledge of cinema history.
In the classic era, remakes were extremely common. Silent films were remade for sound, pre-code films were remade after enforcement. And sometimes a director, producer or actor just liked the story so much they wanted to make is again.
If anything, remakes may have been even more frequent in the classic era than they are now. And some of the best movies ever made are remakes. His Girl Friday is a remake of The Front Page. The Maltese Falcon is a remake of Dangerous Female (this also received an earlier remake with the bizarre Satan Met a Lady.) It could be argued that these aren’t exactly remakes. The Front Page is a play and The Maltese Falcon is a book. But do you really think that these films would have had a second (or third) go so soon after the original was made if the originals were excellent films?
Part of the reason The Maltese Falcon and His Girl Friday work so well as remakes is because they take the opportunity to try something different. The Maltese Falcon couldn’t get away with the pre-code sexuality of the original film, so John Huston created a unique, dark atmosphere, and pretty much kicked off the noir movement. His Girl Friday switched the gender of one of the main characters and turned the story into a romance. Both His Girl Friday and The Maltese Falcon are considered better than their predecessors.
And just because a remake may not be as great as the original doesn’t mean it’s automatically a bad movie. There are several remakes from the classic era that are very good movies, even if they aren’t as good as the original. Silk Stockings is a musical remake of Ninotchka. Weekend at the Waldorf is a comedic remake of Grand Hotel. Daddy Long Legs is a musical remake of the silent film of the same title. The Children’s Hour is a remake of William Wyler’s These Three.
These films are good because, like with the two films discussed earlier, they take the material and put an original and unique spin on them. There are remakes seem to be pointless because no attempt is made to try something new. The Jennifer Jones remakes, A Farewell to Arms and The Barretts of Wimpole Street are perfect examples. The only significant change to these is the addition of color. And as for The Barretts of Wimpole Street, director Sidney Franklin, who also directed the original, used the exact same shooting script, word for word. Both of these films end up being completely dull and uninteresting, especially since the original films are among the finest films of the 1930s.
Of course, not every remake that adds something unique to the material is good. I suppose it’s a matter of looking at the material and attempting to see if that ‘something’ fits. Two musical remakes, The Opposite Sex and Smilin’ Through suffer from this problem. Smilin’ Through, a remake of the 1932 film, feels awkward and bizarre with musical numbers. Borzage directs the non-musical parts of the story well, but then a musical number pops in and it simply doesn’t feel like it fits in the movie. The Opposite Sex, a remake of The Women, is just a wretched movie all around. The musical aspect, while terrible, the least of the problems, which starts with a horrible cast, and goes right down to the addition of men to the film.
There are movies from the classic era that would benefit from a remake now. Specifically Lady In the Lake. It was the first film directed by Robert Montgomery, and he really showed both his skill as a director and his incredible creativity and skill with a camera by shooting the entire film in first person. While Montgomery’s film is both a fascinating film experiment and and just an amazing film all around, the story could certainly use a remake to film it in a more traditions, third person stle.
So, after all that, are there any classic films you guys think would benefit from a remake today?
By Katie Richardson
Obscure Classics 
August 4, 2008 at 2:52 am
There is a difference between remaking a film and remaking a classic. If a remake works it is because there is something inept or outdated in the previous version(s).
To remake a classic however, in these blockbuster days especially, is to have no intention of living up to or surpassing the original and is merely meant to abuse the success of the previous versions to make a profit. That is undeniably insulting, but then most of Hollywood’s current output is insulting.
If they want to remake something, they should remake unsuccessful films, or perhaps even lost films. Nobody would gripe then.
August 4, 2008 at 5:55 am
“There is a difference between remaking a film and remaking a classic. If a remake works it is because there is something inept or outdated in the previous version(s).”
I don’t think so. A piece of work doesn’t have to be inept or outdated for a remake to be “worthy” (it’s early in the morning, I can’t think of a better word). There are sometimes several interesting ways to approach a story, and they aren’t always all going to be done in one film. Just because a filmmaker decides to remake a story with a different approach doesn’t mean the original approach is inept or outdated. It could just mean that there are several different ways to look at a story, and while one way was excellent, another could be just as interesting.
The Front Page is an EXCELLENT movie. Neither inept nor outdated. But His Girl Friday is a wonderful, incredible remake, not because it improves upon some outdated ineptitude, but simply because it looks at an already great piece of work and approaches it differently.
Or a film like Silk Stockings, are all the other remakes that are very good movies without being as good as the originals. Silk Stockings works perfectly well as a film, both as a stand alone musical project and as fresh and unique take on Ninotchka. Ninotchka is one of the most hysterical romantic comedies of all time, and since Silk Stockings isn’t as good as the original, it doesn’t correct some kind of faults or ineptitudes the original had. But it’s still a really good movie.
In the end, remakes are just movies. They should be viewed as such – movies first, remakes second. A good movie is a good movie, a bad movie is a bad movie. Whether it’s a remake or not.
August 4, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Hmm… I want to avoid the distinction between “good” and “bad.” No such thing exists and I think every good critic should transcend that distinction.
But on to my point: Hollywood remaking respected classics is Hollywood looking for easy profit. I mean, they are always doing that, but with classics you are targeting an audience that is aware of the complete lack of respect the film moguls have for their customers. This is the point I was hoping you would respond to.
When I wrote of the inept and outdated, I was speaking of modern audiences.
1) His Girl Friday is not a remake of The Front Page–The Front Page is a play, and as original source material, a million different versions can be made of it without any one of them being aware of another. Therefore this is not the best example to use when speaking of remakes.
2) The inept and outdated elements of Ninotchka are: Black and White, full screen, and faded stars. Audiences of the 50s were no longer keen on those techniques, and since the story of Ninotchka was both entertaining and still relevant, they did make up for those problems. They made it a large scale technicolor musical. The musical is a popular way of jazzing up/modernizing an old story, and it’s a great embarrassment that so many people buy into it.
So when I say inept or outdated, I am speaking of the modern mind-set. Few thoroughly modern viewers have the patience to sit through something like Ninotchka. It doesn’t matter how well structured, how clever, how hilarious it is, people do not relate to it the way they relate to their own era’s films. Silk Stockings has none of the vigor of the original–all the wit and humor it has is stolen directly from the original, and played with less understanding and energy. So when I say it remakes the outdated, I mean it gives it color, song, and Cyd ( 😦 RIP) and Freddy.
But my main argument was that remaking a classic is to disrespect the audience. If classics have any following today, it is because they are a product of their times, because they carry a nostalgia for good times passed. A film is not just a story, but all the people who shape that story, and a Casablanca without Bogart is not a Casblanca, a Philadelphia Story without Hepburn is not a Philadelphia Story, regardless of the plot.
If you need any more convincing, remakes can jeopardize the memory of the original, can be destroyers of culture. When Algiers was made, the producers tried to destroy every copy of Pepe le moko they could find. That is an extreme example… How many people have overlooked The Front Page? How many people will seek out the original version of Daddy Long Legs? How many originals have been forgotten because they have been replaced by modern standards? We are not just remaking stories, we are replacing history…
August 4, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Wow, your post made me think of the remake of ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ with Mark Harmon. I vaguely remember watching it on TV as a kid – made for TV I believe (Hallmark?). I’d love to see it again just to compare the two a bit more.
August 5, 2008 at 9:31 am
Yes, remakes today are generally made to cash in on a classic, which is unfortunate.
But I never said that all remakes were worthwhile. The point of the post was to say that people should avoid that knee jerk reaction that all remakes are terrible, or that the remake is more of a recent thing.
If a remake is simply made for no other reason than to cash in on a pre-existing audience, and doesn’t offer anything new or unique to the idea, then yes, it is both disrespectful and pointless. But a filmmaker looks at a classic and truly sees that they can take the material and make it with a fresh, different approach, then that’s not at all disrespectful to the original. And even if a remake is made completely for financial reasons and nothing else, if it’s an good film and brings something new to the plate, then it’s still a worthwhile film, regardless of the reasons it was made. And there are some films that could really use remakes, as good as the original is, like Lady In the Lake, which I mentioned in the original post.
And I don’t think movies just shouldn’t be made because there’s a chance they might overshadow an original. As a classic film fan, while I try to spread love for classic film and obscure classics, I’m not overly concerned with what people watch and like. A remake may become more popular than the original film, but that doesn’t erase the original from existence (and yes, that example you used is a VERY extreme one). If someone watches a remake and ignores the original, the vast majority of those people aren’t going to be ignoring the original BECAUSE of the remake. These are the people who wouldn’t have watched or even been aware of the original in the first place.
September 3, 2008 at 11:03 am
Peter Jackson said he wanted to remake King Kong because kids today weren’t going to experience wonderment (I’m paraphrasing, he was a lot less artistically inclined) from the stop-motion, black and white original.
The difference between Jackson’s remake and the 1976 is in intent. Guillermin’s was a special effects spectacle engaging the memory of the first one. Jackson’s was made with the intent of replacing the original… a six year-old would no longer watch the Cooper/Schoedsack version, rather the Jackson version.
Strangely, while remaking Psycho is just a dumb idea, at least Gus Van Sant wasn’t trying to replace the original, just treat it as a stageplay to be retold.
I’m for the old adage for remakes however… pick something you can make better. Don’t remake Casablanca with Sean Penn, remake… I don’t think, The Thing from Another World. I’m sure John Carpenter doesn’t think he topped the Hawks production, but he did… and he did it with full respective and adoration of the original.
If viewers today can’t watch black and white movies or silent movies… well, what’s the equivalent of being film illiterate?