Remakes are a constant in Hollywood; always have been. Despite how easy it is to bemoan the current perception that there are no new ideas in Hollywood and everything is a remake or a sequel, it’s not really THAT different from what Hollywood has always done, capitalizing on existing properties for new profits. And sometimes this actually works out well, whether it’s a new take on a book that’s been adapted before, or a transposition of an older film into a new context or culture. This week, we have remakes of Footloose and The Thing (remake, prequel, whatever) on our screens, and while I haven’t seen either of those and can’t comment, I thought it’d be fun to look back at several remakes throughout Hollywood history that are definitely worthwhile in and of themselves. Granted, some of these are actually secondary adaptations of source material from a different medium, but in all cases, there were well-known and often quite good film versions already in existence. Also, I’m not necessarily saying these remakes are better than the originals, but just that they’re worth watching on their own terms. So before you say “another version of THAT?” or “they’re adapting that AGAIN?” – remember these.

His Girl Friday

The Front Page is far overshadowed by its more famous remake, and there are good reasons for that. Though The Front Page is a snappy newspaper comedy much like His Girl Friday, Howard Hawks had a stroke of genius in switching the gender of hotshot reporter Hildy Jackson from male to female, adding a romantic and battle-of-the-sexes angle to the story that’s totally absent in the original. He also innovated the use of overlapping dialogue to make an already fast-moving script move even faster. The all-male version of the story was remade again in the ’70s by none other than Billy Wilder, with the original title. I have not seen that version. But if there was ever an argument for remaking things with liberal changes, it’s His Girl Friday, which stands as one of the greatest films ever made.
1940 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy. Remake of THE FRONT PAGE (1931).

The Maltese Falcon

Remakes get tricky when there are books involved as sources. Few people would disagree that John Huston’s film is the definite version of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, but it wasn’t the first. It was, in fact, the third version, but neither of the first two have the crackle or power of the 1941 film. Easy enough to say, well, this isn’t a remake, it’s an adaptation of a book, but ultimately that’s an arbitrary judgement because we like this version better. If someone tried to adapt The Maltese Falcon now, it’d certainly be compared to this version and considered a remake.
1941 USA. Director: John Huston. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet. Remake of SATAN MET A LADY (1936) and THE MALTESE FALCON (1931).

Gaslight

This entry illustrates one thing that is actually much better about the way remakes are done today than back in the 1940s. When MGM remade the British thriller Gaslight, they suppressed the original version as much as they could. It’s possible but still difficult to find the 1940 version. Both films are quite good (and extremely similar to each other), but the remake brought Ingrid Bergman an Oscar for her portrayal of a Victorian newlywed whose husband may or may not be trying to drive her crazy. At least when studios remake movies today, it’s usually treated as an opportunity to bring attention to the older film as well.
1944 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten. Remake of GASLIGHT (1940).

A Star is Born

Hollywood did musical remakes of non-musical films regularly, but very few of the musical versions hold a candle to the original. That’s flipped on its head with A Star is Born, however. The 1937 version is excellent as it is, but the addition of music and Judy Garland to the mix in 1954 created something very special that’s incredibly hard to argue with. Of course, part of that is the meta-story of Garland’s return to the screen after four years of struggling with addiction, but that story dovetails so nicely (if a bit in reverse, as it’s Esther’s husband in the film who’s an alcoholic) with the story of A Star is Born that it makes it that much stronger overall.
1954 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Judy Garland, James Mason, Tommy Noonan. Remake of A STAR IS BORN (1937).

An Affair to Remember

It’s always fun to see filmmakers remake their own works, taking advantage of technological advances (color or sound, etc.), or simply riffing on an idea they like and want to revisit. Hitchcock did it, Yasujiro Ozu did it, and in this case Leo McCarey takes his 1937 black and white romance Love Affair and turns it into the lush, color melodrama An Affair to Remember. There’s not much different between the stories, and though I think both films are solid I do rather like the more concise approach of Love Affair (it’s a fair bit shorter), but it’s undeniable that An Affair to Remember is the more well-known and loved film today.
1957 USA. Director: Leo McCarey. Starring: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr. Remake of LOVE AFFAIR (1937).

Ben-Hur

Did you know that William Wyler’s Ben-Hur, the one that held the record for most Academy Award nominations from 1959 all the way up to 1997, is a remake? This is a case where the remake has so totally eclipsed the original silent film (directed by Fred Niblo, who also directed many of Douglas Fairbanks’ most iconic films) that very few people even know the silent version exists. Obviously both versions are based on Lew Wallace’s epic novel, but a lot of elements, like the centerpiece chariot race, are done equally well in both versions. In this case, it’s a question of promoting the EARLIER film as worthwhile to seek out and watch, since the later film is so obviously a staple of late studio era sword-and-sandal filmmaking.
1959 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith, Cathy O’Donnell. Remake of BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST (1926).

The Magnificent Seven and A Fistful of Dollars

It’s probably not unfair to say that what pisses the film blogosphere off the most when it comes to remakes is the idea of Americans remaking foreign films, especially ones that are only a few years old. Yet The Magnificent Seven is pretty highly regarded despite it being an American remake of one of the best foreign films of all time. The world was a little bit different then, granted – it was not as easy to go back and see older films, so the argument “just go watch the original” couldn’t be bandied about like it can today. But even though I doubt anyone would say The Magnificent Seven is anywhere near as good as The Seven Samurai, there’s definitely room for both in the world.
1960 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson. Remake of THE SEVEN SAMURAI (1954).

To stay on the Kurosawa remake kick for a bit, how do we feel about foreign filmmakers remaking other foreign films? Here Sergio Leone takes over the world of the spaghetti western with a remake of one of Akira Kurosawa’s best samurai films. It somehow makes so much sense, though, to pull Kurosawa’s western-inspired samurai story into a revisionist western – it’s homage built on inspired homage, yet still remaining Other enough to feel totally fresh and new. Leone’s film spawned a movement all its own, and a trilogy that, to my mind, stands up to Kurosawa easily.
1964 Italy. Director: Sergio Leone. Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch. Remake of YOJIMBO (1960).

The Thing

Ask any film buff to name a great remake, and chances are The Thing will be one of the responses. Carpenter has stated that what he tries to do with remakes is find the element of the original source that the earlier film didn’t explore and run with that. And that’s what he does here to great effect; the original Thing From Another World is a good sci-fi film about a shape-shifting alien. What Carpenter does is amp up the horrific implications of that by focusing on the fact that the alien can become any of your friends and coworkers. Will the version of The Thing currently in theatres that claims to be a prequel but is kind of a remake stand up to Carpenter’s remake? Ask someone who’s seen it; I can’t comment.
1982 USA. Director: John Carpenter. Starring: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David. Remake of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951).

Henry V

Shakespeare films are kind of an easy mark, just because almost always they are obviously adaptations rather than remakes and no one considers them any other way. (The frequent restaging of Shakespeare plays also makes multiple versions of them seem rather normal.) But this case is interesting because it almost seems like Branagh used Olivier’s script to start from – both versions keep, exclude, and modify almost exactly the same lines from the original play in the same ways. Yet the films have markedly different tones and even messages to some degree (rah-rah patriotism vs. a much more complex view of war and its costs), which shows just how much a filmmaker can do in another version of a story, even with essentially the exact same script.
1989 UK. Director: Kenneth Branagh. Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi. Remake of HENRY V (1944).

The Fugitive

There are a lots of movies that could fit the category of TV show remakes, but The Fugitive remains one of the best examples. It took the main plot of a four-season TV show and did it in two hours. And did it well. Lots of TV “remakes” end up taking the form of a long episode, or spend some time establishing the premise, then go off in a different plot direction. The Fugitive managed to pare down the main plot into an action-movie format without seeming derivative or stale.
1993 USA. Director: Andrew Davis. Starring: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward. Remake of THE FUGITIVE (1963-1967).

Ocean’s Eleven

For my money, Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven remake is one of the best examples of a remake improving on the original. His heist film is more focused, more streamlined, and more fun than the 1960s original, which is little more than an excuse for the Rat Pack to hang out together – not that there’s anything wrong with that, and it’s definitely an enjoyable hanging out film because of their chemistry. But Soderbergh’s version is a great heist film, a great comedy, and a great buddy film, while the original is only a great buddy film.
2001 USA. Director: Steven Soderbergh. Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts. Remake of OCEAN’S 11 (1960).

The Departed

I’m a little bit hampered in trying to write about this set because I haven’t seen the original Hong Kong film that Scorsese’s The Departed is based on; film buffs who have seen both have told me the original is unequivocally better, and I’m sure it is. But that doesn’t mean The Departed is any less worth your time, because it’s a really great movie, too. Not among Scorsese’s finest, despite its Oscar wins, but definitely a top-notch crime film on its own terms.
2006 USA. Director: Martin Scorsese. Starring: Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Vera Farmiga. Remake of INFERNAL AFFAIRS (2002).

3:10 to Yuma

Most of the time I think remakes do better when they offer something new, a different spin on the story, a different setting, or something unique that sets it apart. On the other hand, 3:10 to Yuma is about as straight a remake as you can get, following the story and character almost exactly from the 1957 original, but the quality of the actors and the strength of the direction is enough to justify this film’s existence. It’s an excellent western in its own right, and strikes a little of its own ground by using modern action editing in some of the sequences – I’m not a huge fan of that, but it works better than expected within the film.
2007 USA. Director: James Mangold. Starring: Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, Ben Foster. Remake of 3:10 TO YUMA (1957).

A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop

Not everyone feels as favorably toward this film as I do, but I think it’s a fantastic example of how to do a remake – take a solid story with interesting interpersonal dynamics, plop it down into a totally different setting, feeling free to change around supporting characters and tones, and make a film that is unmistakably distinct. I loved both Zhang’s remake and the Coens’ original, and found different things to appreciate about both – that’s the most I can ask from a remake.
2010 China/Hong Kong. Director: Zhang Yimou. Starring: Ni Yan, Dahong Ni, Honglei Sun, Xiao Shen-Yang, Benshan Zhao. Remake of BLOOD SIMPLE (1984).

Let Me In

The outcry among film buffs when it was announced that Hollywood would remake one of the most interesting foreign films of recent years (and I do mean recent) was just about palpable, and I have to say, of all the ones on this list, Let Me In does feel the most unnecessary. It doesn’t change a lot, it tones a few things down, amps up a few others, but by and large when I watched it, I was fairly uninvolved because I felt like I had already seen it. That said, it IS a very well-made and solid film, with a lot to recommend it over the standard action vampire flicks that Hollywood makes on its own. It has the same deliberate pacing, genuine chills and surprises of the original film – and I actually liked the pool scene better in the remake. So there’s that.
2010 USA. Director: Matt Reeves. Starring: Chloe Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins. Remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008).

In a few months, I could hopefully add David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo onto this list, but we’ll have to wait and find out on that one, won’t we?

I’ve left off a number of big names simply because I haven’t seen them yet – like Cronenberg’s The Fly and the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. What other remakes do you think are worthwhile, whether or not they’re actually better than the original? What else should be defenses against the oversimplified “remakes always suck” meme?