Remakes, Sequels, Prequels, Spinoffs & Plagiarisms

Hollywood begats (be they remakes, sequels, prequels, spinoffs or plagiarisms) receive sniggering scorn from media wiseacres. Fair enough.

But while watching Nikita Mikhalkov’s 12, an honorable and fascinating reworking of Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men on Monday morning, my mind wandered off to the many credible, even improved redux versions that are every bit as distinguished inspirations as their originals.

Here are some variations on a theme that came to mind:

• A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was Sergio Leone’s plagiarism of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961). Kurosawa sued and won.

• A Star Is Born (1937 – William Wellman with Janet Gaynor) became in 1954, Cukor w. Garland and, in 1976 w. Streisand.

• Ramon Navarro’s silent Ben-Hur (1925) became Charlton Heston’s epic (1959)

• J. Lee Thompson’s Cape Fear (1962 with Mitchum and Peck) was every bit as terrifying as Scorsese’s 1991 remake.

• Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait (1978) was originally the charming Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941).

• Fay Wray’s tragic antihero King Kong (1933) had two so-so remakes in 1976 and 2005, neither as affecting as the original.

• Rashomon (1951) inspired several remakes notably The Outrage (1964) and Courage Under Fire (1991), none anywhere as awesome as the original.

• Steve Martin’s Roxanne (1987) was first José Ferrar’s 1950 b&w Cyrano de Bergerac. And of course, long ago, Edmond Rostand’s play.

• Sabrina, the 1954 original with Bogart and Hepburn was so much better than the 1998 Harrison Ford remake.

• The Magnificent Seven (1960 - Sturges) was originally Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954).

• Hitchcock made The Man Who Knew Too Much twice – 1934 & 1965 (the 2nd time with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day).

• Frankenheimer’s Manchurian Candidate (1962) & Jonathan Demme’s Manchurian Candidate (2004) are two fifferent animals, exploring two different Americas, two different wars, two different mindsets.

• Three Men and a Baby (1987) was much funnier as the French farce - Trois hommes et un couffin (1985).

• Mel Brooks antic To Be Or Not To Be (1983) was a faithful remake of the Lubitch 1941 movie of the same title.

• Sleepless in Seattle was an homage to the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr chickflick, An Affair to Remember.

• Al Pacino’s Scent of a Woman (1992) was originally a delicious Dino Risi film, Profumo di Donna, starring Vittorio Gassman.

So next time you’re renting dvds, and they’ve got two-for-one promotions, here are some pairing you might want to try. And on this Sunday, watch with interest how Nikita Mikhalkov explores the Sidney Lumet/Reginald Rose profoundly American ideas about reasonable doubt, and turns them into Russian obsessions about compassion, tolerance and co-existence.

Like most of the films on my list above, the inspiration of 12 Angry Men has made for a fascinating remake.