REMAKES OF THE CLASSICS & then some

[ImKukie]

Which did you see 1st the remake or the original, which did you prefer?

What titles have not yet been remade but should?

~Maybe it's not a remake but it sure seems like the same story to me
Which current films have you seen that have strong similarities to
a specific film of years gone by

[B-Independent.com]

Netflix has all three versions of the movie, including the recent remake.

there's also a pseudo sequel/remake from the 80's that opts for surreal sexuality over the expersionistic set pieces.

[Sevorin]

Warner Brothers produced a number of western shows for 1950s television. One of them was a fairly popular series called "Cheyenne", with Clint Walker as a sort of cowboy knight errant, a loner who wanders round the west, helping out homesteaders and settlers and others in need. He was strong and tall and satisfied with his lot, too naturally noble to fall prey to the temptations that motivate others.

But one episode was different from the usual shows. In it, Cheyenne joins up with two other men and the three of them go prospecting for gold. They make a strike beyond their wildest dreams and dig their hearts out. As the cache of gold dust increases, their uneasy partnership turns ugly with suspicion and mutual accusation. Finally, one of the three betrays the others and makes off with everything. By the time Cheyenne and his partner catch up to the thief, they find that he's been murdered by Indians who, ignorant of the value of the strange sand that fills up the sacks their victim has been carrying, have cut open the sacks and let the winds blow every trace of the gold dust back to the mountains.

I'd been told how great a movie The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was, but I knew nothing of its plot when I first saw it -- at least I thought I knew nothing of its plot -- until the story began playing out the features of the old "Cheyenne" episode I had already seen.

So I guess you can say I saw the "remake" first.

[king2clio]

Geeze, that's a pretty blatant rip-off of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Your post makes me wonder about something-- what are the legal/financial issues in remaking a movie? If I write a novel and a studio or director decide to make a movie based on my novel, then they ask to buy the movie rights to my book, right? And if I sell them the rights, then they can proceed . . .

But what if, anywhere from a few years to decades later, a studio or director decides to remake the original movie as, say a TV show episode (as in this example), or as a new movie. From whom do they purchase the rights to remake this material? The studio that made the first film? The writer of the original novel? The screenwriter for the first film? Someone else? (I'm assuming that a U.S. filmmaker can't just blatently plagiarize the content, though that does happen in Bollywood remakes of Hollywood movies sometimes, or so I've read).

Any thoughts on this? I somehow wouldn't have thought a 1950s TV show like "Cheyenne" would have the financial resources to buy up the rights to remake a recent and successful A movie like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre . . .

Thanks for your interesting recent posts on this group.

[Sevorin]

I don't know who owned what. But Warner Brothers was the original studio that released The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in 1948, so I think they weren't ripping off anyone else -- they themselves must have gotten the rights from B. Traven, who wrote the book. If they bought the movie rights, I guess they could argue that the contracts that were used back then entitled them to make a TV version as well - even though TV wasn't exactly in every household at the time. So far as I know, there was no dispute over Warners' right to re-do Treasure in a TV format.

After I read your post, I wikipedia-ed "Cheyenne" and read that the show also did a re-hash of To Have and Have Not, which Warners issued in 1944. That's one episode I never saw. But considering how many variations on To Have and Have Not there have been -- the Bogie film, The Breaking Point, Audie Murphy's The Gun Runners, the end of Islands in the Stream and of Key Largo -- filmmakers have gotten a lotta bang for their buck out of Hemingway's book. (But I wonder how "Cheyenne" did it in a western framework.)

[king2clio]

I guess that a studio (Warners) remaking their own film (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) as their own TV episode would, indeed, simplify the legal and financial sides of a remake. Good point.

It does seem like the To Have and Have Not plot does require a *boat* and a *large body of water,* which would seem out of place in a Western . . . But I see that all of Season 1 of "Cheyenne" is out on DVD and is available from Netflix (including the "To Have and Have Not"-based episode, according to a Netflix reviewer). So we could rent the 5-DVD version of "Cheyenne, Season 1," and find out how they Westernized the story . . .

[jrim]

I'd like to see a newer version of Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Disney animated with talking gargoyles doesn't count!) I read the book when I was younger and I've seen more than one of the old versions including the silent from 1923. If there is something more recent than the '57 version, I'm unaware of it. It's such a classic story.

[clover79]

I guess I would add Sabrina...the classic version vs the newer version. As to which one I prefer, I of course have to go with the classic. As much as I love Harrison Ford, Humphrey Bogart blew me over!

[B-Independent.com]

I've never really been fond of either movie. They both feel detached to me, and i don't really know why.

[Sevorin]

I don't like Sabrina either, though perhaps not for the same reason you mention. Maybe it's because its type of humor seems alien to what we ordinarily look for in a Billy Wilder film.

(Incidentally, on another site you asked somewhat rhetorically whether Wilder ever made a bad movie. I mentioned Kiss Me, Stupid. Do you think Sabrina or, say, Love in the Afternoon qualifies?)

[B-Independent.com]

Hmmmm....interesting question. I'm not so sure I'd go so far as to call SABRINA a bad movie simply because I don't respond to it as others do. There are parts that work, from what I remember, but my feelings of detachment could have simply been my mood when viewing. Then again, I responded similiarly to both versions of the story and it's possible that something subtextual that I can't pinpoint is causing the reaction.

Since I still haven't seen the other two films, and don't think I will any time soon, I can't respond.

[jrim]

I know this is an old thread, but I just watched Washington Square with Jennifer Jason Leigh and later saw the original The Heiress with Olivia de Havilland. No comparison!!! In the original Olivia de Havilland won an Oscar and deservedly so. The remake was dreadful!