comment #1

p.Vice says ...

Actual transcript of conversation moments after this entry was posted on Hollywood Elsewhere:

p.Vice: And we're supposed to give a flying fuck about this... WHY? This means fuckall... WHY?

Jeffrey Wells: What?

(awkward pause)

p.Vice: Homosayswhat?

Jeffrey Wells: What?

(silence)

p.Vice: Homosayswhat?

Jeffrey Wells: What?

(End of transcript)

comment #2

le corbeau says ...

He could not be more wrong. As early as the mid-1940s, while World War II was still going on, the studios were looking at remaking many of their silent era hits-- once the European market had reopened, making them financially viable to shoot overseas (where it would be theoretically less expensive-- even though the silent Ben-Hur had proven that wrong) and would have a bigger potential market (at least that part was true). Specifically mentioned in a Variety piece on this subject, circa 1944, were Quo Vadis and Ben Hur (and I have to think Mutiny on the Bounty was also being thought about).

You can always argue about whether another adaptation of a literary work is a remake or not, but Ben Hur is not one of the more arguable ones-- the same studio very specifically saw it as a silent hit that could be remade with the new advantages of color, sound and widescreen, and there are plenty of similarities between the two adaptations that suggest strong familiarity with the earlier version.

comment #3

Silverscreenvideos says ...

Usually, when a studio says that a new version of a film is "based on the original source material," it means that they are trying to distance themselves from an original film that is dated or generally viewed as a clunker.

The best test of whether a second version of a movie is based on the original or the source material is to see what changes the first version of the film made from the source material and how many of those changes were incorporated by the second version, and, conversely, whether any changes between the first two movies were an effort to be more faithful to the source material.

For example, no one would argue that the recent Casino Royale was a remake of that abysmal Charles Feldman farce. The screenplay went back to the original Fleming novel, even down to the crude method of torture Le Chiffre uses on Bond, and was certainly the most faithful adaptation of a Bond film since Thunderball.

On the other hand, Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear was clearly a remake of the J. Lee Thompson 1961 film version rather than the John D. MacDonald novel on which it was based. The novel was set in upstate New York and the lawyer had three kids, while in both film versions, the setting was in the south and there was one teenage daughter. Most important, in the novel, the villain, Max Cady, was actually a secondary character who only appeared on those rare occasions in which he terrorized the Bowden family. Naturally, in the films, Robert Mitchum and Robert DeNiro became far more visible and menacing of a presence. Not only were the film Cady's more visible, but they were sharper, knowing the legal system and using it to their advantage to frustrate lawyer Bowden.

Where the Scorsese film made changes from the Thompson movie, it was not to be more faithful to the original book but to expand on Scorsese's own themes. Max Cady becomes a religious nutcase in Scorsese's version, and he also was Sam Bowden's client when convicted earlier (in both the book and the Thompson film, Bowden was the chief witness against Cady, not his lawyer). The Scorsese film was an evolution and revision of the Thompson film which was itself an evolution and revision of the book.

comment #4

Ju-osh says ...

30something hours later and still no new post, Jeff. Are you:

A. Giving us time to stew over this post?

B. Giving yourself time to grieve for ANS?

C. Marching outside the Kodak theatre with your anti-Eddie sandwichboards?

comment #5

Ju-osh says ...

Okay, so it's closer to 20 hours since that last post. My math skills are always the first thing to suffer when a celebrity dies.

comment #6

Craig Kennedy says ...

He's been hypnotized by the ticker going across the bottom of his screen updating the plummeting Tomato Rating of Norbit.

comment #7

Joshua Mooney says ...

Having done a good bit of research, I can now say to you, with confidence, that "West Side Story" was a remake of "Much Ado About Nothing."

Jeff will be unavailable for the forseeable future, as he's been called in by the authorities to determine if he is, in fact, the biological father of Prince Frederick von Anhalt.

Okay, I agree that this makes no sense according to the linear time-line we understand to be "reality." But things are different now.