Paul Mazursky, the actor/writer/director whose movies I grew up with, died yesterday and, as with the death of any famed director/writer/actor, I immediately began to think of his movies. One of the first to spring to mind was Willie and Phil, from 1980, with Margot Kidder, Michael Ontkean, and Ray Sharkey. It was a loose remake of Jules and Jim (and even shows the characters exiting a theater playing Jules and Jim). The thing is, I saw it before I saw Jules and Jim and thus ending up comparing the original to the latter, rather than the other way around, when I saw it (the original won… sorry, Paul, although I remain a fan of Willie and Phil, nonetheless). The second to spring to mind was another remake, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, a remake of the great Jean Renoir’s Boudu Saved from Drowning. And again, I saw the remake first (and again, the original won out when I finally saw it for a film club discussion some years ago). Turns out, I’ve seen quite a few remakes before seeing the original and sometimes I even think it’s a pretty good idea.
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Speaking of Paul Mazursky, I saw Down and Out in Beverly Hills with a friend when it came out in theaters in 1986. At the time, the only Renoir I’d seen were The Rules of the Game and The Grand Illusion. I thought Down and Out was pretty good at the time but when I viewed it again just recently (very recently, in fact, just about two weeks ago – I find often myself watching movies I haven’t seen in 30 years to find out if my original opinion holds up through the decades), it didn’t play as well for me. Still, I think the players, especially Nick Nolte, did great work and I wouldn’t call it a bad movie (as a time capsule of the eighties, alone, it’s worth watching and for Little Richard’s scenes it’s kind of indispensible), just not as great as the original, Boudou Saved from Drowning. I saw that a few years back for the first time when a film club I was in (okay, actually, I founded it) chose it as a monthly selection. I haven’t seen it since but after revisiting Down and Out, I’d put Boudou ahead by a wide margin.
This basic formula – see the remake first, then the original, like the original more – repeated itself with regularity as I made my way through the eighties and nineties. The reason it was such a prevalent phenomenon for me was because the recent movies were readily available while the originals, often from the thirties and forties, were not, even in the age of movie rentals and cable tv. So I saw You’ve Got Mail before I ever saw The Shop Around the Corner, but I saw The Shop Around the Corner before I saw In the Good Old Summertime. The Shop Around the Corner wins this contest so easily it may as well not even have contenders. Honestly, I couldn’t really stand You’ve Got Mail even before I saw its inspiration. After? Forget about it!
The same goes for Against All Odds. I not only saw that before seeing Out of the Past, I saw it five or six times before seeing Out of the Past. That’s because it played on Showtime seemingly around the clock back in the mid-eighties. And I kind of liked it back then, too. Sadly, like every other remake I’ve mentioned so far, revisits have not been kind. And it goes without saying that Out of the Past is the better of the two and also one of the best, if not the best, noir of all time.
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Other remakes that follow the same pattern: Unfaithfully Yours (saw the Dudley Moore remake first, didn’t really like it even without having seen the original); No Way Out, which I still like but not over the original, The Big Clock; Always (not a big fan) from A Guy Named Joe, etc. In each case, I saw the remake first, then saw the original and liked the original better. But what about when you see the remake first, then see the original and still prefer the remake, or at least think they’re on the same level? I’ve got those, too.
I saw His Girl Friday years before I ever got to see the original inspiration, The Front Page from 1931. Not only did I like the remake better, I didn’t really like the original that much at all. It was quite a letdown after His Girl Friday but then, I suppose, most things would be.
I saw Sorcerer, recently released on blu-ray to much acclaim, many times before I saw the original French production, The Wages of Fear. Frankly, I love both versions but when I watched Sorcerer again it felt richer, when I watched The Wages of Fear again, it felt thinner (and Roy Scheider’s last dance with fate trumps Yves Montand’s ridiculous truck dance by a mile). I’ll take the remake over the original.
Heaven Can Wait was a mainstay of early cable and I saw it, or scenes from it, dozens of times. By the time I finally got a chance to see Here Comes Mr. Jordan, it would have taken a lot to make me like it more than the remake. And it almost did but, actually, I like both about the same.
Finally, two sci-fi classics, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing. I saw the two remakes (1978 and 1982) several times before ever laying eyes on the originals. When I saw the originals, I loved them. Not only that, I loved them more than the remakes which I loved quite a bit, too. But then, over time, something strange happened. They started to even up in my mind. All four movies work well for me because the two remakes not only attack their stories from a different angle than the original (most remakes try to do that) but succeed! (most remakes fail).
This list is short because most of the time, I see the original first (Cape Fear, Cat People, King Kong) and often times like it more. But sometimes it works better to see the remake first. Had I seen The Thing from Another World (1951) first, I may have never given The Thing (1982) a chance. I mean, the original is simply fantastic. But seeing the remake first gave me the opportunity to love it on its own merits before seeing the source of its inspiration. Besides, some remakes really do improve on the original. And when you see them first, it’s the original that has a hard time living up to the standards of the remake. Or are you going to tell me the 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon is better than the 1941 version?