I’m not a big fan of remakes of movies. I call them “removies”. I find that removies are rarely as good as the original movie. In part this is because the movies that are usually redone are movies that were excellent movies to begin with. Nobody tries to make a removie from a dog at the box office because the chances of it being a success the second time around seems small. Of course to Hollywood, the business, success means making money. This perspective differs from that of the moviegoer who is interested in seeing a good, entertaining movie.
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Having said that I don’t usually like remakes of movies, or removies, I love watching double features of movies that include first the original movie followed by the removie. Examples of movies I’ve seen this way are the 1935 “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, followed by the 1984 removie “Bounty” starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. Another is Billy Wilder’s “Sabrina” (1954) starring Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and William Holden followed by the 1984 removie “Sabrina” starring Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond, and Greg Kinnear. What these double features tend to do, of course, is point out how inferior the removie is to the movie. The cast of the removie is usually inferior to the original movie, although not always. While the cast of the removie of “Sabrina” is made up of fine actors, it’s not as strong as the original. However Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins compare favorably with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton.
