The Magnificent Seven will soon be released. Or should I say re-released since it is a remake of the 1960 classic which itself was a remake of 1954’s The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa.
For baby boomers, John Sturgess’ Seven, or TMS, as I’ll refer to it, was the first of what became the great male action sagas of the 1960’s followed by The Great Escape (also directed by Sturgess,) The Dirty Dozen and Kelly’s Heroes. Each storyline featured a group of tough-guy actors, (and more importantly, character actors,) who bond together to complete an difficult mission against overwhelming odds.
Seeing the trailer for the new version starring the wonderful Denzel Washington makes me both want to see it, but to also ask the question: Why?
Why remake another classic? Besides the obvious monetary answer, here’s another — “If you haven’t seen it before it’s new to you.” The thing about remakes is that we compare them to the version that we saw earlier and remember fondly. But keep in mind that when we saw them WE were younger and WE were more impressionable.
Now, we can fill the NY Public Library with the titles of bad movie remakes. But, rather than be snarky, I got to thinking, “What about remakes that have been successful?” (Note: I am not counting films that later became musicals like Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray or foreign films that Hollywood re-did like The Departed or Some Like it Hot.
A few come to mind. First and foremost, Warren Beatty’s 1979 Heaven Can Wait, a remake of the 1940 comedy Here Comes Mr. Jordan. The story of a self-obsessed athlete (a boxer in the first, a quarterback in the second) whose premature death results in a second chance at life and love with the help of the “man upstairs” triumphed in both versions. In fact, the two were nominated for a combined fifteen Academy Awards including Best Picture for each, with the former winning Best Story and Screenplay. Both versions hold up pretty damn well.
Another would be John Huston’s 1941 The Maltese Falcon which was actually the third version of the Dashiell Hammett novel, having previously been adapted in 1931, and again in 1936 with Bette Davis as Satan Met A Lady. Unquestionably, the best of the versions, it propelled then-character actor Humphrey Bogart into a full-fledged movie star.
Not quite in their league but worth mentioning is 1987’s No Way Out (Kevin Costner’s breakout role) which is an remake of a terrific 1948 film noir The Big Clock directed by John Farrow (Mia’s pop, which makes him Woody’s uh-you get the idea ) which starred Ray Milland and the great Charles Laughton. I recently brought my twenty-two year old niece to a revival screening of the original, and she liked it, not an easy thing to do for a black-and- white movie almost seventy years old. In the Costner version the filmmakers added a late twist that many found unacceptable, but I found interesting.
While we’re talking film noir, check out both versions of The Narrow Margin, a thriller on a train from 1952 along with the 1990 remake of the same title starring Gene Hackman. Both are solidly entertaining. The same would apply to Will Smith’s 2007’s I Am Legend, a remake of the 1971 Charlton Heston starrer, The Omega Man.
Remakes have been a staple of Hollywood since the beginning of Hollywood. No one is immune, not even James Bond. In 1983, Sean Connery returned to his signature role after a twelve year self- imposed hiatus with Never Say Never Again a remake of Thunderball, a Bond picture he had make back in 1965. Although not as good as the original it was worth watching Connery poking fun at himself playing the older Bond.
While we’re talking about Bond remakes, how can we not mention Casino Royale, the 2006 film that introduced Daniel Craig as agent 007. One could argue that the 1967 version isn’t really a Bond film since it has has ZERO to do with the Ian Fleming novel save for the title and is notable only for it’s astounding cast (Peter Sellers, William Holden, Orson Welles, David Niven, Woody Allen) and a terrific theme by Burt Bacharach.
Genre films tend to work best, I believe. Especially when it comes to sci-fi and/or fantasy because of the constant improvement of special effects. A good example is that of the two versions of The Fly. The first, from 1958, star perennial horror staple Vincent Price, (who was to horror what Liam Neeson is to missing children) in a low-budget yet effective tale. The second, directed byDavid Cronenberg in 1986 with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis was not only a box-office smash but also a critical favorite winning an Oscar for makeup.
The Fly was an example of a remake being bigger yet still working. Such was the not the case for The Day the Earth Stood Still remake. Sometimes filmmakers want to put their interpretation on a previous work that meant something to them. This is not heresy. (Hey, how many versions of Hamlet have there been?)
One of the greatest artists I’ve had the good fortune to work with, Tim Burton, has done it twice with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Planet of the Apes. As for the Coen Brothers, their 2010 redux of the 1969 John Wayne Oscar winner True Grit was smart, funny, exciting; a complete success. However, of their 2004 remake of the 1955 British comedy The Ladykillers the less said the better.
Then there are the remakes that provoke healthy debate. First among those: Scarface. Sure, the 1983 Al Pacino version is over-the- top fun but the original 1932 version wrote the book on all gangster films to come. When it comes to Oceans 11, both the 1960 Frank Sinatra ring-a- ding version and the George Clooney bromedy versions are kinda fun, neither hold up except as snapshots of the time.
For those who champion the 2007 3:10 to Yuma I suggest they take another look at the 1957 original which in my opinion is a far superior western. The cooly sinister performance of Glenn Ford might have been the best of his career (Russell Crowe and I actually talked about this) but in addition to not having a cloyingly father/son subplot, the original has a much much much better ending… and it’s THIRTY MINUTES SHORTER!
Cape Fear, the 1991 Martin Scorsese version has more gloss and glamour, but as great as Robert De Niro is in the film compare him to the quiet menace of Robert Mitchum in the 1961 original and see which one gives your nightmares.
If you do review the two films one thing you won’t have to compare are the two scores as Scorsese had the great idea to use the original Bernard Hermann score for the remake.
Which brings us back to The Magnificent Seven. The biggest challenge will be to see how the new music compares against the legendary Elmer Bernstein score, which has become one of the most iconic themes in movie history.
Comparing the two casts we find Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Horst Bucholz and Brad Dexter versus Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Byng-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Martin Sensmeirer.
The first thing that jumps out at you is the diversity. Not to be snarky, but the earlier version did have it’s diversity although maybe not in the way you’d expect. Bucholz, a German, portrayed the young Mexican hothead. Bronson, a Lithuanian, plays Bernardo O’Reilly. Best of all, Eli Wallach, a Brooklyn Jew portrayed the bandit leader, Calvera.
Perhaps the most interesting thing comparing the two Magnificent Sevens is the fact that the original was released on Oct. 23, 1960 just sixteen days before the closest Presidential election in US History. A mere 100,000 votes (some of whom reportedly voting from their graves) gave Sen. John F. Kennedy a victory of the incumbent Vice-President, Richard Nixon. (Nixon, of course, later had his own sequel.)
Now, fifty-six years later, just seven weeks after the new TMS hits theaters, we’ll have another new President. Clinton v. Trump will finally be over.
Hopefully that is one show which nobody will ever remake.
Robert Wuhl is an actor and writer who presents the Ipso Facto show on CBS’s podcast network Play.it
The Magnificent Seven Trump Advisers #RNCaMovie pic.twitter.com/rXGAEMubJR
— jac (@JChilds2015) July 21, 2016