Another thread announced the intention to remake Casablanca and it set my mind wandering. We all have films that we love and feel are perfect as they are and should remain pristine and untouched by the hands of remake happy zealots who don’t understand perfection when they see it.

Here is a list of films that I think are “Untouchable”:

1. Casablanca
2. Gone With the Wind
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4. Maltese Falcon (1941)
5. Magnificent Ambersons
6. Raiders of the Lost Ark
7. ET
8. The Searchers (1956)
9. Red River (1948)
10. My Man Godfrey (1936)
11. The Thin Man (1934)
12. Best Years of Our Lives
13. 2001: A Space Odyessy
14. Ten Commandments
15. Ben Hur
16. Citizen Kane

Now, I am aware that some of these have been remade already. Failures. Further, one of these films was itself a remake but so exceeded the original that it casts a perfect shadow on the screen.

What films do you think should be considered untouchable or do you think some of my choices are ripe for a remake?

Part of what makes these and other films "untouchable" is the confluence of events and personalities that cannot be recreated by shot for shot remakes or adapted scripts. Consider Casablanca. Here is a standard studio pic with nothing really to recommend it as far script went. Heck, they hadn’t even finished it when shooting began. Legend has it that the only actor charmed by the script and anxious to do it was Claude Rains.

But the magic mix of Max Steiner, Humphrey Bogart, WWII, Ingrid Bergman Peter Lorre, Claude Rains created what could by the greatest film ever created on the factory floor of Hollywood. How can anyone hope to capture lightning twice?

Granted, some of these were themselves remakes, I feel they transcended the originals and became the perfect image of a perfect story.

If Peter Bogdanovich could go back and remake this (in black and white) according to Welles' original script (with the incredible, depressing 45 minute third act in tact), then this has potential. But that's never going to happen....
I'd choose Bogdanovich because the only film that has successfully (or that has tried to with the utmost passion) re-create that Ambersons/Kane look (deep focus, deep focus profile shots, camera prowling around the characters & following them in doors, dark-intense symbolism, brilliant silence, etc.) is "The Last Picture Show," one of only three films (that I have seen) that speak to the audience in that way. Bogdanovich was great friends with Welles, and exhaustively studied his films. I would only agree to an Ambersons remake because the final film is not what Welles intended (for those that don't know, it was taken away from him by the studio and re-edited). MWRuger, have you been to www.ambersons.com yet, as far as I know, until a few months ago, you were unaware of the cuts (check out the FAQ section of that site). And it's also important to note that A&E did made an incredibly awful adaptation of the book a couple of years ago, and RKO partially financed it. Of course, Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons," as it is now, is indeed one of the ten best films ever made (and one of my ten favorites of all time), I love it, study it, relish it, and enjoy it beyond words...but I am just incredibly passionate about it and what happened to Welles, and I think that a Bogdanovich remake that would basically look and breath like a Welles film is a good dream project. I guess I had to bring this up because, well, it's the Welles fan in me...he's my favorite director.

I would add King Kong to your untouchable list.

I agree with you entirely about Casablanca. It's a beautiful, gorgeous film. I love both Bogart and Bergman, and such an old-fashioned, flawless romantic chemestry in such excellent taste is completely unknown to today's audiences and any attempts to recreate it would result in something dreadful. I really don't want to go on about this though, I love this film so much and I hate the sound of a remake. I have personal, very personal, reasons for not wanting a Kong remake (reasons that wouldn't apply to very many people), but to remake Casablanca would be ridiculous.

Dylan

Please don’t scream HERESY when I suggest that a classic film should be remade.
I’m not knocking the original with this suggestion.

I thought One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was a fine movie, but it didn’t film
the novel. The movie was basically the story of an evil nurse who treats inmates badly
and is outwitted by the heroic McMurphy who saves the inmates through self sacrifice.
That was only “part” of the novel.

The six foot five emasculated Native American was the narrator of the novel. His mental
illness represented the emasculation of the Northwest Indian via progress, reservations,
alcohol, dams, and the entire loss of racial identity and personal dignity. Instead of
fighting back, he became mentally ill and retreated into his fog. Most of the inmates were
men who had their identity stripped and who had lost their individuality. (One inmate was
a closet homosexual who had to be “straightened out.” To not be heterosexual was
considered a mental illness, and he bought into that garbage.) When McMurphy takes his
flock fishing (as a strong Christ figure), the book shows identical houses with identical
parks in identical suburbs. The Native American always talks about a Combine machine
that separates the wheat from the chaff and tosses out or grinds up the imperfect pieces. The
Mental Institution is a Combine that through semi coma inducing medicine and guilt
therapy, tries to turn rugged individuals into identical xeroxed copies of the “right” kind of
people. McMurphy is one individual that can’t be fit into a neat template, and he
resurrects hope and dignity in the patients.

And I agree with Dylan about Ambersons.

Also, many of these are based on novels. I can't really imagine anyone remaking E.T. and producing a good movie, but then why should it be forbidden, just because Spielberg came first? I haven't read the book, there might be a different way to film it.

Well, nobody can actually forbid remakes, but my list is a list of films that that don’t need remaking. In the past, as is the case with Ben Hur, the public did not have access to the original films. No video stores in the 50’s. So a remake would allow a new generation to see the film.

No such excuse exists today.

I can rent or buy Ben Hur or My Man Godfrey and enjoy the same film that audiences of the day enjoyed. I know Peter Jackson wants to do King Kong and after his success with LOTR, he won’t be denied the chance. I would just point to the many failures of remaking King Kong and other Ape pictures. It is a project I would approach with much trepidation. Look at the debate sparked by just the idea of who should score or how it should be scored. It will be a difficult project. It can’t be a virtual remake. Some of the elements from the original are no longer appropriate. Very Risky.

Joan,

I agree with you about One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest. I did enjoy the picture, but I didn’t feel the definitiveness that I did with some of the other pictures on my list.

Wizard of Oz is probably already untouchable. Return to Oz was an attempt to revisit the property with a mind in sticking closer to the source material. A financial disaster even if it was a hit with fans of the Oz books.

Cool Hand Luke. Yep. It fits the mold. Nobody will ever be able to take the role and make it his own. It was definitely one of those magic moments when everything lines up and falls into place.

Dylan,

I could almost support an Ambersons Remake under the conditions you suggest, but the time to film that story has passed and I can’t imagine how they could do it without updating it to reflect the new century. No studio would bankroll it otherwise. Caster would be a nightmare. Finding a composer would be no small task either. I think it would better to look at what might have been and enjoy what we have. (PS. I did go to that site. Very nice)

Finally, I want to add that when it comes to remakes, why remake pictures that got it right the first time? Remake those near misses.

But I do agree in general that it's pointless and stupid to go back and remake things like CITIZEN KANE or KING KONG or CASABLANCA, films which defined or redefined their respective genres. The remakes will be the worse off for their affrontery, so it's not really dangerous to the memory of the original, in fact probably quite the reverse. It's just sad that people have the urge to redo things.

But "re-envisaging" things can work, as can going back to the original sources in the case of books previously misrepresented. I see Joan's point about ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. Tim Burton's PLANET OF THE APES was not good, but I love both versions of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS as individual entities.

So, I will not sign a petition to get a remake of CITIZEN KANE off the ground, but I wouldn't sign a petition against it either (knowing that it would just limply exist, half-forgotten, beside the Welles). And yet I would sign a petition against artificially colouring the original, for example.

Funny old world!

In fact, it was not the first attempt to do this. There was also a TV series in 1955.

I don’t know much about it having never seen a single episode, but I would guess from looking at the cast that it was also set before the events of the movie or maybe just goes straight into sequel land. Anybody ever seen this?

12 Angry Men, The Magnificent Seven, Sunset Blvd, Alien, The Odd Couple, Dr Strangelove, From Russia with Love, Goodfellas, It's a Wonderful Life, Meet me in St Louis, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Spartacus, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Bladerunner (which I don't overly like but respect greatly), Some Like it Hot, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, The Apartment, Jaws, Raging Bull, Apocalypse Now...

To name but a few. I like to think those will be some to remain preserved for future prosterity without need for a remake along with a number of those already mentioned. Those titles reallt are not broken and thusly, don't require fixing and they frankly say all that needs to be said with their respective stories.

A great film should last forever and continue to entertain audiences now and in the future. Save for a good restoration job which some classics so truly desire (and still are not getting!) a classic should play out in future as it did on its release without the need of any further enhancements.

I am not dead against the idea of remakes. If a significant new view on the same story can be undertaken and there really be a point to the exercise then so be it. I detest the 1998 Psycho due to it lacking these very traits. Absolute waste of time and money...

I found Vanilla Sky to be a nice take on Open Your Eyes and I am rather fond of how Cameron Crowe relates to Vanilla Sky being his "cover version"... That's a good phrase... I think Sodebergh made a far better version of Ocean's 11 and he brought enough to his vision of Solaris to rank it alongside the original quite nicely.

I adore the Wizard of Oz, but nevertheless I'd be curious to see the telling of a version closer to the books sometime in the future. Return to Oz had some interesting things in that regard...

Dan (UK)

But hands off for 'Once Upon A Time In America', i never wanna hear about a remake for this one !