What classic movies would you like to see a remake of?

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For years, I’ve wanted to see a lot of movies remade because Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) has gotten so good. And a lot of older movies have been remade (Star Trek, Batman, Lost in Space, War of the Worlds…) but two of my favorite films have yet to be remade - Logan’s Run and Metropolis. Now, the movie, In Time, was kind of like Logan’s Run but not enough. I use to have a third remake request but after 1999 went by, doing of remake of Space: 1999 seemed kind of silly. That remake would need a rename too since 1999 came and went and we are not even close to colonizing the moon.😃
 
John_Lazarus said:
Borgnine was 37 when they started filming Marty. I think he was just one of those actors who always looked old.

Like the two generations of police commissioner on Blue Bloods. Len Cariou is only 5 years older than his TV “son”, Tom Selleck.
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Yep, that’s a bit silly, how old is Grandpa supposed to be? I can’t figure out how old the Reagan kids are supposed to be either, Danny is a war veteran, so I’m not sure which war. Technically, he’s old enough to have served in operation desert storm back in the 90’s. But if it was Iraq or Afghanistan, he would have been married and had kids by then. They don’t mention him leaving Linda and small babies behind. Donnie Wahlberg is 47.
 
Another remake of Imitation of Life would be interesting because Lana Turner and Sandra Dee always seemed so artificial compared to Juanita More and Susan Kohner (ironic, as Lana Turner was playing an actress and Sandra Dee’s character accuses her of “acting.”).

Imitation of Life is always paired in my mind with another “women’s picture”/“weepy” called Back Street. The version I’ve seen is also a remake. (I don’t know anything about the original.) I don’t know if I’d want Back Street remade or not – the version I’ve seen is one of those “so-bad-it’s-good” movies. Examples:

The lead character (played by Susan Hayward) is an aspiring designer who agrees to meet someone with standing to help her career at a hotel in the wee hours and is shocked! Shocked I tell you! when he attempts to seduce her. Talk about gullible.

She is rescued from the situation by John Gavin, a department store heir. They fall in love but, wouldn’t you know it, he’s married. The rest of the movie involves them following each other from small-town America to Rome and then to Paris. She always manages to park right in front of whatever place she is driving, including her atelier in Paris and at the Rome airport.

In one scene, she models tres chic 1950s fashions that use the same fabric as the walls she is in. One bit actress who loves them is none other than Lovey Howell of Gilligan’s Island.

The “Back Street” refers to the lead actress’ role as a “kept woman”. Instead of the implied lowliness of a back-street flat, this one gets a beautiful little cottage in the French countryside (to get there, she always drives smack down the center of the road (right over the dividing line).

The worst part are Gavin’s movie son, a pre-teen with a weasel face. He learns about his father’s affair which triggers the final crisis. The boy’s mother is killed in a car accident and his father is fatally injured. On his deathbed Gavin asks his son to call his mistress – and he does, holding the phone while his dad says goodbye to her! (Sure, happens all the time!)

Then…

While the mistress is mourning in the cozy little love nest, the boy brings his little sister to her, saying something on the order of “we haven’t any place else to go.” Ummm, so you want to live with the woman who had an affair with your dad, drove your mom to drink and was the cause of their deaths…?

See? So bad it’s good. They probably should remake this one to make it more believable, but that would ruin the fun.
 
carmelitenovice said:
Another remake of Imitation of Life would be interesting because Lana Turner and Sandra Dee always seemed so artificial compared to Juanita More and Susan Kohner (ironic, as Lana Turner was playing an actress and Sandra Dee’s character accuses her of “acting.”).

Imitation of Life is always paired in my mind with another “women’s picture”/“weepy” called Back Street. The version I’ve seen is also a remake. (I don’t know anything about the original.) I don’t know if I’d want Back Street remade or not – the version I’ve seen is one of those “so-bad-it’s-good” movies. Examples:

The lead character (played by Susan Hayward) is an aspiring designer who agrees to meet someone with standing to help her career at a hotel in the wee hours and is shocked! Shocked I tell you! when he attempts to seduce her. Talk about gullible.

She is rescued from the situation by John Gavin, a department store heir. They fall in love but, wouldn’t you know it, he’s married. The rest of the movie involves them following each other from small-town America to Rome and then to Paris. She always manages to park right in front of whatever place she is driving, including her atelier in Paris and at the Rome airport.

In one scene, she models tres chic 1950s fashions that use the same fabric as the walls she is in. One bit actress who loves them is none other than Lovey Howell of Gilligan’s Island.

The “Back Street” refers to the lead actress’ role as a “kept woman”. Instead of the implied lowliness of a back-street flat, this one gets a beautiful little cottage in the French countryside (to get there, she always drives smack down the center of the road (right over the dividing line).

The worst part are Gavin’s movie son, a pre-teen with a weasel face. He learns about his father’s affair which triggers the final crisis. The boy’s mother is killed in a car accident and his father is fatally injured. On his deathbed Gavin asks his son to call his mistress – and he does, holding the phone while his dad says goodbye to her! (Sure, happens all the time!)

Then…

While the mistress is mourning in the cozy little love nest, the boy brings his little sister to her, saying something on the order of “we haven’t any place else to go.” Ummm, so you want to live with the woman who had an affair with your dad, drove your mom to drink and was the cause of their deaths…?

See? So bad it’s good. They probably should remake this one to make it more believable, but that would ruin the fun.
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Susan Hayward was in a lot of very melodramatic movies. I have seen part of this not the whole movie though! I might have to watch the whole thing some day.
 
I had said I would like to see a remake of Gaslight only to find out the other night the Ingrid Bergman/Charles Boyer 1944 movie was already a remake!!!

There was a 1940 version. It came on late the other night around 2:30 in the morning.
I saw parts of it. It think it was based more closely on the stage play.

I guess I would still like to see a 3rd version! There is even a term called “gaslighting”.
 
Not sure if it counts as a classic, but having seen both the 1953 Young Bess movie on TCM and having read the book by Margaret Irwin about the young Elizabeth I, I find the movie to be quite disturbing, considering that it essentially romanticizes what was most likely a case of sexual abuse perpetuated by Thomas Seymour against Elizabeth. Not only per modern historical consensus, either. The book itself, written in 1944, portrays Seymour as manipulative and abusive. Seymour wasn’t exactly her stepfather but he did marry Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s 6th wife, after Henry VIII died.

Now certainly a remake of that, even one that stuck to the original book that is not at all explicit, would be interesting, because recent movie treatments of Elizabeth have portrayed her as a strong woman and showing her as an abuse victim might be controversial to say the least.

It’s interesting that for all the agita about how sexually depraved modern society is, there are certain taboos that are actually stronger than once before, and taboos against child grooming and relationships with extreme power differences is one of them.

Gigi that was adapted from a book into a musical, and then into a film in the supposedly chaste and wholesome 1950s, also romanticizes child grooming and I know a recent revival of the musical aged Gaston DOWN and also had “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” sung not by Gaston’s uncle, but by Gigi’s grandmother, in order to tone down the creepiness factor, though IMHO not by much, as the grandmother is happy to pimp out her granddaughter to Gaston. In a way it’s worse because it then becomes a song actually advertising little girls as eventual sexual objects, as opposed to just being about a dirty old man showing what he is.
 
ToeInTheWater said:
Not sure if it counts as a classic, but having seen both the 1953 Young Bess movie on TCM and having read the book by Margaret Irwin about the young Elizabeth I, I find the movie to be quite disturbing, considering that it essentially romanticizes what was most likely a case of sexual abuse perpetuated by Thomas Seymour against Elizabeth. Not only per modern historical consensus, either. The book itself, written in 1944, portrays Seymour as manipulative and abusive. Seymour wasn’t exactly her stepfather but he did marry Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s 6th wife, after Henry VIII died.

Now certainly a remake of that, even one that stuck to the original book that is not at all explicit, would be interesting, because recent movie treatments of Elizabeth have portrayed her as a strong woman and showing her as an abuse victim might be controversial to say the least.

It’s interesting that for all the agita about how sexually depraved modern society is, there are certain taboos that are actually stronger than once before, and taboos against child grooming and relationships with extreme power differences is one of them.

Gigi that was adapted from a book into a musical, and then into a film in the supposedly chaste and wholesome 1950s, also romanticizes child grooming and I know a recent revival of the musical aged Gaston DOWN and also had “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” sung not by Gaston’s uncle, but by Gigi’s grandmother, in order to tone down the creepiness factor, though IMHO not by much, as the grandmother is happy to pimp out her granddaughter to Gaston. In a way it’s worse because it then becomes a song actually advertising little girls as eventual sexual objects, as opposed to just being about a dirty old man showing what he is.
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On top of that, what would it do to you psychologically knowing your father ordered your mother to be beheaded!!??
 
I’d kind of like to see a remake of Harvey, although any actor would be hard pressed to beat Jimmy Stewart’s performance in the original.
 
How about a remake of the classic film noir Laura with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Vincent Price?
 
Della said:
A TV movie was done: imdb.com/title/tt0273729/.

I don’t think you could redo that story in a modern setting. It’d have to be a period piece, but the original needs no updating, so why even try? 🙂
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Lee Radziwell played Laura Hunt!!!

It might be a challenge to redo it in a modern setting.
Or redo it as a period piece, but it definitely has some possibilities.
 
There have been two versions - one with Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman (1923 silent)
and the second with Helen Hayes and Clark Gable (1933 talkie) of a movie called
The White Sister which is a Catholic melodrama. Both versions were good.

I am not sure if I would want to see it updated or a period piece.
 
7_Sorrows said:
There have been two versions - one with Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman (1923 silent)
and the second with Helen Hayes and Clark Gable (1933 talkie) of a movie called
The White Sister which is a Catholic melodrama. Both versions were good.

I am not sure if I would want to see it updated or a period piece.
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I think the Lilian Gish one was on recently.

I didn’t see it, but is that the one where she is in love with a man who is missing, and then becomes a nun and takes her final vows just as he comes back?
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
I think the Lilian Gish one was on recently.

I didn’t see it, but is that the one where she is in love with a man who is missing, and then becomes a nun and takes her final vows just as he comes back?
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I just saw the Lillian Gish version last night. Yes, that is part of the big picture. It is a very Catholic movie.
 
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