Remakes

I woke up this morning to the startling news that one of my favorite movies as a kid is being remade. It wasn’t a particularly good movie as I recall, but it has stuck with me a long time. Escape To Witch Mountain was the story of a pair of kids with paranormal abilities and some evil men who wanted to exploit them for their own gains. It might as well have been the story of Walt Disney live action going all the way back to poor little Bobby Driscoll, but that is a story for another day. What I remember most about the original movie was a scene where the kids, having been kidnapped, are lured into a brightly colored playroom with an ice cream fountain in it. Even as a kid I remember thinking that being kidnapped wouldn’t be so bad if I got to have all the ice cream I could eat. And even now, I think the swell of joy I felt in discovering a bar in the basement of the house I bought last year is a direct result of my love of Escape To Witch Mountain. But now it is being remade, as Race To Witch Mountain, with Duane “The Rock” Johnson set to star as the good guy who rescues the kids from all you can eat dessert bars.

I am very ambivalent about the idea of remaking a movie. In general, I think the best reason to remake a movie is when there is a kernel of a good idea that falls apart in the execution. The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon was a remake, and even though I never saw the original, I have to assume that it (and its terrific pair of sequels) was a vast improvement. I don’t think, however, that any improvement was exacted on the original That Darn Cat by forcing Christina Ricci and Doug E. Doug to squander their careers in the effort. The same cannot be said for Anne Heche who sacrificed her own acting career to make Janet Leigh look better.

I never thought of Janet Leigh as any kind of amazing actress. Yes, she was a very reliable contract star of the 1950s and beyond, and lovely to look at too. But one would never utter her name in the same sentence with a Katharine Hepburn or a Barbara Stanwyck. In Psycho, one of my favorite movies, she is perfectly fine as Marion Crane, though I never gave her performance much thought. Then Gus van Sant made his much ill-advised remake with Anne Heche in the role and suddenly Janet Leigh was a revelation. Marion Crane does some stupid things. She steals money from her boss to run away with her hunky boyfriend but is spotted leaving town. A cop pulls her over and she mouths off to him. The sloppiness goes on and on. She is one dumb bunny, but Janet Leigh played her as cool and confident. Anne Heche played her like the dumb bunny she was and suddenly all of the sympathy you have for the character goes right out the window. The next thing you know, you are tapping your foot impatiently waiting for someone to come and stab the crap out of her in the shower. But maybe that was just lingering resentment at Anne Heche.

For a long time, I thought it might be interesting to remake something like Gone With The Wind. The movie is legendary but it is not much like the book which is far more emotionally detailed and intricate. The movie is already almost four hours long and barely scratches the surface. Even a miniseries of 7-10 hours just doesn’t seem like enough time. However, remaking it as a single season series, running 22-25 episodes could be just the thing to capture of the scoop and character of the original novel. Though it is doubtful that any network would have the stomach to pony up somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million dollars to remake one of the biggest classics of all time into a format that depends on the audience sticking with it for the better part of a year. No, it is better to take something like my beloved Tenko, which is largely unknown in the U.S. but has such compelling source material that if done right, could be amazing. But then again, isn’t that always the fundamental problem with remakes: doing it right?