12 April 2005

(Cinema) History repeating

Irene Dunne must be the actress who starred in the greatest number of movies that were later remade:

The Age of Innocence (1934) that became in 1993 a movie directed by Martin Scorcese
Magnificient Obsession (1935) was remade in 1954 by Douglas Sirk
Show Boat (1936) made it again in 1951 with George Sidney
The Awful truth (1937) was Let's do it again in 1953
Love Affair (1939) is mostly famous as An Affair to Remember (1957) by the same director Leo McCarey and starring her most famous on-screen partner, Cary Grant
My Favorite wife (1940) was almost remade by George Cukor as Something's got to give (1962), the last unfinished movie of Marilyn Monroe
A Guy named Joe (1943) became Always with Steven Spielberg (1989)
Anna and the King of Siam (1946) was of course The King and I by Walter Lang in 1956
And those are just for the most famous ones! Note that some of them are remakes themselves (like Show Boat or The Awful truth).
This observation could lead to some of these thoughts: 1. remakes are not a new phenomenon; 2. good stories are few 3. good stories are ageless 4. remakes can be as good or better than the original 5. Irene Dunne is a considerable figure of the American cinema 6. cinema will eat itself 7. no new feature should be granted as new 8. check out the originals with Irene Dunne 9. i like to kill my time with that kind of observations

-- Joëlle

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