10 Movies You Didn’t Know Were Remakes

With a current crop of Hollywood films rebooting other, often well-known Hollywood films, it's tempting to start shouting that the Hollywood of today has no new ideas. While that's probably true, it's a problem that has plagued Tinseltown for decades. The following list takes a look at some classic and not-so-classic films that were remakes or re-adaptations of other films. Some actually wound up improving on their predecessors, while others should really be forgotten. Without further ado, check out our list of 10 movies that you probably didn't know were remakes. Mission:Impossible 2 – Notorious Mission Impossible 2 is practically the antithesis of an original film. The film borrows heavily from Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious – to the degree that it might as well be labeled an action remake of the spy thriller. In fact, Anthony Hopkins’ speech to Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is almost verbatim the same speech that Louis Calhern delivers to Cary Grant’s equally reticent agent Devlin, telling him to use his girlfriend’s previous connection to a violent criminal in order to get to the baddies. The second half of the film incorporates Notorious’s plot of the female lead entrapping the villain through the cunning use of sex, while her spy boyfriend watches and seethes from afar. And the similarities don’t end there: the horse-racing sequence in M:I 2 comes straight out of Notorious, as does the attempt to poison the leading lady. All that Notorious was missing was that damned motorcycle joust. The Maltese Falcon – The Maltese Falcon/The Devil Was A Lady Most film buffs know John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon, based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. The film has featured in numerous AFI lists, been played countless times on TCM, and usually pops up on best-of lists as one of the greatest film noirs. So it may surprise you to learn that The Maltese Falcon was not the first adaptation of Hammett’s novel; it wasn’t even the second. The original Maltese Falcon premiered in 1931, a pre-Code film that stayed remarkably close to the plot of the book, including violence and homosexual overtones with which the 1941 version could not grapple. Unfortunately, it was later shelved for “lewdness,” and vanished from cinemas. The next adaptation was The Devil Was A Lady, a comedic version that starred Bette Davis in 1936. When Huston finally got ahold of the book and Humphrey Bogart became Sam Spade, film history was made. It’s worth looking at the other two versions, though, if only to see what Huston got right. The Birdcage – La Cage Aux Folles Many excellent Hollywood films are based on equally excellent foreign language features that didn’t get as much play in America. 1996’s The Birdcage bases itself (somewhat loosely) on the French/Italian film La Cage Aux Folles, a 1978 adaptation of a popular play. The plots are the same: a gay couple that run a drag club where one of them is the leading lady are faced with having to “play it straight” when their son gets engaged to the daughter of a conservative politician. La Cage Aux Folles is a surprisingly more subdued film than The Birdcage, and treats the situation with a bit more seriousness than the lighter, fluffier 90s offering, possibly due to the difference in cultural reaction to homosexuality (and the rather broad period difference between the films). But both films have their merits: this is one case where the remake is just as good as the original, mostly due to the comedic powers of Nathan Lane and Robin Williams and the opportunity to see Gene Hackman in a dress. An Affair To Remember – Love Affair Leo McCarey’s romantic melodrama An Affair to Remember is well-remembered, partially due to its place in the cinematic pantheon via Sleepless in Seattle. The romantic tribulations of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr have never found their equal in contemporary romance – it’s the best of 1950s melodrama, full of exotic locales and ending on a scene that doesn’t fail to bring a tear to the eye. An Affair to Remember is actually a remake of McCarey’s own film Love Affair, which starred Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer as the lovers who meet on board an ocean liner on their way to marry other people. The original film doesn’t pack the same emotional punch, however, mostly due to a lack of chemistry between its leads. It’s pretty much the same story with the same outcome and the same set-pieces. One became a classic though, and the other did not. City of Angels – Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) It takes some serious balls to remake a Wim Wenders film, and even more to remake it with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. Director Brad Silberling gives it the old college try though with City of Angels, a Hollywood take on Wenders’ 1987 film Wings of Desire, about an angel who falls in love with a mortal woman and sacrifices his wings to be with her. Wings of Desire overlays spirituality with national experience, making the film as much about the city of Berlin as it is about a romance. City of Angels is played as a straight romance between angel and mortal – and it’s actually bit creepy, given that said angel spends most of his time watching a woman while she’s unaware. Skip the remake and go straight for the original (and its sequel Far Away, So Close) for a true cinematic experience. His Girl Friday – The Front Page His Girl Friday is a rare remake that transcends its original through the employment of an almost accidental gimmick: it changes the gender of one character. The Front Page was originally a play and then a film about newspaper editor Walter and his star (male) reporter Hildy Johnson who plans to leave the newspaper business to get married. Cue multiple shenanigans as Walter tries to keep Hildy on the hook by ruining his relationship. His Girl Friday kept most of the script, but switched Hildy’s character from male to female, giving her a romantic backstory with Walter. Thanks to some crackling dialogue, a whip-fast plot, and the chemistry between leads Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, His Girl Friday became the best kind of remake: one that actually feels necessary. The film would be made for the third time in the 1970s, with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the leads, but nothing quite equals His Girl Friday. Ben-Hur (1959) – Ben-Hur (1925) Most of us have seen the 1959 Biblical epic Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston as the titular Jewish prince who loses his family, becomes a slave, races a chariot against his childhood friend, and finally finds salvation. But while it might be the most famous version of Lew Wallace’s novel, the 1959 Ben-Hur is not the first. 1925 saw the first full version of the novel, with Ramon Novarro in the title role (there’s an even earlier 1904 version that ran only 15 minutes). The silent film follows the same plot as its remake, but in some ways is the better movie. As exciting as that later chariot race would be, it’s even more kinetic and wild in 1925, with horses and drivers flying every which way without the benefit of complex intercutting. Honestly, it's worth a look just for comparison’s sake, but somehow the original film actually beats out its more famous remake. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Alfred Hitchcock often employed the same tropes and character types in his films: wrong man narratives, the blonde as victim and victimizer, iconic chase scenes, and more iconic music cues, camera tricks including long takes. He even remade a handful of his own films, starting with The Man Who Knew Too Much 1934/1956. Both versions use the same plot: a vacationing family abroad befriend a man who turns out to be a spy. He’s subsequently murdered, but not before he passes on important information about an assassination to the father of the family. But when the child is kidnapped by the assassins, the father has to conceal his knowledge from the police to protect his child. While the second version starring Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day is probably the better known film – including a spectacular climax involving a pair of cymbals and Doris Day’s singing voice- the original expresses Hitchcock’s finest work in his British period, a smaller, tauter narrative with a truly creepy villain in Peter Lorre. I’d opt for watching both films back to back and making up your own mind. I Am Legend – The Last Man On Earth I Am Legend pitted Will Smith against vampire-like zombies (or zombie-like vampires) as he stood as the (apparently) lone bastion of humanity in a post-apocalyptic world. But Smith was not the first to stand alone – the original film version of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend starred Vincent Price in the titular role as The Last Man on Earth. An English/Italian co-production, The Last Man on Earth jumps back and forth between the horrific present, as Price wanders the dead city searching for vampires to stake, and his memories of the past. The Last Man on Earth created the zombie genre before there were zombies, and became a major influence on George Romero’s creation of his living dead. While I Am Legend upped the ante of violence and explosions and provided our hero with a basically happy ending (kind of), The Last Man on Earth is the truly iconic work. A far bleaker and less badass film, The Last Man on Earth actually goes the distance in questioning what makes real monsters. Three Men and a Baby – Three Men and a Cradle (Trois Hommes et un Couffin) We all know Three Men and a Baby for bringing together three of the biggest stars of the 1980s. Ted Danson, Steve Guttenberg, and Tom Selleck play Jack, Michael, and Peter, three swinging bachelors who wind up having to raise a child who appears on their doorstep with a note claiming that she’s Jack’s baby. The three adapt to their newfound fatherhood, teaching us all lessons about family and love and 1980s hairstyles. Three Men and a Baby is a remake of an original French film Three Men and a Cradle, from 1985. The original film is just as funny but with a far more serious approach to the real-life issues and responsibilities of fatherhood than the American remake. The French film was even nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the 1985 Academy Awards. When it was remade in 1987, it marked one of the faster remake turnarounds in Hollywood history.