There’s nothing that can be done about this, but I’m going to complain about it anyway.
When I was a sprout, one of my favorite TV shows, indeed among my top 20 shows of all time, was “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” At least for its first few seasons—that balance between satire, intentional silliness, cool and plots worth paying attention to was hard to hold—the show simultaneously kidded the James Bond craze and delivered an hour of thrills and intrigue. It was a period piece, to be sure, of its time as much as “Perry Mason,” which is why, I assumed, that it wasn’t in syndication any more.
When I heard that it was getting the Hollywood reboot treatment, I knew what was in store, and it was. The movie, which came out last week, is an unremarkable meh, and the middling to sneering reviews, by people less than half my age and who never saw the original, are taking cheap shots at Robert Vaughn (the first Napoleon Solo) and David McCallum (the only Illya Kuyakin) and the original as if it were crap too. As has happened so many times before, a careless and disrespectful movie exploiting all the good will created by an older work of art—yes, art, dammit—is burying its better model and has effectively poisoned it in the culture. Ultimately, the loss is ours.
The quixotic theater company I worked for until we closed our doors a week ago was devoted to producing great stage works from the 20th Century that had become neglected, seldom produced and invisible. This fate befell plays for many reasons, I discovered—some day I might write a book about the phenomenon—that had nothing to do withe the quality of the work itself. One major reputation-killer is bad movie adaptations. (Really good movie adaptations is another, ironically.) For example, one of the funniest and most successful comedies we revived was Gore Vidal’s “Visit To A Small Planet,” a witty social satire about a space alien who miscalculates and ends up in Cold War era Virginia when he was aiming to look in on the Civil War. It had been a Broadway hit, but whoever purchased the film rights turned it into a Jerry Lewis movie, and not a very good one. Vidal was so furious that he gave up playwriting, and once the movie had poisoned the title’s reputation, nobody, not even high schools or community theaters, would touch it. By the time the stink had worn off the movie, nobody remembered the play. It might as well have been purged from existence as far as the culture was concerned.
That’s a small tragedy, but still, a loss, and unnecessary. How many classic TV shows has this happened to? Well, just off the top of my head and without googling, there’s “The Honeymooners,” “Sgt. Bilko,” “Get Smart!,” “The Wild, Wild West,” “Lost in Space,” “Car 54, Where Are You?,” “I Spy,” “The Avengers “(I will NEVER forgive Hollywood for wrecking that one), “Bewitched,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Lone Ranger” (twice!), “Maverick,” “Dragnet,” “My Favorite Martian” (which was based on “Visit To A Small Planet” ), and “The Twilight Zone.” Not all were bona fide iconic works of TV brilliance, of course, but they all had their virtues, and had a chance of being appreciated for many generations if the films hadn’t associated their titles with the word “yechh!” for all time. (OK, “The Twilight Zone” is a special case.) In so many of these, the end result was inevitable. Cedric the Entertainer playing Ralph Cramden, the essence of the great Jackie Gleason? Steve Martin, who is arguably a more talented performer than Phil Silvers, taking over Sgt. Bilko, a character whose every quirk and mannerism emerged from Silver’s lifetime schtick, that of the smug and oily con man, that nobody has ever done better? These and many of the others were pre-doomed. I wonder what they paid Martin, who was similarly hired to look inferior when he presumed to play Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau in the “Pink Panther” remakes.
To be fair, there have been some notable exceptions. The films based on “The Addams Family” both were true to original series and much, much better. The “Star Trek” revival, against all odds, was terrific, and would discourage no one from watch the old series with a (kind of) slim William Shatner. The first “Brady Bunch” movie, even though it was a spoof, was both affectionate and clever. Tom Cruise’s “Mission Impossible” franchise bears little resemblance to the old TV show, but it hasn’t embarrassed the title, either.However, these are notable because they are exceptions.
Hollywood is a lot more respectful of its own classics , which I suppose shows the industry’s lingering bitterness at the medium that dethroned it. It dares to remake very few of its classics, especially when they were identified with iconic stars. You won’t see it dare to remake “High Noon,” or “Casablanca,” or Ben Hur” or “E.T” or “Singin’ in the Rain” or even “Going My Way.” They are rolling the dice, apparently, with a new “The Magnificent Seven”: good luck with that. Steven Spielberg warned against the remade “The Ten Commandments” by another name, and he was right: you can’t remake Yul Brenner, and you challenge Cecil B. De Mille at your peril, fools! I just read where Robert Zemeckis said that they’d re-make “Back to the Future” over his dead body.
And mine, Bob. And mine.
When each production of the American Century Theater was getting underway, I would make the same speech to the cast and crew, in different words every time, but the message was the same. I would say…
“We have a great honor here, a challenge, and great responsibility. The honor is to link our talents with those of great artists of the past, who created something that made people think, or moved them, or made them happy, or made them understand the world better. Their art cannot survive without our adding our skills and effort to what they left us, and we are all empowered and enhanced by the collaboration. That is also the challenge and the responsibility. If we do our job well, their creation is strengthened and made appealing to new audiences. It may thrive and continue to entertain for generations, thanks to our presentation of it. If we fail, we harm the work, perhaps fatally. By what our audiences see and what others hear, this great script and these vivid characters may gain a poor reputation it does not deserve, and vanish from the stage in favor of lesser works. If that happens, the culture suffers. We have a duty to the playwright, to the work, to our audiences and future audiences not to let that happen. We have a duty to the culture to keep this work alive by doing right by it, whatever it takes.”
I believe that.
Obviously, Hollywood does not.
Ethics Alarms 
Yeah, their idea of freshening something up totally misses the spirit of the originals, even if there’s spiffier FX. I don’t think the Trek reboot kept any of Roddenberry’s foundation that we’d outgrow the idiocies you speak on every day. Another disappointment was the live action Thunderbirds a few years ago. Every idea was new once, and breaking old ones is EASIER than finding a new one. There’s enough that make money they aren’t going to stop.
Hollywood seems to do better with some of the musicals. I saw the adaptation of Les Mis which was pretty good and stirring In some of the scenes. Russell Crowe isn’t a great singer but the acting and cinematography were good. I regret to say that I haven’t seen a play in years. They’ve gotten too damn expensive.
Glad you liked it. I detest the musical, and the singing in the movie was unbearable.
But the worst Les Miserables? A French version that seeks to re-do the movie, word for word. Gads… I couldn’t believe I lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes into it…though I only had another hour and 7 minutes left to go, I gave up.
The book word for word…
The BOOK!!!!
Dang it…
That’s a rationalization to add: “It’s not the worst Les Miserables!” Because there’s always a worse one, waiting…
I’m sure it’s cliche, but Liam Neeson’s Les Miserables wins the cake.
But then again, the 90’s was an exceptional decade for movies.
1994 – 96, and especially ’94 in particular.
“Do you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry men . . . ” Seems kind of appropriate on this blog.
Les Miserables is the best musical ever! But I admit that I was 15 when I saw it for the first time so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Plus, I saw it on Broadway, first Broadway show ever! I know every word, every note. Love it.
As for the movie — it was … okay. Some of the singing was incredibly bad.
I think you might have misspelled RENT or possibly Wicked.
Rent is awesome as is Act 1 of Wicked. Act 2? Meh.
But… But… Act 2 had For Good.
I hate to pile on but the modern Les Miserables (Russell Crowe’s) is absolutely awful.
About 10 minutes before the end of it, my wife said “I wish we had stopped watching this about 10 minutes into it, but I thought you really wanted to see it, so I didn’t say anything”
My response was “I thought YOU wanted to see it, so I didn’t say anything!”
That’s the Abilene paradox.
Yup
But to be clear, it was a late onset Abilene paradox. She definitely wanted to watch it before hand and I was semi-ok with watching it all based on the recommendations of friends who are no longer allowed to give movie recommendations.
What’s your opinion on the 3:10 to Yuma redo?
Also, when movies are redone, just like all art, it is often to interpret a work in light of modern tastes, attitudes, and philosophies… so if remakes do accurately capture the current era and they suck horribly compared to the original, what does that say about modern times?
Of course, I think most modern movies are redone because no one has patience to pay attention to the dialogue-heavy old cinema that forced you to think…
Too much conversation…we need more sex and explosions. And some blinking lights.
I thought it was fine. I’m not a huge fan of the original, but it’s good too. Remaking cult films, like “The Thing,” and Yuma, and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is not as risky, and Hollywood does OK by those films.
John Carpenters The Thing is one of the few remakes that surpasses the original . But that’s because Carpenter idolizes Howard Hawks and just wanted to tell the story the way Hawks would have if Hawks had had the modern day special effects.
I also think that the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is just as good as the original. But the two after that are horrible.
You don’t like the Beverly Hills movie? I thought it captured the silliness of the TV show with out looking down on it quite well. But then it may be just that the cast is so good it overcomes anything else that’s bad in it.
David McCallum left such an impression on me that I would always look for movies and TV shows that he was in just to watch him work. A very underrated actor.
McCallum is a terrific actor, and UNCLE may have hurt him for a while. You are dead on with both “Thing” and “Snatchers.” It’s amazing that “The Thing” remake was slammed by most critics when it came out (too gross!) but finally was recognized. I love the Hawks original because of the dialogue–I used that film to prepare for the big group overlapping conversations in “12 Angry Men.”
You’re arguably right about the Hillbillies remake. I think Irene Ryan’s Granny was a TV icon and even with a worthy replacement like Leachman, a re-do was doomed to feel inferior. Similarly, Lily Tomlin is a much bigger talent than Nancy Culp, but wasn’t up to Culp’s sad-funny plain-Jane insecurity and dead-on androgeny. The main thing the mopvie proved for me is how under-ratedd Buddy Ebson was in the TV version, playing the role straight made the whole thing work.(Loved his cameo in the film…I applauded.) Jim Varney was just a Hew Haw stereotype and ruined the film for me. But they tried hard to make it work.
Varney and Bader were playing the same shtick and it didn’t work. Bader was perfect as the man child idiot and Varney should have played it straight like Ebson and it may have worked. Its worked for Andy Griffith in when he changed his approach after the first season with Don Knotts.
Exactly. Of course, Griffith was a magnificent actor who had an amazing, if seldom used, range. Sort of unfair to compare Varney to him, who had one character he did very well and a great voice. Andy was special.
I wasn’t comparing him to Carny I was just trying to point out that its a lesson that better actor they Carny had learned already and he should have been smart enough to know it.
Carny by the way was an excellent actor, mostly on stage , his claim to fame just happened to be that dimwit he created for TV ads.
Was he a stage actor? Wow. I never suspected it. Next you’ll tell me that Larry the Cable Guy is a Shakespearean veteran.
Sorry Varney Not Carney.
He was in his 30’s before he ever stepped in front of a camera. He worked at the Barter Theater in Virginia , in New York and regional theater in Kentucky. And if you’ve watched any of the Toys Story movies you’ve heard his voice.
Yes, I missed him in TS 3, when the slinky dog had a fake Varney.
“You won’t see it [Hollywood] dare to remake . . . .” … I am truly unhappy to have to tell you that while checking on the date (1925) of the epic and original, authorized, marvelously orchestrated silent version of BEN HUR I had recently had the pleasure of seeing (the 1959 spectacular you are referring to is a remake to begin with. Navarro before Heston! To arms, sir!), something bad is coming:
Lew Wallace’s A Tale of the Christ is about to be depicted by Jack Huston (Judah), Toby Kebbell (Massala), and Morgan Freeman (the Sheik). plus sexpot Nazanin Boniadi (Esther) and Rodrigo Santoro (Jesus) who isn’t supposed to show his face, but whaddaya bet. Ben Hur will be released on February 26, 2016. It has four producers and four executive producers. … The public will love it.
I’ll take that bet. Remaking that film is suicide. I see they are trying the same tactic—using another title—that failed to help the new “The Ten Commandments.” Silent movie remakes don’t count, unless they starred Keaton, Lloyd or Chaplin. The amazing thing is how closely the sound Ben-Hur tracked, shot for shot in some cases, the De Mille original, which is, as you say, terrific. Heston can always be replaced, but the success of the film will come down to the Chariot Race, and even a hint of cgi will doom the new one. People willsee it to complain about it. Those 4 producers are nuts.
I disagree about “Maverick”. I thought the film captured the essence of the TV series pretty well.
But I agree with all the rest of what you wrote.
As for “The Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai/Battle beyond the Stars” you really need to see all three.
I liked Maverick too — but I was also a teenager and probably didn’t know any better. I haven’t seen it as an adult.
I have, and I love them all. But add “A Bug’s Life,” which was also part of the series.
My problem with”Maverick” was that putting Garner in it constantly reminded us that Mel was second best. Mel should have played Bart.
I think the 3 Stooges movie from a couple years ago was pretty good also.
I did too, but most Three Stooges fans hated the film. The cast was great, the staging was great. But nobody would try to do a new Marx Brothers movie, or dare to portray Laurel and Hardy (at least now that Dick Van Dyke is too old) or try to portray Abbott and Costello (did you see Harvey Korman and Buddy Hackett’s TV movie disaster?) or even the Ritz Brothers (nobody could equal Harry)….or Martin and Lewis, or Bing and Bob. The movie was kind of an expression of disrespect–“well, anybody can do what the Three Stooges did…not like those other comics.”
Or Hope and Allen.
For your own safety Jack, I am not going to share this post with my husband. He believes that the new Star Trek reboot is sacrilege.
Then he denies one of the fundamental principles of Star Trek imagination:
If you want to explore the show in a different way, there’s always the alternate timeline deus ex machina.
It was an entertaining movie, but it changed one important aspect of the show. They added instant communication between Starfleet Command and Kirk. Well, that changes everything. You can’t have the same Kirk as was seen in “Balance of Terror.”
So maybe a more accountable, more rational, less impulsive Kirk who is less likely to get his entire crew killed in the effort to make it with the next alien babe? Sort of like Navy Captains are supposed to be?
Yeah, I see your beef though.
I always found the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures espoused by Starfleet to be somewhat…odd. Hey, there’s an uncharted planet we suspect has a hostile population on it, let’s send a forward reconnaissance element consisting of our Captain, the Second in Command and the ship’s Chief Surgeon, and leave guys we presume are trained in reconnaissance and combat back on the ship.
But really, I love Star Trek. All of em.
People forget , or they choose to ignore, that Star Trek under Rodenberry was crap. It wasn’t until they took control away from him that the movies and Next Generation both became good.
I sense my husband’s blood pressure rising from miles away …
Get him on. We’ve had all sorts of fights here already: it’s high time we have a good Roddenberrist anti-Roddenberrist war.
Maybe later a Star Trek vs Star Wars one…
There’s a Star Wars fight to be had? In his universe, there are only 3 movies.
Oh — a vs. fight. I see.
In case you are curious, Star Trek wins…even with the odd-numbered movies.
I’d submit he’s only halfway down the road I am on then.
Upon further meditation, it is apparent that Lucas quit being a story-telling artist and became a merchandiser by Return of the Jedi – he put no imagination into it and merely catered to the bare minimum needs of the cult following he’d fully secured by Empire Strikes Back.
So I couldn’t even accept ROTJ as a good movie.
Deeper research reveals that Lucas desperately wanted to make a 3 movie epic in which the story-line of A New Hope would stretch across all three, smattered with details found in TESB and ROTJ. However, the studios presumed that philosophy would be a financial flop, that movie goers were not interested in waiting years to see entire story lines unfold (he needed this decade’s generation of movie goers). So they compelled him to compress his 3-movie plot into 1 movie.
When it became a hit, the studios said “Go ahead and make the other 2, we want more money”. So at this point, what I assume to be a slightly disillusioned Lucas energetically made TESB (and it was by far the best in terms of SFX and grandeur), but then he hit ROTJ and realized that the climatic 3rd movie had all of it’s climactic moments burned up in ANH (the forced summary Lucas’ original vision). So I’m sure he said “Screw it, I want more money, lemme do the bare minimum here).
That being said, the halfhearted ROTJ quest for merchandising undoes the trilogy, therefore making ANH & TESB an awkward marriage a stutter start and unfinished story, so I have to then toss out my appreciation of TESB, which leaves me with ANH by itself as the only movie…
But then, knowing the story Lucas WANTED to provide audiences makes ANH an hollow shell of what it could have been…so I have to toss it out also, leaving me ONLY liking a story that was never told.
Therefore, by reduction, there are no good Star Wars movies; made worse by listening to a soundtrack that sounds unusually like a Gustav Holst’s The Planets rip-off…
Dang it, there should be a semi-colon between “movies” AND “made worse” in the very last sentence….
Thanks!
You have suddenly become a clone of my husband — well, that will give me nightmares.
He’d disagree with you about the music though. The music helped make Star Wars a huge hit — although I think Superman was his best score.
Jurassic Park has my favorite Williams score.
1) My wife and I loved the Man from UNCLE movie this past weekend. Loads of fun. Hit the spot.
2) Never seen the TV Series and my wife (who is older than me) had never even heard of the TV Series. (She hadn’t even heard of the movie until she asked to see a movie Friday night and I suggested it.)
I’m writing my suicide note now…
I think we need to find you a new outlet for your penchant for the dramatic. There was nothing wrong with that movie.
All I need is to find out which streaming service has the original TV Series.
I will concede that this film was not the best vehicle for my point—“Get Smart” was.
I don’t understand how you make a Get Smart movie and don’t have Mel Brooks write and direct it.
Or have it be funny. That one is a challenge. So much of Max was the extreme characterization. Can you do the movie without a Don Adams impression, or a clone? Steve Carrell is twice the performer Adams was, but once the mold is made, you have to stick with it. The smartest thing would be to leave it alone. It’s like doing a Fawlty Towers movie without John Cleese.
Well they tried to remake that several times as a TV show and it never worked.
Boy, it sure didn’t. Even Harvey Korman couldn’t do Cleese.
True Grit
A special case. I wrote about it here. They are both great movies using the same material from a different perspective. The first is as much about John Wayne as it is about Rooster Cogburn, and that makes it special in many ways. The first movie is funnier, and, I think, closer in tone to the novel. Yes, the Duke’s version is stuck with Glen Campbell, on the other hand, I’ll take Robert Duvall, Jeff Corey, John Fieldler and Strother Martin any day. The two Matties were a wash.
Unlike some critics, I couldn’t care less that the setting was too mountainous and pretty for Arkansas…I’ll take that birch grove with the golden leaves, thanks. And the made-up ending of the first film, with the Duke jumping his horse over the fence, was sublime, as was the tender scene that preceded it.
I appreciate the remake, but when I watch True Grit, I’m going to watch the Duke.
If you get a chance watch the pilot for the True Grit TV series with Warren Oates in the lead. Its gringe worthy even with as good of an actor as Oates playing him.
What are you trying to do, kill me? I remember how hard I avoided that thing when it came out.
Oates would be a good Rooster, and its the kind of set-up that could be the foundation of a decent series. But Wayne’s portrayal was too vivid. Jeff Bridges deserves a lot of respect for daring to take the role, and for making it so un-Duke that one can watch both without them impinging on each other. (Jeff really botches the shooting while charging though. You can see Wayne aiming—Bridges is just flipping the pistols around.)
When I watch the Bridges version its obvious to me that they threw the line “Fill your hands you son of a bitch ” away on purpose. Its rushed and said as Rooster is moving. They had to have it on the movie but there is no way to compete with the original so they didn’t even try to do so.
Jack,
It wasn’t the original, but I thought Martin (and the rest of the cast) did well bringing Sgt. Bilko to life. It was sure has hell better than the McHale’s Navy clusterfuck with Tom Arnold. Talk about “YECH!!!!!”
Best,
Neil
ARGGH!!! I had suppressed that one ! The worst of the worst, arguably. Thanks??
I am so disappointed. I liked the TV show and was really excited for the U.N.C.L.E. movie! 😦