The Six Pack

Six Remakes Made by the Director Who Made the Original

by Matt Prigge

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956): Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t exactly the most versatile director, but he technically repeated himself only once with this spit-shine on his 1934 kidnapped-kiddie thriller of the same name. You’d think the loss of baddie Peter Lorre and the addition of Doris Day would make this a downgrade. Not so: The original is one of the least together from Hitch’s British era, and the remake’s improvements don’t end with Jimmy Stewart and a superior Royal Albert Hall sequence.

An Affair to Remember (1957): Redoing his 1939 semi-comic sudster Love Affair, Leo McCarey (Duck Soup) proved faithful without eclipsing or tarnishing the excellent original. Nice work.

Floating Weeds (1959): Even more than Hitchcock, Japanese titan Yasujiro Ozu wasn’t much for variety. Indeed, the difference between his 1934 silent melodrama A Story of Floating Weeds and the version he made near the end of his career is the latter has sound, color and a slightly more abstract feel. The similarities, meanwhile, are multitude—whole sequences are duplicated shot-for-shot.

The Children’s Hour (1961): When he made 1934’s These Three, his first adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s play about schoolteachers destroyed by a rumor-mongering student, William Wyler (Ben-Hur) was forced by the production code to ax the lesbian theme—i.e., the plot. He finally atoned with this Audrey Hepburn/Shirley MacLaine joint, which reinstated the homosexuality.

The Vanishing (1992): Who tacked a ridiculous, thesis-shattering happy ending onto the awful American remake of Georges Sluizer’s bone-chilling 1988 Dutch original? Georges Sluizer.

Funny Games (2008): Ignoring the relevance of Michael Haneke remaking his brilliant 1997 Austrian anti-thriller specifically for American audiences, there’s this: After seeing the original years ago, I swore it would be one of those brilliant movies I “loved” but would never, ever see again in a million years. So fuck you, Michael Haneke. This is the exact same goddamn movie, not just shot-for-shot, but nearly frame-for-frame. You’re a genius. My hat is off.