Rick’s Picks

By Rick Anderson

While channel-surfing for entertainment options during this period of self-isolation, most movie buffs wouldn’t select remakes of classic films.

There’s a strong perception that such remakes nearly always fall short of the films that inspired them. There’s some justification for that belief. If friends express admiration for “Psycho,” for example, it’s a pretty good bet they are not talking about the 1998 Vince Vaughn-Anne Heche reprisal of the Alfred Hitchcock-directed classic.

One problem with most remakes is that the creative team often takes a bigger-is-better approach to material that was pretty good to begin with.

Consider, for example, “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” a 1974 thriller about the hijacking of a New York subway train that recently aired on Turner Classic Movies.

The original film was fast-paced, well-written, well-acted and realistic enough that New York City transit officials were fearful of copycat hijackers.

In remaking it 25 years later, director Tony Scott assembled a big-name cast.

But despite his acting brilliance, Denzel Washington lacked the world-weary urban cynicism that Walter Matthau brought to the original as the transit authority’s chief negotiator. An over-the-top John Travolta, playing the chief hijacker, wasn’t even in the same subway system as Robert Shaw — cold as ice as a mercenary who doesn’t believe in compromise.

And the remake’s computer-generated special effects were more spectacular than believable.

Nevertheless, there are dozens of worthwhile remakes.

I prefer the more recent versions of “True Grit,” “Angels in the Outfield” and “Casino Royale” to the originals. Going back a ways, Hitchcock successfully remade his own thriller “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”

The majority of critics rated the 2007 filming of the Western “3:10 to Yuma” (which co-starred Russell Crowe and Christian Bale) higher than the 1957 edition, although I’m a dissenter from that view.

Here are three more of my favorite remakes (a fantasy, thriller and romantic comedy), all available to rent or stream:

“Heaven Can Wait” (1978)

Producer-director-screenwriter Warren Beatty also stars as a pro football quarterback who is presumed dead in an accident, but gets a second chance at life when he is transported into the body of a millionaire industrialist.

This story was originally filmed in 1941 as “Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” with a boxer (played by Robert Montgomery) as the hero. Beatty actually considered retaining the boxing theme with Muhammad Ali playing the lead, but Ali wisely declined the role.

Although he’s no threat to Tom Brady or Russell Wilson, Beatty was more believable as a quarterback than Montgomery was a boxer.

Beatty’s main contribution, however, was in co-authoring (with Elaine May) a screenplay that was a lot funnier than the original. Dyan Cannon and Charles Grodin are a riot as the industrialist’s scheming, neurotic wife and her obsequious lover.

“Ransom” (1996)

Mel Gibson plays a self-made millionaire who turns the tables on his son’s kidnappers by placing a bounty on the abductors instead of paying the ransom.

Director Ron Howard was plucking low-hanging fruit by making this film, since few 1990s moviegoers were aware the story had been filmed previously.

The makers of the 1956 original squandered the potential of an intriguing story concept. A miscast Glenn Ford, as the tycoon, doesn’t seem the type who would gamble with his son’s life. A serious Leslie Nielsen plays a reporter whom the victim’s family inexplicably allows to hang around the house during negotiations.

Worse yet, the kidnappers were kept off-screen throughout the earlier film. In contrast, Howard and screenwriters Richard Price and Alexander Ignon build a major subplot around the motives of the abducting gang led by Gary Sinise.

“You’ve Got Mail” (1998)

Five years after co-starring in “Sleepless in Seattle,” Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are reunited as rival bookstore owners who fall in love through anonymous emails.

With conventional letters instead of emails, this story was previously filmed as “The Shop Around the Corner,” with James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan, and the musical “In the Good Old Summertime,” with Judy Garland and Van Johnson.

Both the earlier films are very good. But the Stewart-Sullivan version was set in Hungary during the 1930s and the Garland-Johnson film in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. Laced with writer-director Nora Ephron’s trademark humor, “You’ve Got Mail” is simply more contemporary for modern audiences.

I like this film, despite a weird coincidence. The boyfriend (played by Greg Kinnear) that Ryan’s character dumps is a nerdy newspaper columnist who wears glasses and even uses a manual typewriter — all characteristics that I share. (I still use the typewriter occasionally to help compensate for my notoriously sloppy penmanship.)

While it may be far-fetched to suggest that I could attract the likes of Meg Ryan in the first place, I still regard her eventual switch to Hanks as an act of betrayal.

Rick Anderson, retired sports editor of The Daily World, now is a contributing columnist. Reach him at rickwrite48@gmail.com.