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Here We Go Again On Our Own

By Brian Prisco | Lists | September 3, 2010 |

By Brian Prisco | Lists | September 3, 2010 |


Usually, I’m the first one to decry the despoiling of my childhood with the constant onslaught of remakes in Hollywood. Every week another classic from the 1980’s seems to be plucked from my nostalgic mind and parboiled for moronic Two Thousand Teen Decade consumption. They’ve also been snagging perfectly good foreign films and paring them down into Americanized versions. Sometimes, they don’t even wait more than a year or two, as is the case with the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or the Let The Right One In debacles. It seems like Hollywood doesn’t have an original fucking idea in its empty little head anymore.

But then I did research. (I’ve been doing lots of research lately for the Litely Salted Trivia website which all of you are undoubtedly visiting every single day to get your asses handed to you by my beloved’s murderous Ghostbusters Quiz.) And I learned something interesting. IT’S HAPPENED BEFORE. Many of the classics from the 1980s are remakes. From foreign films released years earlier. Or from films that came out 20 or 30 years prior to them. And it’s not just hacks cracking them out. Oliver Stone, David Cronenberg, Stephen Frears, John Woo, Brian De Palma, Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg — they’ve all cranked out remakes. And some of them have gone on to be nominated for awards.

The following is a list of 25 remakes from the 1980s that you may or may not have been aware of. And believe me, this isn’t an apology or an excuse for them sullying the classics. It’s just food for thought to fucking choke on.

Bon appetit!

  • Xanadu (1980) based on Down to Earth (1947)

  • We’re No Angels (1989) based on We’re No Angels (1955)

  • Victor/Victoria (1982) based on Viktor und Viktoria (1933)

  • Vice Versa (1988) based on several films in 1916, 1937, 1948 of the same name.

  • The Toy (1982) based on Le Jouet (1976)

  • Three Men and a Baby (1987) based on Three Men and a Cradle (1985)

  • Scarface (1983) based on Scarface (1932)

  • No Way Out (1987) based on The Big Clock (1948)

  • The Man With One Red Shoe (1985) based on Le Grand Blonde avec une chausseure nomo (1972)

  • The Jazz Singer (1980) based on The Jazz Singer (1927)

  • Invaders from Mars (1986) based on Invaders from Mars (1953)

  • The Hand (1981) based on The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)

  • The Fly (1986) based on The Fly (1958)

  • Fatal Attraction (1987) based on the short film Diversion (1980)

  • Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) based on Bedtime Story (1964)

  • The Killers (Die xue shuang xiong) (1989) based on Le Samourai (1967) and Mean Streets

  • Dangerous Liaisons (1988) based on Le liaisons dangereuses (1959)

  • Cat People (1982) based on Cat People (1942)

  • Brewster’s Millions (1985) based on Brewster’s Millions (1914)

  • Blow Out (1981) based on Blowup (1966)

  • The Blob (1988) based on The Blob (1958)

  • Always (1989) based on A Guy Named Joe (1943)

  • Against All Odds (1984) based on Out of the Past (1947)

  • The Thing (1982) based on The Thing from Another World (1951)

  • Little Shop of Horrors (1986) based on the musical based on Little Shop of Horrors (1960)