Ben-Hur (1959) is one of the greatest motion pictures ever made, but Ben-Hur (2016)…? Not so much. Just how does Hollywood take a film that won a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards and, when you adjust for inflation, made more money than James Cameron’s Avatar and transform it into a late summer afterthought?
We don’t have the answers, but we do know that the soon-to-be-forgotten remake of Ben-Hur (which was, to be fair, itself a remake) is but the latest in a very long line of Hollywood rehashes of classic films. For every remake that proves to be equal or superior to the original, like John Carpenter’s The Thing, or even that becomes a notorious miscalculation, like John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned, there are plenty of well-intentioned but utterly unremarkable rehashes that are swiftly swept under the rug by audiences and critics alike.
Well, get the DustBuster out: today we’re looking at ten remakes of beloved classic films that most people have never even heard of. And if you have heard of them, you probably haven’t thought about them in years. Be sure to come back in a few years to see if Ben-Hur ends up on the list too!
[Correction: This article previously confused the names of actors Edmund Gwenn, who starred in the original Miracle on 34th Street, and Ed Wynn, who starred in the remake. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.]
10 Classic Movie Remakes That Time Forgot:
Top Photo: ITC Entertainment
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
Classic Movie Remakes That Time Forgot
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Miracle on 34th Street (1959, 1973)
Lots of people remember the 1994 remake of this Christmas classic, about a department store Santa Claus who claims to be the real deal, but there were two TV remakes in the intervening decades. Ed Wynn (Mary Poppins) played Kris Kringle in the 1959 version of Miracle on 34th Street, and Sebastian Cabot (The Jungle Book) took over the iconic role in 1973.
Photo: 20th Century Fox Television
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It's a Wonderful Life (1977)
No Christmas classic was safe from the Made-For-TV remake machine. Case in point: It Happened One Christmas, a gender-swapped remake of It's A Wonderful Life, starring Marlo Thomas (of That Girl fame) as Mary Bailey, and Cloris Leachman as the angel who shows her how much worse the world would be if she'd never been born. As a bonus, Orson Welles shows up as Mr. Potter, the capitalist monster who wants to ruin the town.
Photo: ABC
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The Big Sleep (1978)
The 1946 film noir classic The Big Sleep had been sleeping for over three decades until this particular remake, which stars an aging Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe for the second time, after the better remembered adaptation of Farewell My Lovely in 1975. Still, this version of The Big Sleep features another impressive cast, including James Stewart, Oliver Reed, Joan Collins and Sarah Miles.
Photo: United Artists
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Roman Holiday (1987)
One of the most beloved romantic comedies ever produced spawned a TV remake in 1987, with Catherine Oxenberg (Dynasty) taking over for Audrey Hepburn and Tom Conti (Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence) replacing Gregory Peck.
Photo: NBC
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Rear Window (1998)
One of the few films to star Superman's Christopher Reeve after a tragic accident in 1995 left him paralyzed was this well-intentioned, poorly remembered TV remake of the classic Alfred Hitchcock story about an immobilized voyeur (originally played by James Stewart) who becomes convinced his neighbor is a murderer. Daryl Hannah co-stars as his colleague, a role originated by Grace Kelly.
Photo: ABC
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The King and I (1999)
The classic Rogers and Hammerstein musical became an ambitious animated musical in 1999, which stars Miranda Richardson as Anna Leonowens (and Broadway singer Christiane Noll as her singing voice). The story of an Englishwoman who expands the horizons of the King of Siam was marred, somewhat, by the addition of odd new elements like (for some reason) a dragon. Those who saw it mostly hated it, so it's probably for the best that hardly anybody saw it at all.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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High Noon (2000)
One of the greatest westerns ever filmed became a somewhat disposable TV remake in 2000, with Tom Skerritt taking over for the great Gary Cooper and Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs) playing the killer who comes to town, looking for revenge.
Photo: TBS
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Carrie (2002)
Stephen King's first novel became the 1976 horror classic Carrie, and would eventually become a more expensive remake in 2013, starring Chloe Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore. But in between there was this TV remake starring Angela Bettis (May), which changed the horror story's ending to make way for a follow-up TV series that never happened. Bryan Fuller, who would go on to executive produce Hannibal, American Gods and Star Trek: Discovery, wrote the screenplay and c0-produced.
Photo: NBC
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All the King's Men (2006)
The original All the King's Men won Best Picture in 1949, and for a moment it looked like the remake could do the same. Written and directed by Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List) and starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Ruffalo and James Gandolfini, this saga about the rise and fall of a fictional politician had the right pedigree... and none of the class. The remake of All the King's Men was written off as "Oscar bait" and has hardly been mentioned again in the last ten years.
Photo: Columbia Pictures
