urbanemovies's profile

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Thursday, March 2nd, 2017 3:52 AM

Live Poll: Best American Remake of a British Movie?

Which of these American remakes* is by comparison the most worthy of the British original?

See the partial list of worthy American remakes of British movies here: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls033556235/

Poll: https://www.imdb.com/poll/N2XE1Xk7E-E/

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52.5K Points

7 years ago

The Jackal (1997)

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7 years ago

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Thanks for your vote and your support.

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5 years ago

Title change: Best American Remake of a British Movie?

American remakes of British films - Wikipedia

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Thanks

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5 years ago

bump

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5 years ago

The Body Snatchers starring Leonard Nimmoy

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5 years ago

I appreciate the comment and I like all the film adaptations of the original 1955 novel. But, I am confused, because I don't see the British connection. As far as. I know the American novel,  The Body Snatchers has been adapted for the screen four times. The first film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers  debuted in 1956, the second Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released in 1978, the third Body Snatchers was released in 1993, and the fourth The Invasion was released in 2007.  All four of these film adaptations were American productions, although sometimes starred British actors. To qualify for the poll, the original film has to be a British production and have been later remade as an American-based film.

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5 years ago

Typo:  it's --> its

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5 years ago

Thanks, corrected.

Which American remake is the most worthy of its original British brethren?

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Since brethren is plural I'm not sure it's the right word in this sentence.

Possible alternative:
... most worthy of the British original?

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Thanks, corrected.

Which of these American remakes is the most worthy of its original British brethren?

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I think Peter meant to omit brethren and re-order the words like he did, which I think is a good idea.

Which of these American remakes is the most worthy of the British original?

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corrected,
Which of these American remakes* is by comparison the most worthy of the British original? * IMDb rated 5.5+ (as of October 2019)

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Urb,

Thanks. I updated the question in your original post to match.

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Thanks

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5 years ago

Honorable Mentions

Blithe Spirit 1956 | TV Movie 8.0 (51)
British Original: Blithe Spirit (1945) starring Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings and Kay Hammond

* The most notable American remake version is the 1956 TV movie starring Lauren Bacall, Claudette Colbert and Noël Coward himself. Other remakes include a pair of American TV movie remakes: Blithe Spirit (1946) and Blithe Spirit (1966), several British TV movie remakes, as well as, Blithe Spirit (2020) starring Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher and Leslie Mann.

Trent's Last Case 1952 | Movie 5.9 (257)
British Original: Trent's Last Case (1920) and British Remake: Trent's Last Case (1952)

Tonight Is Ours 1933 | Movie 7.0 (86)
British-German Original Co-production: The Queen Was in the Parlour (1927)

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5 years ago

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5 years ago


Is there any better proof that they should stop trying to remake British movies? The Brit's have a subtlety that get's lost when they try and Americanise them.

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I can't disagree that the Americans don't have a strong record, but the reasons probably lie elsewhere than being an American remake or a British original. The subtlety loss and Americanization, I think this applies to other foreign adaptations, as well. Nowadays, I think a greater subsidy of the film and television industry by the British government, as well as, differences in actor training may be yield some more consistent qualitative advantages for British films. Americans have their own elite tiers of film-makers and actors. But, generally seem to be more focused on making more marketable and commercially successful films and lots of them. Otherwise, the comparisons may not be fair because the comparison is between different eras with most of the British originals coming from a period (1930-1970) when British film was a major player worldwide some fifty plus years ago.

Strong movies tend to get remade for every generation, so it isn't surprising that few happened to be American made given its dominance in the film making business and abundance of major studios. I find it more surprising that over the past century only twenty-five notable British-American remakes were made. It is an incredibly small number when you really think about it. So, much so that I think it indicates a lack of interest by American studios in remaking British films at all and makes it hard to draw any conclusions on such a small sample.

Also, I think more than a few of these are decent movies on their own and the film makers who remade should be proud of the end result. However, as a general rule remakes rarely exceed the original, making it less about the national origin. I doubt these remakes, if they were British made would have exceeded the end result of these American ones: Gaslight (1944), The Italian Job (2003), The Jackal (1997), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) and a few others.

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I think it seems like more because they've butchered so many tv shows over the years as well, especially comedies. The American humour just isn't the same as the Brit's. The worst part of any American "comedy" is that bloody awful canned applause that they insist on. If jokes are funny, you don't need to cue the audience to laugh. To be fair, they do a better job of the movies than they do the tv shows, but with their production budgets they get.

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5 years ago

the remake of italian job was horrible....

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I've tried to watch it a few times but never manage to get through it.  I managed to sit through The Jackal tough, that was bad enough.

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4 years ago

Congratulations urbanemovies on your 366th live poll! As of 2-Mar-2020 3:35 AM Pacific your polls have 500,723 or more votes, for an average of 1,368 votes per poll.

Best American Remake of a British Movie?
8234th Live Poll: https://www.imdb.com/poll/N2XE1Xk7E-E/
Seen:
http://www.imdb.com/seen/ls033556235/

This is the 3,750th Title poll. Such polls have a total of 8,944,853 votes for an average of 2,385 votes per poll.
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Projected Date of 20 Million Votes	4-Jan-2021
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