I read recently that Mel Gibson is doing a remake of The Wild Bunch.
What an insane idea. There can be no remake of perfection, and Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch is perfection.
More on this later.
Why do people try to remake old westerns? With one exception, they have never done it well.
1950s westerns fit into my life in a powerful way. My father really liked them. And so, in the 1950s when I was a pre-teen, he and I would go to see a western about once a week or so. I never tired of them, and of course liked being with my father.
Here are some examples of remakes that get an F:
One of the top 10 westerns ever made. 1960. It was truly magnificent, with several stars, a moving story and absolutely awesome, and irreplaceable, film score.
It starred Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn (the Man From Uncle), and as the bad guy, Eli Wallach. A star-studded cast if there ever was one.
The 2016 version was a PC project--complete with an Asian, Black, Latino, and Native American actors in the "Seven." And the "enemy" wasn't a Mexican bandit and his gang, but instead was......wait for it....a white industrialist. Oh jeez.
As mentioned, the original featured Eli Wallach as Calvera, the leader of the band that was terrorizing the village that the Seven went in to protect. He was a great bandit.
Here is an interesting tidbit about the Seven and Calvera.
The actors who played the Seven lived to an average of 72 years old. Calvera lived to be 98.
Shows you that crime actually maybe DOES pay.
Can anyone hum the theme song to the remake?
I can. Want to know what it is? It is the theme song from the ORIGINAL, 1960, version of the film. They must have realized that they couldn't improve upon the original soundtrack, but somehow thought they could improve upon the original movie. FAIL.
Another interesting tidbit. The original Magnificent Seven was based upon a Japanese movie called the Seven Samurai. Same basic story.
But I'd advise you to skip Seven Samurai. It was a great story, and a good-enough film, but it was basically three hours of screeching. Not just speaking Japanese, but screeching it. If you watch it, wear ear plugs. It is highly respected and highly rated, but I found it to be not nearly as moving and well-made as the John Sturgis film Magnificent Seven. I also think it was about an hour too long.
But that's just me. What do I know? As mentioned above, I only spent my childhood in the 1950s, with my father, going to westerns, and have seen hundreds of them.
I also have a collection of about 450, mostly 1950s, westerns. The 50s were the heyday of westerns.
From 1985-1993 Cinemax (remember Cinemax?) had a channel titled Cinemax Western Roundup. I was a fan. I videotaped most of my 450 westerns during this time, and then, 25 years later, converted them to digital. A labor of love, but they have a special place in my heart because of my father.
I had two favorites. One was The Searchers (my all-time favorite western and all-time favorite film).
The other is one of the top westerns of all time: 3:10 to Yuma. This the second remake I'm going to rip.
2. 3:10 to Yuma remake The original 3:10 to Yuma.
It was written by Elmore Leonard, an extremely talented writer who went on to write many books and screenplays about low-level gangsters (Get Shorty, Justified, Jackie Brown, etc.).
3:10 to Yuma was a film about a rancher who is desperate to feed his family because of a drought. So he volunteers to escort a criminal (Ben Wade, played by Glenn Ford) to the 3:10 to Yuma train, in exchange for some money to keep his ranch from going under. No one else would do it, because Ben Wade had a nasty gang who was trying to keep him from having to get on this train. The rancher was no lawman, no gunman. Just a guy whose ranch was going under because of lack of rain. That's the beauty of this film.
And during the film, Ben Wade slowly changes his attitude toward this man who is not doing anything for glory but just for his wife and child. At the crucial moment in the film, the train is leaving and the rancher has no way of forcing Ben Wade onto it and avoid the gang that will kill him. At the last minute Ben Wade jumps into the box car with him. Ben Wade does not want to leave the rancher at the mercy of his gang--he has developed a genuine respect for him.
On the way out of town, the rancher sees his wife and son along the road in a buckboard, as it starts to rain. And the theme music starts. Sung by Frankie Laine.
Oh boy, cowboy.
Another aspect of this film for me is a powerful family memory. On the way to the movie with my dad, in 1957, I realized that, for about the first time (maybe actually the first time), my sister Kathy was going with us. This meant that my mom was home alone.
So I asked dad to stop the car, and I got out, and started to walk back to the house to be with mom so she wouldn't be alone. I felt so bad for her. As I started walking, my dad got out and told me that it was OK, that mom would be fine and that I could go to the movie.
Later that night, in my bedroom, when my parents thought I was asleep, I heard my father tell this story to my mother. She never said anything about it, nor did he. But I was so proud that my mother knew I cared about her in this way.
So, now the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, with Russell Crowe playing Ben Wade, and Christian Bale playing the role of the rancher.
Blah. Russell Crowe is a sharpshooter, and Christian Bale is totally unconvincing in his role as a desperate rancher. He should have watched the original with Van Heflin as the rancher to get ideas of how to play the role.
.....and (spoiler alert) at the end of the film, Christian Bale gets killed. For real. No sweet ending. And Russell Crowe doesn't get to Yuma. He whistles for his horse who gallops to the train and he escapes--Ben Wade is also a horse trainer for the circus, I guess. So not only is the rancher's wife and child worse off than if the rancher had just stayed home, but I don't believe it even started to rain at the end.
The director (Anton Fuqua) should have gone to westerns with his dad, so he could understand what they are all about.
3. Now, just to prove I can be fair, there was one remake, True Grit, that was better than the original True Grit. On the other hand, although it is officially a "western," in many respects it is almost more of a comedy because of the skillful and unique writing in the book it was based upon.
True Grit was written by Charles Portis. Portis could use language in a way that was different, fun, and funny. He didn't write many novels, unfortunately.
In the original, the cast had two major players: John Wayne and, as the bad guy, Robert Duvall in a very early role (and minor one in this film). John Wayne won an Academy Award for best acting, but shouldn't have (and I can say this as an admitted John Wayne fan). He was much better in several earlier films, including two where he should have won Academy Awards for best actor (The Searchers and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon). It was given to him for True Grit because he had been ignored earlier in his career when he really could act.
The rest of the starring cast was weak: Kim Darby, Glenn Campbell.
In a supporting role (actually one extended scene) was one of the great character actors of all time: Strother Martin. He is most well known by a single line in the film Cool Hand Luke: "What we have here is a failure to communicate."
The remake was done by the Coen brothers, who I am sure enjoyed the opportunity to highlight Portis' humor.
In the Rooster Cogburn role was Jeff Bridges who was great. And as LaBoeuf (pronounced LaBeef) was Matt Damon who was funnier than all get out. This is an example of Portis' humor, though. Who would name a character in a western LaBoeuf? Damon portrays him as a precise-talking stuffed-shirt Texas Ranger.
In the final scene of the film, John Wayne charges four men in a terrific gunfight. However, the scene was carefully constructed so that the closeups of Wayne were done while he was in the bed of a truck.
However, in the remake, Jeff Bridges is really riding the horse. That's quite a feat.
The main person in the film and story is none of the men though. Instead it was the young girl who sets out to track down an outlaw who killed her father. In the remake she is played by a new actress: Hailee Steinfeld. It was her first movie role, at age 14. She was terrific. Her character, Mattie Ross, had no sense of humor. Tough as nails. Sharp witted.
She set out on her journey to find someone with "true grit" to hunt down the outlaw that killed her father.
In point of fact, in an irony that Charles Portis created, it was actually Mattie Ross who had "true grit."
You just gotta watch this scene. It is a classic.
Here is the scene from the original True Grit. It is also well done. It is the scene with the aforementioned Strother Martin. (as a coincidence, Strother Martin was also in The Wild Bunch).
It's all great fun, very funny in places. And touching, especially with the theme music.
It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards. It didn't win any. That would probably have amused Charles Portis. It should have won several.
4. Back to The Wild Bunch.
It starred five aging, over-the-hill actors playing five aging, over-the-hill outlaws.
Besides a terrific story and terrific acting, this film wrote the book on gunfights and the cinematography of gunfights. There are scenes that are almost unbelievable. The director, Sam Peckinpah, was noted for the violence in his films, but the violence in The Wild Bunch is absolutely beautiful at times.
You've got to see it to believe it. One member of the gang is helping the authorities destroy the rest of the gang. Everybody is a lout. Everybody is thinking only about themselves and will turn on each other on a dime. They are awful to each other, to women, to townspeople, to everybody.
Except at the end. "Let's go" they say as they go to try to rescue their friend.
They "go" all right--to the most amazing gun battle you will ever see, and by far the most amazing gun battle ever portrayed in a western. It rivals the landing on Normandy Beach in Saving Private Ryan. It lasts over five minutes, if you can believe that. Here is a great depiction of how it was shot. Last gunfight in The Wild Bunch.
The American Film Institute ranked The Wild Bunch as the 6th best western of all time. It deserves its high honor (and for the record, the AFI listed The Searchers as the best western of all time--just sayin...).
Mel Gibson's remake is appearing, once again, to be a PC version. Here is an article about it, written two years ago. It does not seem anything has happened in the interim. Good!
Drop it, Mel. You are a great movie maker. But don't try to remake greatness. You'll fail.
People--stop trying to remake old westerns. Leave them to my memories of me with my father.
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