Three Frequently Imitated Films of 1954

Almost since the beginning of movies, people have been remaking movies. There have been more than 538 films based on Dracula alone. Just beyond the remake is the notion of “this film, but this way;” that’s how the pitch of “Die Hard on a bus” becomes Speed. In 1954, however, something was in the air with a trio of classic films that saw their plots reused, recycled, and rebooted in any manner of ways. From a Japanese classic to Lucy and Desi, here’s a look at some constantly copied classics.

Seven Samurai

Director Akira Kurosawa was no stranger to people repurposing his plots; his multiple perspective classic from 1950, Rashomon, has had its plot borrowed by everyone from Quentin Tarantino to the creators of Dawson’s Creek (Season 3’s “The Longest Day”), and The Hidden Fortress was a major influence on Star Wars.  Apart from being one of the greatest action movies ever made, Seven Samurai codified the notion of the “men on a mission” film, wherein trouble is instigated, an expert is recruited, said expert assembles a team, and said team battles the threat.

The restoration trailer for Seven Samurai (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Trailers)

Kurosawa wrote the screenplay with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Their first crack at the plot yielded a story that they were calling “Six Samurai,” but after some reconsideration, they thought that they needed one character who was a bit more of a wild card. That became Toshiro Mifune’s Kikuchiyo. With a more humorous character in place, the other personalities settled around him, creating some of the archetypes that became familiar in later action films (the wise leader, the leader’s steady right-hand man, the crazy guy, the quiet but effective fighter, etc.). You can see that reflected in everything from The Dirty Dozen to The Fast and the Furious franchise (notably Fast Five). In American comics, lineups for both DC’s Justice League and Marvel’s Avengers frequently contain seven members, which is often seen as a nod to the team balance and composition that Kurosawa and his collaborators used.

The group’s leader, Kambei (Takashi Shimura), gets an introductory subplot that critics like Roger Ebert also noted as incredibly influential. When the audience first meets Kambei, he’s in the midst of other things, eventually rescuing a child. Ebert theorized that this set the trope of introducing a character by showing them on a mission or job that isn’t related to the main plot, but allows them to demonstrate skills that they later use in the main story. One modern example would be Black Widow’s introduction in Avengers; while you’d know her capabilities if you saw Iron Man 2, Avengers brings her into the story in the middle of spycraft that she resolves by apprehending the Russian arms dealers before departing to answer Agent Coulson’s call. The James Bond films are also famous for this technique, frequently opening with what some critics referred to as a “prelim slammer,” an opening action scene to get the audience right into the movie before the main plot unfolds.

The particulars of marauding bandits plaguing a peaceful village have been directly adapted an endless number of times. Some of the most famous versions would include: John Sturges’s Western classic The Magnificent Seven; Pixar’s A Bug’s Life; and the fourth episode of the first season of The Mandalorian, “Sanctuary.” Obviously, The Magnificent Seven became its own mini-franchise of sequels, remakes, and TV series versions, but it all goes back to Kurosawa.

One particularly fun example of a Seven Samurai homage is 1980’s Battle Beyond the Stars, a science fiction spin on the story that wears its Kurosawa and Star Wars influences on its sleeve. Produced by Roger Corman and directed by Jimmy T. Murakami, the film swaps a village menaced by raiders for a planet menaced by raiders (the planet is even named Akir as a nod to Kurosawa’s first name). Young Shad (Richard Thomas) takes the job of recruiting a variety of humanoid aliens to come help (one of whom, in a double-reference score, is playing by Robert Vaughn of The Magnificent Seven). One of Corman’s model makers was promoted to essentially handle the special effects, production design, and art direction on the film; that was a major break for young James Cameron, who would direct The Terminator four years later.

Rear Window

Director Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes adapted Rear Window from Cornell Woolrich’s short story, “It Had to Be Murder.” Like Kurosawa, Woolrich was a frequent source of inspiration; before his death in 1968, his novels and short stories had been adapted for film 30 times. Much of that adapted success came from the reliable story engines that Woolrich built. In the case of “Murder,” the central idea of an observer seeing just enough to understand that a crime has been committed, but unable to prove it, presents all kinds of interesting directions a creator can go.

Rear Window trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

One of the film’s central set pieces, which has wheelchair-bound Jeff (Jimmy Stewart) watching while Lisa (Grace Kelly) tries to quietly evade Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) in the opposite apartment, has been imitated in countless pieces afterward. A notable example is in James Cameron’s Aliens, where Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and other characters watch on a screen as the Colonial Marines enter what turns about to be an alien hive; Ripley, understanding the danger, struggles to get Lieutenant Gorman to get the Marines out before disaster strikes. The tension-building, quick cuts, and situation of an observer helplessly watching the danger unfold owes much to Rear Window.

Rear Window not only influenced many other films like Dressed to Kill and Disturbia, but also inspired children’s books like The View from the Cherry Tree and countless television episodes (including, strangely enough, the enormously fun 1976 Halloween episode of Little House on the Prairie, “The Monster of Walnut Grove”).

The Long, Long Trailer

The Long, Long Trailer isn’t unique for being the adaptation of a popular book (this one by Clinton Twiss). And it’s not unique for casting a real-life couple as comedic leads. What set it apart at the time was that the stars of the film were also the stars of the #1 show on television at that moment. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had been dominating the ratings since 1951 with the launch of I Love Lucy, and they would continue that show’s run until 1957 (before transitioning to The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, which ran until 1960). Despite their fame and popularity, MGM had some consternation about whether or not paying audiences would show up for a couple that they could see for free on TV. It turned out . . . they did.

The Long, Long Trailer trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

While the movie might not be as well remembered as the first two, it had an outsized impact in terms of framing a comedy around a disastrous road trip that followed the acquisition of a particular vehicle. Shades of that show up in 1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation, 2006’s RV, and many more. One could even argue that We’re the Millers fits into this little subgenre. Central to the film is the number of self-inflicted mishaps caused by the characters making bad decisions. The roots of many Clark Griswold foul-ups can be found in scenes like Lucy attempting to make dinner in the trailer while Desi is driving. The movie set a template for movie road trips that’s become an ongoing point of reference

Lucille Ball: The Making of a Comic

A 2012 People magazine poll voted I Love Lucy the best TV show of all time. But when it premiered in 1951, there was no indication it would be anything more than another forgettable, career-killing sitcom. Until then, Lucille Ball, tall and pretty, had been cast as a showgirl or trouble-making hussy. In this May 31, 1958, interview with the Post, she explained why she made the move to television and comedy:

Why TV? It really wasn’t a big decision. I was tickled to death, for two reasons: I wanted a baby and I was never very happy in pictures. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for what pictures did for me. If a girl wants to be an actress and she’s paid good money for 16 years while she learns, she’s a jerk if she’s ungrateful. But with the exception of one or two pictures, I’ve never done anything I liked. You’re cast in pictures for what somebody thinks you look like, and the general idea seemed to be that I resembled “the other woman” or a colorful and too-dashing showgirl. What I felt like was a station-wagon housewife from Connecticut. I’d always leaned toward the homey bits in a script, and it was those bits that led up to I Love Lucy. That series began to take form and shape when I started having disputes with my movie studio, Columbia, about roles and finances.

When I was finished with Columbia, I had no other commitments except having a baby. Television was coming in, so I sat home with Desi, and we dreamed up I Love Lucy. I told Desi, “I want you to play my husband,” but my talent agency didn’t approve. The people there said the public wouldn’t believe I was married to Desi. He talked with a Cuban accent, and, after all, what typical American girl is married to a Latin? American girls marry them all the time, of course, but not on TV.

Unhappily, I lost that baby, and to get my mind off my loss, I said to Desi and the agency, “We’ll try out our proposed TV act in vaudeville.” We did, and the public accepted our Cuban-American marriage in spite of the doubts of the talent-agency people.

It was mostly husband-and-wife situation comedy. Mixed in with it was a little music, dancing, gags, and serious stuff. I became pregnant again, so we couldn’t continue our tour, but we were convinced we were on the right track and we sold Desi to CBS as my TV husband. I don’t remember the business details. I was pregnant and happy, and I knew I would be available eventually, and that’s all I recall.

Make ’em Laugh

Most comedy successes stem from long-standing inferiority complexes, and I had mine. My father died when I was four. Mother married again, and for seven or eight years I was with my stepfather’s Swedish parents. Until I was nine it was tough going. My step-grandparents had stern, old-country ideas. They treated other children the way I wanted to be treated, but not me. They did that to discipline me, but for me it was the wrong way to bring up a child. It gave me a feeling of frustration and of reaching-out-and-trying-to-please. I found the quickest and easiest way to do that was to make people laugh.

The principal of my school recognized my urge for approval. He saw to it that I had a part in school plays and operettas. My mother and my stepfather also encouraged me to act, dance, and sing.

When I was 14, I persuaded mother to send me to the John Murray Anderson–­Robert Milton Dramatic School, in New York. I was so shy I was terrified. Bette Davis was the star pupil. I can see her now, starring in plays while I hid behind the scenery. And I took elocution, and Robert Milton made me repeat “water” and “horses” because I pronounced them “worter” and “haases.” I was so miserable mother brought me home, and I spent the next few months writing poetry.

The following summer, mother arranged for me to visit friends in New York. This time I wanted to be in vaudeville, but I never met anybody who knew how to get in vaudeville, so I decided to be a showgirl and I answered a call for an Earl Carroll tryout. I was tall and thin, but measurements weren’t the whole bit then. I rehearsed for two weeks, then a man said to me, “Miss Belmont!” (That’s who I’d decided to be.) “You’re through.” I found out later I was so young and so dumb I wasn’t contributing anything. I don’t know why they picked me in the first place.

Meeting Desi

I met [Desi Arnaz] at the RKO studio in May 1940. We were filming Too Many Girls, the stage show in which Desi made his first big hit. He asked me for a date that very night, and pretty soon we were married — in spite of the way he drove a car. The first time I drove with him, although he slowed to 80 miles an hour at corners, I thought he was a maniac. When I said, “Mother wouldn’t like this,” he slowed down.

He frightened me. Marrying Desi was the boldest thing I ever did. I’d achieved some stability in Hollywood, while Desi seemed headed in another direction.

Being Pregnant on TV

In 1953, we were in the middle of a very successful TV show, which was a thing no one would want to drop. I was suddenly pregnant again and we faced the question: Should I stop working for months or stay on the job? Desi told me, “If you want my vote, we’ll stay on until you have the baby.”

The idea was a startling one, but he went to work on it. First he got permission from the network. He said, “We think the American people will buy Lucy’s having a baby if it’s done with taste. Pregnant women are not kept off the streets, so why should she be kept off television? There’s nothing disgraceful about a wife becoming a mother.” The furor it all caused was a revelation to me.

Hundreds of thousands of women all over the country who were pregnant along with me wrote me encouraging notes, and after our baby was born, I received 30,000 congratulatory telegrams and letters. Our first child, Lucy, had been born by caesarean section. Little Desi was delivered by caesarean too. If you know your baby is going to be a caesarean baby, it helps you call your shots.

[Desi Arnaz added:] “We didn’t want to do anything that would upset the public. I called the heads of the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish faiths in Los Angeles and asked them to assign representatives to keep an eye on our shows. So for eight weeks, a rabbi, a Protestant minister, and a Catholic priest checked every foot of film we shot. There was nothing we had to throw out except the word pregnant. CBS didn’t like that, so we used expectant. CBS thought it a nicer word.

—“I Call on Lucy and Desi” by Pete Martin, May 31, 1958