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
News of the Week: Emoji, ’90s Nostalgia, and One Really Scary Sitcom Statue
Should Grown Men Use Emoji?
Short answer: No. Long answer: No no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
If you don’t know what emoji are (is?), well, I envy you. They’re the little smiley faces and other faces or symbols you see replacing words online, sort of like really fancy emoticons. The New York Times is asking if grown men should even use them or, you know, stick to words. And it’s not a sexist thing, if you’re wondering. Women use emoji more. Though, as Columbia University linguist John McWhorter says in the article, that might be changing.
I’m not going to use emoji unless they start to replace letters on the keyboard. I don’t care how much they’re beginning to infest the online world. I’m not even used to semicolons yet, even if I do use them in the next story.
Attack of the Lucille Ball Statue!
I love this trend of installing statues of classic TV characters around the country. TV Land has several of them, including a Mary Tyler Moore statue in Minneapolis; Andy and Opie from The Andy Griffith Show in Raleigh, North Carolina; Bob Newhart in Chicago; and Samantha Stephens from Bewitched in Salem, Massachusetts, not too far from me. There’s also a statue of Lucille Ball (which TV Land doesn’t have anything to do with), and it’s completely freaking out fans of the actress.
The 400-pound bronze statue was actually installed in Ball’s hometown of Celoron, New York, six years ago, but efforts to either fix or replace it have really picked up steam recently. There’s a Facebook page called We Love Lucy. Get Rid of this Statue! — and if you listen carefully you can even hear Lucy Ricardo’s famous “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAA.”
The artist is now apologizing and says in a letter to The Hollywood Reporter that he’ll fix it. But the mayor of Celoron, Scott Schrecengost, wants someone else to fix it.
It’s not that it doesn’t look like Lucille Ball. It’s just that it looks like Lucille Ball’s corpse, arisen from her grave a la The Walking Dead.
’90s Nostalgia Has Gotten Out of Hand
For some reason, NBC is bringing back Coach, the Craig T. Nelson sitcom that ran on ABC in the late ’80s to mid-’90s. Fox is bringing back The X-Files. Arrested Development is already back on Netflix, Boy Meets World (only this time with a girl) is currently on Disney, and Bob Odenkirk and David Cross are even going to do a Mr. Show-ish sketch comedy for Netflix. But the biggest news for people whose knowledge of pop culture doesn’t go past 1994 is that Full House might be coming back! I’m using that exclamation point sarcastically!
The update, called Fuller House, will focus on characters DJ Tanner and Kimmy Gibbler. John Stamos, Bob Saget, and Dave Coulier will all make appearances but don’t count on seeing the Olsen twins. Slate has a three-minute video that will tell you all you need to know (and then some) about the show.
You can thank ’90s nostalgia on the Web for this. Soon there will be an entire TV network based on BuzzFeed listicles and GIFs.
RIP, Pillsbury Doughboy and Pet Rock Creators
Here’s more nostalgia, but not in a good way. The creators of two pop culture icons have passed away. Rudolph Perz was an advertising executive who invented the Pillsbury Doughboy for General Mills in 1965. He died at the age of 89 on April 1. And Gary Dahl, the inventor of the 1970s fad Pet Rock, passed away in March. He was 78.
I never owned a Pet Rock. I’m assuming having a rock as a pet must sound awfully confusing to 10-year-olds who have their own smartphones, but it was silly fun. You can actually still buy them. I do have a Pillsbury Doughboy figure somewhere in the house. In the latest TV commercial, someone finally buys him some pants.
Choosing A College? Use Instagram
I realize as I get older, many of my sentences start out with “When I was young…” or “When I was in school…” but when I was in school, we didn’t have the Internet to help us pick a college. We had to use pencils and typewriters and snail mail and our cars to research colleges. We didn’t have websites and Wikipedia and all of the fancy Googles and Tumblrs and Meerkats that kids have these days (oh sorry, Meerkat is already soooooo early 2015 — it’s Periscope now).
Now students are actually using Instagram to see what their colleges are like. Since they can’t actually go to every college campus to see what they’re like (well, they can, but they can’t), kids are looking at the official Instagram accounts for the schools to see what the campuses look like and what student life is like there.
One day, probably not too far from this very moment, people will be able to get their college degrees without ever leaving Facebook. Your GPA will be based on the number of Likes you have.
April Is National Grilled Cheese Month
I went on a health kick a few years ago and tried to find smart and healthy alternatives for the foods I loved to eat. One of the things I tried was making a grilled cheese without grilling it. Instead I put the bread in a toaster and quickly put a few slices of low-fat American cheese on the bread while it was still hot. Let’s just say it wasn’t the same. The bread wasn’t the same without butter, and the low-fat cheese tasted like cheese-flavored envelopes.
So let’s celebrate National Grilled Cheese Month by using our stovetops. There are more variations on the classic than you think: Food Network has 50 grilled cheese recipes and All Recipes has several too. You can also check out the Grilled Cheese Academy. As the site says, it’s not a culinary school or a school of higher learning, they just love cheese (from Wisconsin, to be exact).
Upcoming Anniversaries and Events
Thomas Jefferson born (April 13, 1743)
Read what Jefferson and other great Americans had to say about free speech.
President Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth (April 14, 1865)
I bet you don’t know what happened to Booth after he shot the president.
Titanic hits iceberg (April 14, 1912)
Read more on the inevitable tragedy of the great ship.
Charlie Chaplin born (April 16, 1889)
Record Store Day (April 18)
Remember independent record stores? Visit one today so they’ll stay in business!