Films and shows that COULD NEVER Be Made Today!

[ChiTownScion]

Lizzie mentioned in the TV thread that "Get Smart" could never be made today... She rightly pointed out that the "spy craze" of the 60's was the perfect time for this farce. Her comment got me thinking so I figured I'd ask you all what you think couldn't get made today...

1. The Beverly Hillbillies" - No way southerners would stand for this depiction of moonshine swillin' gun tottin' ruffians invading L.A. today.

2. "Hogan's Heroes" - I was amazed it ever aired the first time around so soon after WWII. I've never found anything funny about Nazis.

3. "Blazing Saddles" - Too funny, too smart and too offensive. Be thankful we got the original when we did.

4. "The Ed Sullivan Show" - Unless they made it a reality show or had live voting... just putting out performers from all genres wouldn't sell today.

5. "Welcome Back Kotter" - I'd say public education in America's inner cities wouldn't be a ripe place for comedy today.

6. "The Mod Squad" - I don't feel teenaged undercover cops would work so well either particularly ones that were clearly dated when they aired the first time.

7 . Blaxploitation - Some would say it's alive and well with Tyler Perry but he looks like Bergman compared to some of that old stuff. "Blackula"?

Well this is just some off the top of my haid at 3:00 AM on a Sunday morning.

Worf

My dad wouldn't allow "Hogan's Heroes" on the television when he was home. Part of it was that he saw nothing funny about a POW camp, but I think that turning his former enemies into hapless clowns was a sore point. His view was that it took the world to defeat the German Third Reich and that while that nation's leadership deserved scorn and condemnation, the average German soldier was much like him: doing his best just to survive the pure hell around him, and worthy of respect. He felt that he had more in common with former enemies that he had faced in North Africa, or Normandy, or the Ardennes, than he had with American civilians who had known no greater privations than meat or gas rationing. Turning them into characters of fun in a sitcom for the sake of a few laughs was, to his mind, belittling his own war experiences.

On the other hand, when we were watching Mel Brook's "The Producers" (1968) for the first time, and the opening song and dance number of the ill fated musical ("Springtime For Hitler") was on, he was laughing so hard that I thought he would have an M.I. The remake movie with Matthew Broderick (as well as stage productions of the same title that made the rounds about the same time) never quite had the punch that the original movie with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder did. My theory is that the idea of a movie about producing a guaranteed flop theatrical, a musical about Adolf Hitler that ended up being an unplanned smash comedy, was so audacious and so outrageous in 1968, when Hitler had been gone for less than a quarter of a century and memories were still fresh, simply could not be replayed 30+ years later. By that time, we had lived to hear the strains of "Springtime for Hitler" on department store Muzak recordings, so you might say that the Coke in that open bottle had lost its fizz.

 

[Worf]

movies like "FLIGHT of THE PHOENIX" starring James Stewart

actors these days arent even half the man James Stewart was

they can try to remake old movies but todays actors just dont have what it takes, they seem to come and go and I dont even know who the new actors were/ almost like nobodys.

or like the classic movie "SERGEANT YORK" starring Gary Cooper, they could never find a modern actor to replace a man like him.

Though part of me agrees with you I do think there are some modern actors that could do the job. Christian Bale, Daniel Day Lewis, Leonard Di Caprio among others could handle almost any role I could think of. A lot from the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was great as were many of the actors but greatness and talent know no generational distinctions. If you've got it, you've got it! To your point I don't think Hollywood would take on "Sergeant York" again although they did try a remake of "Flight of the Phoenix". Those kind of patriotic "He Man" films have been replace by Super Hero films. However I think Gibson's "Hacksaw Ridge" certainly hit the mark and the story is as compelling as York's any day.

Worf

 

[2jakes]

Three reasons this film could never be made today!
Anne Francis, Anne Francis & Anne Francis.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In line with the Hogan's Heroes discussion, you couldn't make the series of comedy featurettes made by Hal Roach in the mid-forties starring Bobby Watson as a zany madcap Hitler. "The Devil With Hitler" showed Satan upset at being deposed as ruler of Hell in favor of Hitler, so he goes to earth and tries to trick Hitler into doing good deeds, thus proving himself unworthy of wielding the pitchfork. And "The Nazty Nuiscance" sends Hitler on a wacky mission to enlist the support of an East Asian potentate, accompanied his zany sidekicks Mussolini and a Japanese caricature named "Sukiyaki." Watson plays Hitler as a swishy, sputtering buffoon in these films, and he and his Axis pals engage in broad Stooge-like slapstick thruout the films.

Watson, who before the war was best known for playing campy choreographers and fashion designers in musicals, played Hitler in a great many films during the forties and fifties, sometimes straight, but more often for crude laughs. "Heil myself!"

 

[Benzadmiral]

If someone were to do The Man from U.N.C.L.E. today -- perhaps not as a period piece like the 2015 film -- it would wind up being deliberately dark, with Solo and Illya morally compromised, Mr. Waverly part of a secret cabal planning to overthrow the world's governments, and utterly without the sense of play that informed the original and the movie. The light touch in adventure seems to be impossible for modern writers/producers to manage. I had hopes for the Guardians of the Galaxy films, and they had some of that flavor, but not very much.

 

[Fading Fast]

If someone were to do The Man from U.N.C.L.E. today -- perhaps not as a period piece like the 2015 film -- it would wind up being deliberately dark, with Solo and Illya morally compromised, Mr. Waverly part of a secret cabal planning to overthrow the world's governments, and utterly without the sense of play that informed the original and the movie. The light touch in adventure seems to be impossible for modern writers/producers to manage. I had hopes for the Guardians of the Galaxy films, and they had some of that flavor, but not very much.

You are spot on. Almost everything that isn't obvious comedy (which is more snark than comedy) today has a dark, super dark, cynical, super cynical approach.

That is, IMHO, what made the 2015 "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." so special - they played it fast and loose / kept it fun without being silly. It was light, enjoyable, intelligent and engaging (I liked it even more the second time I saw it as I could focus more on its style and humor which were outstanding).

To be fair, some of the better and smarter TV shows on today are the super dark / super cynical shows like "Taboo," "Blacklist" and "The Americans," but it does get exhausting watching them.

 

[scottyrocks]

I don't think they could ever remake those 1930s high society pictures/musicals. They are so dated to their period that they wouldn't stand up to today's audiences without severe updating and alterations, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of this thread - remaking movies/TV shows as they were.

 

[scottyrocks]

If someone were to do The Man from U.N.C.L.E. today -- perhaps not as a period piece like the 2015 film -- it would wind up being deliberately dark, with Solo and Illya morally compromised, Mr. Waverly part of a secret cabal planning to overthrow the world's governments, and utterly without the sense of play that informed the original and the movie. The light touch in adventure seems to be impossible for modern writers/producers to manage. I had hopes for the Guardians of the Galaxy films, and they had some of that flavor, but not very much.

They did similar with the 2004 Starsky and Hutch remake, which was a tongue-in-cheek comedy, while the original TV series took itself seriously most of the time.

 

[Benzadmiral]

They did similar with the 2004 Starsky and Hutch remake, which was a tongue-in-cheek comedy, while the original TV series took itself seriously most of the time.

Right. Either the modern producers take a serious series, like S & H or 21 Jump Street (which had funny moments, but was essentially a cop drama), and poke fun at it; or they take a show with a light touch like U.N.C.L.E. and make it grim and unprepossessing. They call it "putting our own stamp on the property" or something like that. All I can say is, we got durned lucky with the U.N.C.L.E. film!

 

[Fading Fast]

I don't think they could ever remake those 1930s high society pictures/musicals. They are so dated to their period that they wouldn't stand up to today's audiences without severe updating and alterations, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of this thread - remaking movies/TV shows as they were.

Somewhat, but not really, "La La Land" tried to follow your advice and, overall, it worked. Not great, but I enjoy it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't think they could ever remake those 1930s high society pictures/musicals. They are so dated to their period that they wouldn't stand up to today's audiences without severe updating and alterations, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of this thread - remaking movies/TV shows as they were.

Of course, they weren't even realistitc *for their own time* -- they were escapist fantasies, in the same way that superhero pictures are escapist fantasies for our time. P. G. Wodehouse once acknowledged that his "Jeeves and Wooster" stories were not set in any real, actual England that ever existed, but rather in a sort of never-never-land fantasy of England. 1930s musicals, with the possible exception of the Warner Bros. Depression musicals like 42nd Street, etc, were the same way.

 

[Edward]

My dad wouldn't allow "Hogan's Heroes" on the television when he was home. Part of it was that he saw nothing funny about a POW camp, but I think that turning his former enemies into hapless clowns was a sore point. His view was that it took the world to defeat the German Third Reich and that while that nation's leadership deserved scorn and condemnation, the average German soldier was much like him: doing his best just to survive the pure hell around him, and worthy of respect. He felt that he had more in common with former enemies that he had faced in North Africa, or Normandy, or the Ardennes, than he had with American civilians who had known no greater privations than meat or gas rationing. Turning them into characters of fun in a sitcom for the sake of a few laughs was, to his mind, belittling his own war experiences.

The interesting thing is that in the UK we're seeing the opposite effect. In wartime Britain, this sort of thing would have been exactly how it would have been handled: disempower your enemy's ability to cause fear in you by mocking him, making him a buffoon to be laughed at. This sort of thing wasn't discouraged at all - I rather believe it suited British propaganda efforts to keep morale up on the home front very well indeed. Even into the eighties, a show like Allo Allo could be made - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Allo_'Allo! Probably would be impossible now; as the WW2 generation has died off, an often sinister fetishisation has arisen, and anything which doesn't stick, po-facedly, to the script can struggle. This is abundantly evidenced by, if nothing else, the near deification of Churchill: a leader with a very chequered record, the war generation booted him out of office at the first opportunity (though he did manage to return in 1951, "properly" "elected" as PM, and held the office for four years), and the 'national mourning' at his death was much exaggerated. Only in more recent years as the war generation die out has his myth become so strong, probably since 2002ish, when he was first voted "Greatest Briton" in a public poll. Several years ago, a similar poll voted Henry VIII "the nation's favourite historical monarch", so.....

On the other hand, when we were watching Mel Brook's "The Producers" (1968) for the first time, and the opening song and dance number of the ill fated musical ("Springtime For Hitler") was on, he was laughing so hard that I thought he would have an M.I. The remake movie with Matthew Broderick (as well as stage productions of the same title that made the rounds about the same time) never quite had the punch that the original movie with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder did. My theory is that the idea of a movie about producing a guaranteed flop theatrical, a musical about Adolf Hitler that ended up being an unplanned smash comedy, was so audacious and so outrageous in 1968, when Hitler had been gone for less than a quarter of a century and memories were still fresh, simply could not be replayed 30+ years later. By that time, we had lived to hear the strains of "Springtime for Hitler" on department store Muzak recordings, so you might say that the Coke in that open bottle had lost its fizz.

Funny how these things go. I remember a time when the "comedy Nazi" was a British fancy dress tradition; nowadays, tabloid newspapers actively hunt out photos of celebrities in such garb for public vilification. Not that I think it's always a good idea to go around in Nazi uniform, mind, but sometimes it does rather feel like we've lost sight of what is important. Ironically, those who shout the loudest about Little England's Great Patriotic Victory in WW2 are often most reminiscent of the other side in their other attitudes.

Though part of me agrees with you I do think there are some modern actors that could do the job. Christian Bale, Daniel Day Lewis, Leonard Di Caprio among others could handle almost any role I could think of. A lot from the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was great as were many of the actors but greatness and talent know no generational distinctions. If you've got it, you've got it! To your point I don't think Hollywood would take on "Sergeant York" again although they did try a remake of "Flight of the Phoenix". Those kind of patriotic "He Man" films have been replace by Super Hero films. However I think Gibson's "Hacksaw Ridge" certainly hit the mark and the story is as compelling as York's any day.

Worf

There are certainly some great actors around today. DiCaprio is marvellous in those late 40s / early 50s period pieces - he just looks so perfect in the outfits. Perhaps because he wears them like clothes rather than costume.

They did similar with the 2004 Starsky and Hutch remake, which was a tongue-in-cheek comedy, while the original TV series took itself seriously most of the time.

There was a vogue at the time for taking old TV shows and making them into comedic cinema fare. To be fair, I think in some cases that was the only way it could have worked: Dukes of Hazzard, for instance, managed to retain the iconic car with its full paintjob intact while, through gentle humour, recognising that it could preovoke polarising views.

 

[Fading Fast]

"The Flintstones"

It may probably be rejected for being "too nice." These days cartoons are unnecessarily aggressive or plainly stupid. I pity the children of the upcoming generations, as I think things will get increasingly worse.

More than a decade ago, I remember a movement against the violence in the classic cartoons of the '30s - '60s as they said they encouraged or desensitized kids to violence. While I don't hear that as much today - the always-ready-to-nag contingent must have moved on to something else to complain about (they always do) - my guess is all those blows over the head with a frying pan or bombs blowing up our coyote friend in classic cartoons wouldn't be allowed anymore.

As a kid who grew up on a steady diet of all of that - as long as I did my chores, I could watch all the TV I wanted - the adult me never understood the concern as even a kid would need to be insane not to know the difference between cartoons and real life. Sure, somewhere some at-the-perfect-age-and-in-the-perfect-moment very young kid hit someone with a frying pan - maybe even after watching Bugs Bunny do it - but in a country of 300+ million, we will shut everything down if we set our cultural guardrails to the furthest outlier.

I don't have kids - so no idea what cartoons are like today, but I'm guessing that old style violence is out?

 

[ChiTownScion]

"The Flintstones"

It may probably be rejected for being "too nice."

And then there are the anti- science, cosmological fate of mankind determined by a talking snake types who have to be reminded that the Flintstone- with its humans and dinosaurs coexisting premise- was comedy animation and not a documentary.

 

[HanauMan]

I don't have kids - so no idea what cartoons are like today, but I'm guessing that old style violence is out?

Oh I don't know. I saw a cartoon called SpongeBob the other day which had a walking sponge exposing his brain, much to the horror of his fellow sea critters! Man, it freaked me out!

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing which must always be brought to mind is that the cartoons of the Era were not made for children. At all. They were targeted to adults, and their primary audience was adults, in theatres. They were meant to be watched once and forgotten -- unless they were re-released ten or fifteen years later to save on the annual studio budget, and were watched and forgotten once again. They were made by a generation of people who had grown up watching silent movie comedians blowing each other up, falling off buildings, crashing cars into trains, and doing other such outrageous gags, and they were presenting them to an audience who had also grown up with an appreciation of broad visual slapstick comedy.

The constant repetition of these cartoons on television, for kiddie audiences, didn't really begin until the late 1950s, and though that generation of kids did grow up with a documented greater propensity for violence than previous generations, one can blame that more on the tetraethyl lead they were breathing and swallowing from their environment than on their goggle-eyed absorption of Heckle and Jeckle.

Show those cartoons to a kid who has never seen slapstick comedy in any form, and you'll get a different reaction, I think, than you would from a kid who has been raised on slapstick comedy and knows what the gags are and how to interpret them. We should have *more* exaggerated *comedy* violence in the media, not less, and preferably in place of the obscenely exaggerated "realistic" violence that the last couple of generations have wallowed in. More Frank Tashlin, less Tarantino.

My brother knocked me out dead cold with a metal cap gun when he was three years old, but he didn't learn it from watching cartoons, he learned it from watching Kojak.

 

[Worf]

^^^ Is he still alive, your brother I mean? What form of blood curdling vengeance did you heap upon his broken, twisted body? Are there pictures? I mean of you being out cold with birdies and stars circling your head? C'mon give! You can't drop a bomb like that without a more thorough telling of this tale!. Did your parents ship him to Siberia or give him a medal? Enquiring minds etc...

Worf

 

[ChiTownScion]

The thing which must always be brought to mind is that the cartoons of the Era were not made for children. At all. They were targeted to adults, and their primary audience was adults, in theatres. They were meant to be watched once and forgotten -- unless they were re-released ten or fifteen years later to save on the annual studio budget, and were watched and forgotten once again. They were made by a generation of people who had grown up watching silent movie comedians blowing each other up, falling off buildings, crashing cars into trains, and doing other such outrageous gags, and they were presenting them to an audience who had also grown up with an appreciation of broad visual slapstick comedy.

The constant repetition of these cartoons on television, for kiddie audiences, didn't really begin until the late 1950s, and though that generation of kids did grow up with a documented greater propensity for violence than previous generations, one can blame that more on the tetraethyl lead they were breathing and swallowing from their environment than on their goggle-eyed absorption of Heckle and Jeckle.

Show those cartoons to a kid who has never seen slapstick comedy in any form, and you'll get a different reaction, I think, than you would from a kid who has been raised on slapstick comedy and knows what the gags are and how to interpret them. We should have *more* exaggerated *comedy* violence in the media, not less, and preferably in place of the obscenely exaggerated "realistic" violence that the last couple of generations have wallowed in. More Frank Tashlin, less Tarantino.

My brother knocked me out dead cold with a metal cap gun when he was three years old, but he didn't learn it from watching cartoons, he learned it from watching Kojak.

I can recall that brief period (about 5 years) between the wedding and the first baby when I really got into the toons of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones and collected videos of their best. Showing up at a family holiday dinner I popped them into the VCR for all of the cousins' and my sister's kids. They were spellbound by them, and what was really heartwarming was watching their grandparents laughing along with the gags. There was real artistry in that animation. The Hanna Barbera made for television stuff of the 60's and 70's could never come close to it.. although in the 80's and 90's there were a few bright spots in cartoons: Animaniacs, the Ralph Bakshi New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, etc.


I appreciate the social commentary of the Simpsons, but to be honest, a lot of the contemporary stuff (Family Guy and the Adult Swim stuff) hits me as too dark and depressing.


As far as getting whacked in the head by a brother who learned it from Kojak, Lizzie: I'm just glad that this is one that will not be blamed on the Three Stooges.

 

[LizzieMaine]

He was a real case for a while. As a teenager he went thru a "ninja" phase, and would throw those metal star things at the walls when he was wound up. He got a crossbow somewhere, and once when we had rats coming up thru the toilet pipe he'd lurk in the bathtub waiting for one to appear in hopes of getting off a good shot at it. Fortunately, my mother took charge of the situation, dumped a can of lye down the toilet, and the rat did not reappear.

The ninja phase came to an end one day when he got into a fight with some other kid and started going into his "wax on wax off" moves. The other kid broke a two-by-four over his back, and that was the end of that.

I haven't seen him in probably fifteen years. He was a professional couch-surfer until he was about forty, and then he got a job managing a "Whole Foods" grocery store in New Orleans, where he remains to this day, living on coffee and cigarettes. A few years back he proposed to move back home and live in a tent in our mother's back yard, but Ma told him in her most emphatic manner that this was unlikely to be a good plan.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can recall that brief period (about 5 years) between the wedding and the first baby when I really got into the toons of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones and collected videos of their best. Showing up at a family holiday dinner I popped them into the VCR for all of the cousins' and my sister's kids. They were spellbound by them, and what was really heartwarming was watching their grandparents laughing along with the gags. There was real artistry in that animation. The Hanna Barbera made for television stuff of the 60's and 70's could never come close to it.. although in the 80's and 90's there were a few bright spots in cartoons: Animaniacs, the Ralph Bakshi New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, etc.


I appreciate the social commentary of the Simpsons, but to be honest, a lot of the contemporary stuff (Family Guy and the Adult Swim stuff) hits me as too dark and depressing.


As far as getting whacked in the head by a brother who learned it from Kojak, Lizzie: I'm just glad that this is one that will not be blamed on the Three Stooges.

I've had occasion to show classic theatrical cartoons on the big screen from time to time, and by far the ones that get the best response from kids are the black-and-white Fleischer Popeyes. I ran "A Dream Walking" once for an audience of third graders, and they demanded I run it twice over again.