Seven Samurai (1954)

Tinseltown has never been shy about taking a critically acclaimed or popular foreign film and remaking  it into a product that mainstream American audiences will pay to see.  A successful example would be Edouard Molinaro's French comedy LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1978) that was remade into THE BIRDCAGE (1996) with Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, and Gene Hackman, directed by the great Mike Nichols (THE GRADUATE). The location changed from Saint Tropez to Miami but the plot about a gay couple faced with meeting their straight son's future conservative in-laws stayed pretty much the same. It doesn't always work out.  Wim Wenders beautiful German film WINGS OF DESIRE (1987) about an angel in Berlin who wants to become human did not translate as well in Brad Siberling's American remake CITY OF ANGELS (1998) with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan.  Or in the case of the French/Dutch psychological thriller THE VANISHING (1988) which was well received internationally, its director George Sluzier would direct the American remake also called THE VANISHING (1993) starring Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland.  The American version did not garner the positive notices that the Dutch original did. 

One of the greatest foreign films ever is Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI (1954). Kurosawa's samurai masterpiece about seven distinct samurai (a Japanese version of a mercenary that lives by a code) who are hired by a village to fend off a marauding group of bandits (bad samurai) had to be turned into some kind of American version.  Six years later, John Sturges (THE GREAT ESCAPE) would make THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960), a western starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, and James Coburn based on Kurosawa's film. Sturges would change the location from feudal Japan in 1586 to 19th century Mexico but keep the plot and characters mostly intact. SEVEN SAMURAI'S and Kurosawa's influence would extend beyond THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and influence contemporary filmmakers ever since from Rober Aldrich (THE DIRTY DOZEN) to Sam Peckinpah (THE WILD BUNCH) to Quentin Tarantino (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS). In retrospect, Kurosawa himself may have been inspired by the westerns of American director John Ford (STAGECOACH, THE SEARCHERS). 

Kurosawa's films translated well to the western genre. Besides SEVEN SAMURAI, two other Kurosawa's classics were turned into American westerns. RASHOMON (1950) about four different characters recollection of a a bride's rape and her husband's murder would be remade as THE OUTRAGE (1964) directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman, set in the 1870s Southwest. YOJIMBO (1961) about a lone samurai who plays two gangs off against one another would be the inspiration for Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) with Clint Eastwood as the enigmatic Man with No Name. Another surprising genre would find fancy from one of the Japanese director's movies. Kurosawa's THE HIDDEN FORTRESS (1958) is said to have inspired George Lucas's space fantasy STAR WARS (1977).  The storyline of two peasants in pursuit of treasure who unwittingly escort a princess past her enemies in THE HIDDEN FORTRESS would have similarities to Lucas's two droids R2D2 and C-3PO who aid Princess Leia in her escape from Darth Vader and his Imperial Forces. Lucas and fellow filmmaker Francis Coppola would repay their love and respect to Kurosawa later in his career (more on that later). 

With a screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni and directed by Kurosawa, SEVEN SAMURAI is set during Japan's ongoing civil wars of the Sengoku period in the 16th Century.  A band of bandits ride up to a ridge overlooking a village. They debate whether to attack it or not. Having stolen the village's rice earlier, they decide to return in the spring after the barley has been harvested. As the bandits ride off, Farmer Yohei (Bokuzen Hidari) emerges from underneath the ridge, having overheard their plan. He reports back to the village. The farmers argue on what to do. They turn to the Village Elder Gisaku (Kokuten Kodo) who suggests they hire samurai, hungry samurai to fight their battle. Led by the young, fiery villager Rikichi (Yoshio Tsuchiya), they go into town looking for samurai.  The villagers eventually settle on an aging ronin (a masterless samurai) named Kambei Shimura (Takashi Shimura) as their leader after they see him rescue a child from a thief.  Kambei declines at first but eventually decides to take up their cause.

A young, inexperienced samurai Katsushiro Okamoto (Isao Kimura) requests to be Kambei's disciple. Kambei reluctantly agrees. After determining how big the village will be to defend, Kambei holds auditions to select five more samurai.  He chooses Gorobei Katayama (Yoshio Inaba), a talented archer who will assist with the planning for the defense of the village; Shichiroji (Daisuke Kato), a trusted friend and former lieutenant; the stone cold deadly swordsman Kyuzo (Seiji Miyaguchi); Heihachi Hayashida (Minoru Chiaki), a less skilled but humorous samurai who keeps up the spirits of the group; and the loose cannon Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), a charming rogue who's not a real samurai but will prove his worth to the team. The seven samurai arrive at the village. Kambei and Gorobei begin to devise the defenses for the village with moats, barricades, and tall fences while the other samurai begin to train the villagers in the tactics of warfare.

The apprentice Katsushiro will stumble across a young woman in a a forest filled with white flowers named Shino (Keiko Tsushima) disguised as a boy. She's the daughter of farmer Manzo (Kamatari Fujiwara) who wants to protect her virtue from the samurai. Katsushiro and Shino will have a relationship that is forbidden as he comes from a wealthy family and she's a low-class peasant. The man-child Kikuchiyo discovers the farmers plunder, samurai armor and weapons acquired from previous bad samurai who died attacking the village. The villagers are not as innocent as they seem. Spring arrives and the farmers begin to cut the barley. About to consummate their love, Katsushiro and Shino discover three bandit scouts in the nearby woods. Kikuchiyo, Kyuzo, and Katsushiro kill two of the bandits and capture one who reveals their hideout before he is killed. The samurai and villagers take the fight to the bandits first as they journey through a canyon and waterfalls to their fort. They light their houses on fire to flush the bandits out. The farmer Rikichi discovers his kidnapped wife has become a concubine for the scoundrels. Rather than return disgraced to her husband, Rikichi's wife runs back into a burning hut and dies. The samurai lose their first member when Heihachi is shot and killed by a retreating bandit. The samurai have swords and arrows, but the bandits have a new, modern weapon - the musket.

The samurai and village are devastated by Heihachi's death. Kikuchiyo, the wannabe samurai, grabs the banner designed by Heihachi representing the samurai and village and plants it at the top of one of the huts. The samurai and village are united by this gesture and get over their grief just in time as the bandits (about 40 of them) begin their assault on the village, burning the outer homes first. Kikuchiyo rescues a baby from its mortally wounded mother, proving his courage to his comrades and revealing his past. The samurai and villagers work their plan, isolating a couple of bandits at a time to be killed while keeping the larger posse at bay. The silent, lethal samurai Kyuzo stealthily slips into the forest at night and captures one of the muskets, killing two bandits in the process. Kikuchiyo will disguise himself as one of the bandits to grab another musket. Kambei's lieutenant Gorobei will be killed by gunfire and the remaining samurai mourn his loss. After defending another siege with losses by both farmers and the bandits, Kambei prepares everyone for one final showdown. The Battle in the Rain begins and there will be more death and loss before the bandits are completely wiped out. Soon, the sun emerges, and the village rejoices, planting new crops and singing. The three remaining samurai watch wistfully. "In the end, we've lost this battle too, "Kambei says. "Victory belongs to those peasants, not to us.'

What makes SEVEN SAMURAI such an incredible film are its many layers.  Foremost, it's an adventure film that will inspire countless movies in the future with the universal plot of a band of good guys (or gals) versus bad guys, often outnumbered ten to one. It's a film about bonding, taking two different groups of people (samurai and farmers), and becoming one cohesive fighting force. It's a film about different class structures that existed in Japan in the 16th century and how they interacted. It has a forbidden love story between a wealthy samurai's son trying to make it on his own and a farmer's daughter whose class status prohibits her from loving his type. There are comical moments like Kikuchiyo trying to ride a horse. There are subplots like the farmer Rikichi's kidnapped wife and their tragic reunion.  Or the origins of Kikuchiyo, the wannabe samurai and his mercurial personality. 

Prior to SEVEN SAMURAI, Kurosawa had only done modern, urban films like DRUNKEN ANGEL (1948) and STRAY DOG (1949) about a cop looking for his stolen gun in Tokyo. With SAMURAI, Kurosawa opens up his lens to a grander scale and displays bravura filmmaking with some unforgettable shots.  Kikuchiyo holding a crying infant after the mortally wounded mother hands the child to him, a burning water wheel turning in the background. Repeated fast tracking shots of each individual samurai running when they believe an attack has begun. Katsushiro and Shino laying in a bed of white flowers in a grove of trees. Battle scenes in mud, streaks of pelting rain almost obscuring the action, gloriously shot in black and white. And the final image, the surviving samurai gazing at the burial mound of their deceased brothers, their swords planted next to them, a marker to their memory and a sign of the beginning of the decline of the samurai warrior class. 

At three hours and 27 minutes, SEVEN SAMURAI was the second longest movie ever made at the time next to Victor Fleming's GONE WITH THE WIND (1939). The length allows Kurosawa to let his epic story move at its own pace, explore his characters in depth, let the plot and situations unfold, and draw out the suspense as they wait for the bandits to return.  We get to meet and evaluate the farmers Rikichi, Manzo, and Yohei and better understand their personalities. The auditioning of the samurai occurs at nearly the one-hour mark. We even watch as some samurai turn down Kambei's offer before he selects his final five. We get to watch the one main female character Shino in SEVEN SAMURAI as she transforms from disguised boy (at her father's wish to hide her femininity and sexuality from the samurai) to secret lover to young Katsushiro to outcast when her father Manzo catches the two of them together. The old ronin Kambei and the extrovert Kikuchiyo get the most screen time, but Kurosawa allows us to get to know the other samurai as well: the rotund master planner Gorobei; the Zen master Hihachi; the almost God-like taciturn swordsman Kyuzo; and Kambei's trusted old friend and fighting buddy Shichiroji. SEVEN SAMURAI never feels slow. Every scene and sequence have a purpose and propels us toward the big finale which last for more than an hour at the film's climax.

Watching SEVEN SAMURAI, there are so many elements to the film that have influenced filmmakers ever since.  Kurosawa loves to show the meticulous details of Kambei and Gorobei's plan to defend the village like building fences and creating a moat to frustrate their attackers. In GOOD FELLAS (1990) director Martin Scorsese shows the step-by-step planning and heist by the gangsters of a Lufthansa payload. The father/son relationship of master Kambei and disciple Katsushiro will pop up in the STAR WARS films both with master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness) and apprentice Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in STAR WARS and a younger Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) in Lucas's THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999). Or look at the similarities in the sequence where Kyuzo walks into the forest and off-screen, kills a few bandits and returns with one of the muskets that killed Hihachi with George Miller's MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015) when Max (Tom Hardy) leaves Furiosa, the Wives, and the War Rig, walks into the wasteland darkness and off-screen kills the Bullet Farmer and two of his men, returning covered in blood with a bag of weapons and ammunition. Everywhere you look, SEVEN SAMURAI'S influence can be seen. 

At first glance SEVEN SAMURAI appears to be a celebration of the samurai warrior (Kurosawa himself was a descendent of the samurai). We see their code of honor and ethics, their bonding with one another, their skills as warriors, and how they work as a team.  Kurosawa has many shots with two, three, four even all seven of the samurai in the same frame. As the film progresses, we realize the samurai are a dying breed.  Like George Roy Hill's BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1967) or Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (1969) where the gunfighters and bank robbers are running up against new technology and the modern age, the samurai with their swords and arrows are no match for rifles and bullets. Historically, the samurai class flourished as a hereditary nobility serving a shogun or military dictator (who was actually just a figurehead) from the late 12th century until the late 1870s. SEVEN SAMURAI foreshadows the beginning of the samurai's demise. 

Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa's favorite actor, has the good fortune (or luck) to play Kikuchiyo, the flashiest role and as it turns out, the most complicated character in SEVEN SAMURAI. Kikuchiyo's not even a samurai although he dresses the part. He's a wanderer, a clown, a hanger on who wins over Kambei and eventually the other samurai with his bravado and fearlessness. Kikuchiyo is a bridge between the revered samurai and the peasants.  We eventually learn Kikuchiyo was the son of a farmer who became an orphan, his father most likely killed by rogue samurai like the ones attacking this village. Kikuchiyo understands the dynamics of village life, enlightening the other samurai about the good and the bad aspects of these seemingly suffering farmers. When Hihachi is killed, Kikuchiyo sits next to his grave for days like a loyal dog. Kikuchiyo will have several brave scenes in SEVEN SAMURAI. He will also fall asleep at his post and leave parts of the village defenseless with his reckless actions that put the whole plan at risk. 

Like the collaboration of Robert DeNiro with Martin Scorsese, John Wayne with John Ford, or Robert Redford with Sydney Pollack, Mifune and Akira Kurosawa teamed up for a total 16 films.  From early in their careers with STRAY DOG or RED BEARD to their masterpieces like RASHOMON and THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), Kurosawa trusted Mifune to be his avatar for his cinematic storytelling. With over 168 film credits, Mifune did work occasionally in a few Hollywood films including John Boorman's HELL IN THE PACIFIC (1968) with Lee Marvin; Terence Young's western/samurai hybrid RED SUN (1971) with Charles Bronson and Ursula Andress; and Steven Spielberg's war comedy 1941 (1979) with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. 

All the actors in SEVEN SAMURAI are superb.  It took me a few viewings to figure out who all the characters are. Another Kurosawa favorite who appears in SEVEN SAMURAI is Takashi Shimura who portrays the veteran leader Kambei. Kambei is wise and patient, the glue that holds all these masterless ronin together. Even though Kambei projects confidence, we learn that he has not had many victories in his samurai career. Yet, Kambei has survived his share of battles. Shimura provides Kambei with a nice gesture that makes him recognizable throughout the film: rubbing his head when he's pleased or mystified.  Shimura first appeared as the lead in Kurosawa's IKIRU (1952) and would top Mifune by making 19 films with Kurosawa, some roles bigger than others. Besides SEVEN SAMURAI, Shimura appeared in Kurosawa's THRONE OF BLOOD, THE BAD SLEEP WELL (1960), and HIGH AND LOW (1963). Shimura even appeared in Japan's classic monster films like Ishiro Honda's GODZILLA (1957) with Raymond Burr and Honda's MOTHRA (1961) about a giant moth.  Shimura's last appearance in a Kurosawa film before his death would be KAGEMUSHA (1980). 

If you're wondering which characters in the western remake THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN are represented from SEVEN SAMURAI, here's my attempted breakdown. Yul Brynner plays Chris Adams, the Kambei character, who leads these seven gunslingers against Mexican bandits terrorizing a group of farmers. James Coburn plays Britt, a silent but lethal expert with knives who represents the Kyuzo character in the original.  After that, the comparisons are a little muddled.  Steve McQueen as the drifter Vin Tanner would seem to be Brynner's right-hand man, a cross between Gorobei and Shichiroji. Horst  Buchholz who plays the hot shot but inexperienced gunman Chico is part Mifune's Kikuchiyo with his wild antics but also the understudy Katsushiro learning from Brynner and McQueen the ways of the gunslinger. Charles Bronson as Bernardo O'Reilly may be a piece of Kikuchiyo with his connection with the farmers young kids. The most interesting new twist is Robert Vaughn, a southern Civil War veteran who must overcome his cowardice to aid his brothers-in-arms.

The western and science fiction genre may have adapted storylines and plots from Kurosawa, but Kurosawa was no stranger to borrowing from one of the best for a couple of his film adaptations.  THRONE OF BLOOD is Kurosawa's Japanese version of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Instead of a nobleman in Scotland spurred by his ambitious wife to kill his king, Kurosawa moves it to feudal Japan where a Japanese general encouraged by his scheming spouse plots to usurp his commander and rule his castle. One of Kurosawa's last films would be RAN (1985), his interpretation of the Bard's King Lear switching the storyline from Shakespeare's old king and his three daughters to an elderly medieval warlord and his three sons. One of the best filmmakers in the world reimagining one of the greatest storytellers in history.

Kurosawa's influence on western filmmakers would be repaid when Kurosawa prepared to make KAGEMUSHA, a film about a petty criminal who resembles a warlord and is hired to be his double.  The film was going to be more expensive than Japan's Toho Studios was willing to finance.  Kurosawa reached out to George Lucas and Francis Coppola on a visit to San Francisco.  With the enormous success of STAR WARS, Lucas and Coppola were able to convince 20th Century Fox (who gave the greenlight to make STAR WARS) to put up the rest of the money for KAGEMUSHA in return for international distribution rights outside of Japan. At the top of the poster for KAGEMUSHA, it proudly proclaims "George Lucas and Francis Coppola Present a film by Akira Kurosawa." Ironically, Kurosawa was not as revered in Japan as he was around the rest of the world. 

SEVEN SAMURAI'S legacy of a group of different individuals who join together to fight a greater evil lives on recently from Sylvester Stallone's THE EXPENDABLES (2010) where ex-mercenaries team up to take down a South American dictator to Joss Whedon's THE AVENGERS (2012) about unique individual superheroes who form together to fight back an alien invasion. Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI will always be the gold standard, weaving memorable characters, social commentary, history, adventure, a love story, and intense battle scenes into one truly epic film that changed the cinematic world forever. 

The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and You've Got Mail (1998)

With Europe becoming progressively dangerous for Jews in the late 1920s and early 30s as Adolf Hitler began his rise to power, many talented Jewish writers, directors, and actors began to emigrate to the United States and Hollywood.  Among the notables who came over were writer/director Billy Wilder (DOUBLE INDEMNITY), actor Peter Lorre (CASABLANCA), director Michael Curtiz (THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD), writer/director Robert Siodmak (PHANTOM LADY), and director Ernst Lubitsch (BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE).  Lubitsch's brief but highly successful run of sophisticated comedies often took place in Europe whether it was Paris (NINOTCHKA) or Nazi occupied Poland (TO BE OR NOT TO BE). Even though the locale was European, American actors like Melvyn Douglas, Jack Benny, Claudette Colbert, and James Stewart played European characters. Case in point is Lubitsch's classic THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940), set in Budapest, Hungary with James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan as Hungarian employees working at a leather goods store who are secretly in love as nameless pen pals.

Flash forward to screenwriter/director Nora Ephron in the late 80s/early 90s.  Ephron would capture lightning in the bottle not once but twice, taking two classic films from the past and updating them to the modern age without losing the essence of the original source.  SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993) would be Ephron's remake of Leo McCarey's romantic comedy AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957) starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr (which McCarey remade from his own 1939 version LOVE AFFAIR with Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne). SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE was Ephron's second hit of a classic. In 1998, Ephron pulled it off first with YOU'VE GOT MAIL, a modern remake of Ernest Lubitsch's THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER.  Only this time, instead of the two pen pals who work together but don't know they're in love with each other, Ephron makes the love interests anonymous internet chat room participants who in real life are bookstore adversaries. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan would play the couples in both YOU'VE GOT MAIL and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE.

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and YOU'VE GOT MAIL are not holiday movies per se as they don't involve Santa Claus or a friendly angel. Both films have scenes during the Christmas season, always a good time for a romance to bloom or heartbreak to happen.  The climactic scene when the two star crossed lovers discover who each other are occurs on Christmas Eve in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER but not until spring for YOU'VE GOT MAIL.  Lubitsch's SHOP has a slightly darker slant to the story with one of the characters attempting suicide when he discovers his wife is having an affair. Ephron's YOU'VE GOT MAIL turns All-American good guy Tom Hanks into a corporate villain at the beginning of the film who transforms into a more compassionate person as the film progresses. 

With a screenplay by Samson Raphaelson (and an uncredited Ben Hecht) based on the play Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER begins one morning in Budapest, Hungary as all the employees of Matuschek and Company, a leather goods store, arrive for another day of business.  They wait for the owner, Mr. Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan) to open the store. The employees include Alfred Kralik (James Stewart), Matuschek and Company's top salesman; Pirovitch (Felix Bressart), a good-hearted family man; Ferencz Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut), an obsequious Casanova; Ilona Novotny (Inez Courtney), a saleswoman; Flora Kaczek (Sara Hayden), a clerk; and cocky delivery boy Pepi Katona (Wiliam Tracy who nearly steals the film with his hilarious performance). Mr. Matuschek arrives and opens the store.  Alfred confides to Pirovitch that he has begun corresponding with an anonymous woman he came across in a newspaper advertisement.  Alfred reads one of the letters to Vadas.

Mr. Matuschek and Alfred butt heads over Matuschek's idea to sell a leather cigarette box that plays music (Ochi Chernye). A young woman named Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) enters the store, looking for a job.  Alfred tries to shoo her away. Klara approaches Mr. Matuschek.  She grabs one of the cigarette boxes and sells it to a customer.  Mr. Matuschek hires her. Alfred and Klara are now co-workers.  They bicker about everything. Alfred confides to Pirovitch that he's falling in love with his secret pen pal. But Alfred hasn't met her in person.  Mr. Matuschek's demeanor begins to change. He suspects his wife is having an affair. Alfred wants to ask Mr. Matuschek for a raise.  Matuschek won't meet with him.  Alfred contemplates quitting. 

Both Alfred and Klara have important engagements one night. Mr. Matuschek makes everyone stay after hours to begin decorating the store windows for the holidays. Matuschek calls Alfred into his office.  He quietly fires Alfred and then abruptly sends everyone home. Klara races to her secret liaison. Pirovitch tries to tell Mr. Matuschek he's made a mistake letting Alfred go. Matuschek won't listen.  A private detective (Charles Halton) hired by Matuschek arrives at the store. He reports that Matuschek's wife has not been seeing Alfred (who Matuschek suspected due to an anomymous letter).  Instead, Mrs. Matuschek is having an affair with Matuschek's employee Ferencz Vadas. After the detective leaves, Matuschek goes into his office and closes his door. Pepi returns to the shop after some late deliveries and discovers Matuschek about to shoot himself. Pepi saves Mr. Matuschek. 

Alfred and Pirovitch wander to the Cafe Nizza where Alfred was to meet his secret pen pal.  She's supposed to be wearing a red carnation and reading Anna Karenina. Pirovitch peers into the window and only sees one woman. Klara. Alfred realizes Klara is his secret pen pal.  Alfred goes in and sits next to Klara, pretending to be waiting for Pirovitch.  Klara is upset that Alfred might spoil her evening and the two insult one another until Klara realizes her secret man isn't coming. Later that night, Pepi calls Alfred to tell him Mr. Matuschek is in the hospital.  Alfred goes to visit him. Matuschek apologizes to Alfred and makes him manager of the store and Pepi a clerk.  On his first day as manager, Alfred fires Vadas. Klara calls out sick, despondent her secret admirer failed to show. Alfred goes to visit Klara.  A new letter arrives from her mystery man (written by Alfred). She reads it in front of him. Christmas Eve arrives.  Matuschek and Company have their biggest earning day ever.  Matuschek shows up for the first time from the hospital.  He hands out bonuses and gives everyone Christmas off. Alfred walks into the back room where Klara is wrapping a present for her special guy.  Klara admits she had a brief crush on Alfred when she first was hired. Alfred shows her a diamond necklace he bought for his secret gal and has her try it on. Alfred puts a red carnation in his lapel and reveals to Klara he's her mysterious pen pal.  They kiss. The End.

Sophisticated comedy is another word for a smart film.  Lubitsch and his writers trust that the audience is acute enough to be able to follow the storyline, multiple characters, and subplots.  It's not a comedy of manners. The characters are not wealthy (except for Mr. Matuschek) but they are intelligent, hardworking, and interesting. THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER is not a Howard Hawks or Frank Capra screwball comedy like BRINGING UP BABY (1933) or IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1931) with rapid fire dialogue.  The film takes its time revealing its plot points, allowing us to become acquainted with Alfred Kralik, Klara Novak, Hugo Matuschek, and the employees of Matuschek and Company. 

The cleverness of THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER is highlighted with the relationship of Alfred and Klara who can't stand each as coworkers yet they're falling in love with each other through their alter egos as secret pen pals. Lubitsch waits until about two thirds into the film before allowing Alfred to discover first who his mystery pen pal is.  Klara doesn't learn her mystery lover's identity until the last few minutes of the film.  It provides tension for the last act and makes the big reveal all the sweeter and worth the wait. 

Lubitsch has a running gag with both the leather cigarette boxes and the song it plays "Ochi Chernye." The cigarette boxes begin a rift between Mr. Matuschek and Alfred that's exasperated by Matuschek's suspicion that Alfred is cheating with his wife. Alfred felt having the song attached to the gift might sour on the buyer if the relationship went bad after the purchase. Klara manages to sell one of the cigarette boxes to a customer to get herself hired which puts her on Alfred's bad side.  When Alfred runs into Klara at Cafe Nizza, the band plays "Ochi Chernye" which sounds like a funeral dirge to Alfred who's been fired and Klara whose mysterious rendezvous never shows. When Alfred fires Vadas and they scuffle, he pushes Vadas into a stack of the cigarette boxes, "Ochi Chernye" playing a dozen times at once for the disgraced Vadas.  Finally, Alfred goes into the back room to reveal to Klara he's her secret pen pal.  Klara is wrapping a leather cigarette box to give to her pen pal aka Alfred.  The leather cigarette box has come full circle. 

James Stewart was just another contract actor for MGM in the 1930s playing either shallow heels or handsome villains (AFTER THE THIN MAN). It wasn't until 1939 that Stewart would work with some talented directors who saw how to utilize his talent.  Stewart would appear in Frank Capra's MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON and George Marshall's comedy western DESTRY RIDES AGAIN.  1940 would be even bigger with Lubitsch's THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and George Cukor's THE PHILADELPHIA STORY which would snare Stewart the Academy Award for Best Actor.  Stewart's role as Mike Connor in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY is flashier but Stewart's Alfred Kralik is the glue that holds the ensemble cast in SHOP together. His co-workers look up to him, one co-worker is jealous of Alfred's success, and the newest co-worker Klara will discover that the man she loathes at work is her secret pen pal lover. It's a joy to watch Stewart play a wide range of emotions from cocky salesman to fired employee to compassionate manager. 

If you didn't think actor Frank Morgan was the nicest actor in the world after watching him play the Great and Powerful Oz (and four other characters) in Victor Fleming's THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), his performance as Hugo Matuschek in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER will win you over. Even when Morgan has to be mean (like firing Alfred or making his employees stay late to dress the shop windows), he still comes across as sympathetic and fatherly. Morgan as Mr. Matuschek starts out as a grumpy, fussy shop owner but after he survives his suicide attempt, he becomes Oz like. He makes Alfred manager of the store and gives him a raise (which Alfred wanted).  And he promotes Pepi (who saved his life) from errand boy to clerk. Other films to watch the jovial Morgan in include Gregory La Cava's THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI (1934) with Fredric March in which Morgan was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award and Victor Fleming's TORTILLA FLAT (1942) based on the John Steinbeck novel with Spencer Tracy, John Garfield, and Hedy Lamarr. 

I had never heard of Margaret Sullavan who plays Klara Novak in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. Her filmography isn't very long and THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER may be her best known film. She even has top billing over James Stewart.  Sullavan's performance as the dreamy, sweet Klara in love with her secret pen pal who she doesn't realize she works with will have you thinking of another sweet actress who just happens to play her character in the SHOP remake -- Meg Ryan. Offscreen, Sullavan was temperamental on film sets and had a tragic life.  She had failed marriages to actor Henry Fonda (THE GRAPES OF WRATH) and director William Wyler (THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES) and two of her three children committed suicide as adults. Sullavan would die of an accidental overdose in 1960. 

Lubitsch favorite Felix Bressart (TO BE OR NOT TO BE) plays Alfred's co-worker and confidante Pirovitch.  If there is one weakness in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, it's that the two other female players Inez Courtney and Sara Hayden have no character development, just a line or two.  Director Nora Ephron would remedy that in YOU'VE GOT MAIL with several well-developed female roles.  William Tracy steals THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER for me with the few scenes he's in as the store's precocious delivery boy. Besides a starring role in TERRY AND THE PIRATES (1940) based on a comic strip, Tracy's career never really took off.  Appreciate his best work in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. 

Nora Ephron's remake YOU'VE GOT MAIL modernizes THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and breaks new ground with the original while keeping the heart of the story intact. The remake takes place in New York City instead of Budapest, Hungary. One of the tools Ephron uses in YOU'VE GOT MAIL is to give both protagonists not only a love interest besides their internet romance but a best friend that they can confide in.  Ephron mastered the buddy character in her screenplay WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989) directed by Rob Reiner when she gave lead actors Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan a buddy to commiserate with in Bruno Kirby for Crystal and Carrie Fischer for Ryan. She doubles it in YOU'VE GOT MAIL.

Co-written by Nora Ephron and her sister Delia Ephron and directed by Nora Ephron based on the film THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, YOU'VE GOT MAIL begins with our two protagonists Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) and Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) waiting for their significant others to leave for work in the morning so they can hop on their computers and anonymously communicate via an internet chat room. Kathleen uses Shopgirl as her alter ego. Joe is NY152. Joe and Kathleen have never met in person...yet.  They live near each other, almost bump into each other on the street, and shop at the same local market.  On the internet, they exchange observations on life, books, New York City, and Starbucks. Joe and Kathleen are both bookstore owners who are about to become rivals.  Joe is building a new giant Fox and Sons Books superstore directly across from Kathleen's small independent children's bookstore The Shop Around the Corner. Joe's company was started by his grandfather Schuyler Fox (John Randolph) and later Joe's father Nelson Fox (Dabney Coleman). Kathleen's little bookstore was started by her deceased mother and employs book lovers Christina Plutzker (Heather Burns), George Pappas (Steve Zahn), and accountant Birdie Conrad (Jean Stapleton). 

Joe watches his sister Gillian's (Cara Seymour) kids Annabelle (Halle Hirsch) and Matt (Jeffrey Scaperrota) one weekend before Thanksgiving. They wander into Kathleen's bookstore and Joe and Kathleen meet for the first time. Matt almost reveals Joe's identity to Kathleen. Joe scoots his niece and nephew out in time. Fox and Sons Books has its fancy grand opening. Soon, Kathleen's accountant Birdie immediately notices sales are down. Joe attends a book publishing party with his self-absorbed girlfriend Patricia Eden (Parker Posey). They run into Kathleen and her columnist boyfriend Frank Navasky (Greg Kinnear) at the same party. Kathleen finally discovers she's talking to her competitor Joe Fox. Joe and Kathleen do not hit it off in person and go out of their way to avoid each other when they cross paths in their neighborhood. Online, Joe proposes that he and Kathleen meet in person. Kathleen's not ready yet.  Kathleen and her co-workers put up a fight against the Fox Superstore.  Kathleen's customers protest and demonstrate. Kathleen makes speeches outside her bookstore. Frank writes a column about the little Shop Around the Corner against the big conglomerate bookstore giant. Joe comes off as a villain on a television interview. Despite all the publicity, Kathleen's store is headed for closure. Personally, Joe is not happy with the person he's becoming. 

Secret internet pals Joe and Kathleen agree to meet in person at Cafe Lalo as the Christmas holiday approaches. Joe asks his work partner Kevin Jackson (Dave Chappelle) to peer into the cafe and tell him what his secret lover looks like.  She's supposed to have a book and a flower with her. The only woman Kevin sees fitting that description is Kathleen Kelly, Joe's nemesis. Joe can't believe Kathleen is his online sweetheart.  Joe enters the cafe pretending to be meeting someone else. Kathleen begs Joe to leave so he doesn't embarrass her in front of her internet boyfriend when he shows up. Joe taunts her. Kathleen's mean to him back. Joe leaves the cafe. Kathleen realizes she's been stood up and leaves as well. Kathleen shares her heartbreak with Christina, Birdie, and George.  George thinks maybe her date was the Rooftop Killer who was captured that same night. Joe emails Kathleen apologizing for missing their date and pledges to be her friend.

Kathleen decides to close The Shop Around the Corner after 42 years. Kathleen and Frank go to a movie and have a fight. Later, they both realize that they're not in love with each other.  Frank moves out. Kathleen checks out Fox and Sons Books. She's not impressed. Joe and Patricia return to their apartment and end up stuck in the elevator.  Patricia throws a tantrum.  Joe realizes he's not in love with Patricia.  He moves onto his moored boat where he's joined by his father Nelson whose girlfriend has just left him. Joe makes an effort to be Kathleen's friend in person.  He brings her flowers when she's sick.  They walk around New York. Kathleen thinks about writing a book.  Chatroom partners Joe and Kathleen agree to meet again, this time at a garden park.  Kathleen is surprised when it's Joe who comes around the corner.  Her true love has been right in front of her all this time. They kiss. The end. 

Co-writer/director Ephron expounds on the original. She takes Alfred's co-worker and confidante Pirovitch in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and doubles him in YOU'VE GOT MAIL, giving both Joe and Kathleen a friend or friends to confide in. Adding to that, Ephron gives both Joe and Kathleen a significant other in Frank and Patricia.  Both love interests are into themselves and faintly oblivious to their partners Joe and Kathleen which makes it easier for the audience to understand why Joe and Kathleen have been driven to an anonymous chat room to find romance and good conversation. 

YOU'VE GOT MAIL has a few nods to the original.  First, Kathleen's children's bookstore is cleverly called The Shop Around the Corner after Lubitsch's film.  It's the perfect name for an independent, woman-owned bookstore and a great homage to the original film. Director Ephron smartly keeps the cafe meeting scene in YOU'VE GOT MAIL from the original when Joe discovers the woman he's been knocking heads with in their bookstore war is his secret internet chatroom companion. It was the pivotal scene in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and it sets in motion how Joe will figure out how to reveal his true self to Kathleen, not the pompous, evil corporate bully he's become. Ephron changes the final reveal from Christmas Eve in the back room of Matuschek and Company in SHOP to a sunnier, outdoor garden park setting in YOU'VE GOT MAIL complete with Joe's dog along for the big moment. If YOU'VE GOT MAIL'S ending doesn't make you teary eyed, you have become the new cold Joe Fox.  

The filmmakers in YOU'VE GOT MAIL take a few shots at giant corporations like Amazon (which started out as an online bookstore) and Walmart that push out the independent shop owners and Mom and Pop stores with their supersized stores. Kathleen and her The Shop Around the Corner children's bookstore are the David against the Goliath of Fox and Sons Books. YOU'VE GOT MAIL is also a time capsule of the early days of the internet and email with Joe and Kathleen using AOL (acronym for America Online which briefly bought Warner Bros in 2001, the studio who made YOU'VE GOT MAIL) and that familiar dial up noise and little jingle "You've Got Mail" when an email arrived. 

The strength of YOU'VE GOT MAIL is its cast. The chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as the two anonymous cyber crossed lovers is a winning formula that director Ephron would repeat again with the two actors in 1993 with her hit SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE.  Hanks and Ryan also appeared together in John Patrick Shanley's JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO (1990), their one film that was not a box office success. Like WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, YOU'VE GOT MAIL humorously explores the differences between men and women. Hanks's Joe Fox finds that everything in life can be explained by quotes from THE GODFATHER.  Ryan's Kathleen Kelly is inspired by her literary heroine Elizabeth Bennett from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Hanks had mostly played goofy, likable characters early in his career (SPLASH) so Joe Fox is a departure.  The corporate world has made him cold and ruthless as he and his company devour smaller bookstores.  The impact his superstore has on not just Kathleen Kelly's store but on Kathleen and her employees will change his course for the better. 

Two of my favorite characters in YOU'VE GOT MAIL are new ones created by the Ephron sisters. Greg Kinnear (AS GOOD AS IT GETS) is hilarious as Kathleen's compliment craving columnist boyfriend Frank Navasky who loves typewriters. Indie screen favorite Parker Posey (BEST IN SHOW) almost equals Kinnear as Fox's equally self-centered publishing house girlfriend Patricia Eden. Both Kinnear and Posey have one delicious scene that truly shows who they are and why they are totally wrong for Ryan and Hanks.  Dabney Coleman who played selfish, inconsiderate characters to humorous effect in films like Colin Higgins NINE TO FIVE (1980) and Sydney Pollack's TOOTSIE (1982) has a similar role as Fox's father Nelson in YOU'VE GOT MAIL.  Younger Fox begins to realize he may become like his father (and his three failed marriages) if he doesn't turn his life around soon. 

Some inspired casting includes comedian Dave Chappelle (CHAPPELLE'S SHOW) as Fox's business partner and friend Kevin Jackson. Hanks and Chappelle seem like an unlikely pairing as friends, but it works.  Apparently, Chappelle turned down the role as Forrest Gump's buddy Bubba in Robert Zemeckis's FORREST GUMP (1994) and regretted it.  Hanks suggested Chappelle to Ephron for the buddy role in YOU'VE GOT MAIL.  I had not seen Jean Stapleton in anything since her incredible stint on the CBS Comedy series ALL IN THE FAMILY (1971-1979) as Archie Bunker's ditsy wife Edith. Stapleton plays Birdie, Kathleen's mother's old friend who does the accounting for the bookstore.  Stapleton's Birdie provides sage advice for Kathleen as she closes one chapter of her life and begins another. 

A special shout out to film editor Richard Marks whose work on YOU'VE GOT MAIL epitomizes his esteemed career.  Marks cut his teeth on coming-of-age comedies like Howard Deutsch's PRETTY IN PINK (1986) with Molly Ringwald and Cameron Crowe's SAY ANYTHING (1989) with John Cusack.  Marks would really flourish in comedy dramas when he collaborated with director James Brooks on TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1983) starting Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine and BROADCAST NEWS (1987) starring William Hurt, Holly Hunter, and Albert Brooks. With YOU'VE GOT MAIL, Marks shows his skill juxtaposing Joe and Kathleen conversing on their computers with their scenes together.  He skillfully handles montages like with Joe and the kids at a street carnival or Kathleen's crusade to save her bookstore.  Every actor's performance is the right take and the film never hits a wrong note.  Marks passed away in 2018 and it should be noted director Nora Ephron died in 2012.  Both talented artists that are truly missed.

It's very rare when a remake like YOU'VE GOT MAIL captures the main elements of its predecessor 58 years earlier like THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER yet expands upon it and adapts it correctly to the modern age. There's no denying that Tom Hanks is the James Stewart of his generation. And Meg Ryan is the sweet, pretty spunky actress that reminded us of actresses from the 40s like Claudette Colbert or Irene Dunne (or Margaret Sullavan had her career flourished instead of stalling).  What's nice about both films is there are many differences between them too. They can be watched individually and taken on their own merits (I would surmise that a great deal of moviegoers didn't know that YOU'VE GOT MAIL was based on THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER).  I would call either of them a holiday films as they make you feel good which is all that we ask during the holidays. 

The Living Daylights (1987)

The Timothy Dalton era in the world of James Bond kicked off in 1987 with THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS.  The Shakespearean trained Dalton would be a temporary Bond, a bridge between Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan (although Dalton had a history with the Bond franchise previously. More on that later). Dalton would only appear in two James Bond films THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and LICENSE TO KILL (1989). Both Dalton films were directed by my least favorite of the Bond directors John Glen (who started out as an editor and later 2nd Unit Director on the Bond series). THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS is my favorite of the two Dalton movies and my second favorite film directed by Glen next to FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981). The Welsh born Dalton brought back a darker, tougher version of Bond similar to Sean Connery's early performances. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS has a pretty Bond girl in Maryam d'Abo, some interesting international locations including Gibraltar (and its famous rock that I had never seen on film before), and a plot ripped straight from the international headlines at the time. 

Even though the Bond films always had a big budget feel to them, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS doesn't feel as glitzy as previous films.  The actors all have familiar faces but there's no big movie star amongst them.  The locations are new and different but there's no French Riviera or Monte Carlo vibe. Vienna, Austria (standing in for Bratislava, Czechoslovakia as well as itself) and Morocco (standing in for Afghanistan as well as its own Tangiers) are the featured countries. Even the theme song The Living Daylights by Norwegian alternative rock band A-Ha is understated but catchy.

Directed by Bond veteran John Glen with a screenplay by Richard Maibaum (GOLDFINGER) and Michael G. Wilson based on a short story The Living Daylights by author Ian Fleming, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS begins in Gibraltar (a small British Overseas Territory between Spain and Morocco) where James Bond (Timothy Dalton) and a group of Double-O agents perform a training exercise to take out a surveillance station at the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. Only one of their agents 004 is a traitor, killing both of Bond's fellow agents and a few British army soldiers.  Bond neutralizes the rogue agent, sending him off a cliff in a truck with explosives while Bond parachutes to safety. The film switches gears to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia where Bond assists fellow M-6 attaché Saunders (Thomas Wheatley) with the defection of Russian General Georgi Koskov (a loose, hammy performance by Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe). Koskov is attending a music concert where his lover classic cellist Kara Milovy and apparent KGB sniper (Maryam D'Abo) is performing. Bond and Saunders whisk Koskov clandestinely away via a new Trans-Siberian pipeline from Communist Czechoslovakia to Democratic Austria where he's greeted by Q (Desmond Llewelyn). Bond nearly kills Kara during the mission but shoots the rifle from her hands instead. 

A British Harrier jet takes Koskov to London where he's greeted by M (Robert Brown). M and Bond debrief Koskov at an English countryside safe house where he tells them another Russian General Leonid Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies) has revived a program called Smiert Spionam (Death to Spies) to kill all enemy agents around the world (004 was one of his KGB operatives). Koskov reveals Pushkin will be in Tangiers, Morocco soon and must be killed. A blonde Russian agent Necros (Andreas Wisniewski) disguised as a milkman infiltrates the compound, causing a diversion with a gas leak and explosions to kidnap Koskov back for the Russians. A helicopter swoops in and flies Koskov away. Bond returns to Bratislava pretending to be Koskov's friend to learn more from Kara about what Koskov was up to.  Pushkin's also in Bratislava to question Kara. Bond helps Kara escape Pushkin and his agents in his new gadget equipped Aston Martin as they're chased by the KGB and Czech police. Bond and Kara cross into the Austrian border on Kara's cello case.

Pushkin flies to Tangiers where he meets with international arms dealer and military history buff Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker). Pushkin cancels Koskov's arms order with Whitaker. After Pushkin leaves, Koskov steps out from hiding.  Koskov and Whitaker are working together. Koskov's kidnapping was staged. Bond connects with Saunders in Vienna and learns that Whitaker and Koskov have a history of arms dealings. Necros kills Saunders at an Austrian amusement park called the Prater, leaving the Smiert Spionam message near him. Bond and Kara arrive in Tangiers. Bond interrogates Pushkin in front of his mistress Rubavitch (Virginia Hey) where he learns that Koskov had been embezzling from the Russian government. Pushkin knows nothing about the revived Death to Spies policy. Bond and Pushkin team up.  Bond helps Pushkin fake his own assassination. Koskov reunites with Kara, convinces her Bond's a KGB agent. Bond is kidnapped by two pretty CIA agents working with CIA operative and Bond friend Felix Leiter (John Terry). Felix is keeping tabs on Pushkin. 

Kara drugs Bond for Koskov. Koskov puts Bond on a military transport plane to Afghanistan.  Koskov's plan is to trade diamonds for opium. He'll turn the opium into heroin and sell it on the black market and use the rest of the money to buy weapons for the Russians in their conflict with Afghan rebels and Western arms for Whitaker.  Once they land at a Soviet Air Base in Afghanistan, Koskov has Bond and Kara thrown in a local Afghan jail. Bond uses one of his gadgets to break out of their confinement and liquidate a local brutal guard.  Also breaking out with them is a shaggy prisoner Kamran Shah (Art Malik) who turns out to be the leader of the Mujahideen rebels. Koskov prepares to fly out of Afghanistan with a huge shipment of opium.  Bond, Kara, Shah, and his rebel group storm the airbase. While Shah and the resistance fight with the Russian army, Bond places a bomb on the plane. He's spotted before he can disembark and hides in the cargo area. Bond disarms the pilots and prepares to take off when he spots Kara racing up behind in a jeep. He drops the ramp and she drives on board. The blonde killer Necros climbs on board as well.  Bond and Necros fight to the death hanging from a rope tarpaulin on the back of the plane. After Bond dispatches Necros and drops the bomb on the Russian forces, helping Shah and his men escape, he and Kara escape the plane before it crashes and explodes. Bond's last task will be to take out the arms dealer Whitaker and help Pushkin arrest the traitorous Koskov. 

I called Dalton a stop gap James Bond between Roger Moore, who played the British agent for 14 years from 1971 to 1985 and Pierce Brosnan who would take over after Dalton for the next 7 years between 1995 and 2002.   But Dalton was on Bond Producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli's radar earlier than 1987.  Dalton had been considered for the role of James Bond much earlier.  After Sean Connery bowed out for ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969), Dalton had been offered the role of the world's most famous secret agent.  Dalton had just appeared in his feature film debut in Anthony Harvey's critically acclaimed historical drama THE LION IN WINTER (1968) starring Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn. Dalton would take himself out of the running, telling Broccoli he was too young for the part. One could see why Broccoli would be interested in Dalton.  Young and dashing with matinee idol looks (and green eyes), Dalton was a bit of an unknown like Sean Connery at the outset.  Broccoli saw that he could become a star like Connery with the Bond role. Instead, unknown Australian actor George Lazenby would play James Bond for only one time in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. Dalton would be offered the role again in the early 1970s but turned it down a second time due to other commitments, paving the way for Roger Moore. 

With Roger Moore's Bond beginning to look long in the tooth in his last couple of films, the arrival of Timothy Dalton in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS seemed like a breath of fresh air. Dalton embraced the James Bond that Ian Fleming had originally created, a colder and grittier spy. The casualty to that interpretation was a less humorous Bond. There are jokes and one liners in LIVING DAYLIGHTS but they catch us off guard due to Dalton's steely performance in the first half of the film. Dalton brings an athletic Bond back to the screen. The older Moore was doubled by more and more by stunt men in his latter films. Dalton clearly performs many of his stunts in LIVING DAYLIGHTS, hanging onto the top of speeding trucks and galloping in the desert on horses. Dalton performs yeomen's work in both LIVING DAYLIGHTS and LICENSE TO KILL. He's good but not great.  Neither film would make fans forget GOLDFINGER or LIVE AND LET LIVE. Playing Bond would not hurt Dalton's career which has remained steady before and after his turn as 007. Dalton's later credits include Joe Johnston's THE ROCKETEER (1991), Edgar Wright's HOT FUZZ (2007), the HBO series DOOM PATROL (2019 - 2021), and most recently as a villainous land baron in the Paramount streaming prequel to YELLOWSTONE called 1923 (2023). 

There would be a few firsts with THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. The most earth shaking first is that James Bond would be monogamous in a film for the first time in his career.  Throughout the Bond series, Bond had always slept with a minimum of two women and sometimes more.  In LIVING DAYLIGHTS, Bond only has eyes for cellist Kara Milovy played by the lovely Maryam D'Abo (XTRO). In fact, Kara is one of Bond's brainier pursuits, a classical musician. She's never shown in a bikini or a provocative dinner gown with plunging neckline. Kara's no wallflower, almost boyish with her short haircut. She's just as physical as Bond whether it's riding horses with the Mujahideen or evading bad guys on her cello case. She even drives a jeep right into the back of a moving cargo plane. Later in the scene, Kara flies the plane while Bond grapples with Necros high above the Afghan desert. There's no obligatory bed scene. Dalton's Bond is an old-fashioned romantic with flowers and long embraces.  

Besides a new James Bond, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS would introduce a new, younger Miss Moneypenny, M's personal assistant, played by Caroline Bliss after Lois Maxwell, who played Miss Moneypenny to Sean Connery, George Lazenby, and Roger Moore 14 times, retired from the role after A VIEW TO A KILL (1985). The character of Felix Leiter, James Bond's American CIA friend, would be played by a different actor for the sixth time in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS.  John Terry (FULL METAL JACKET) would have the honor this time although his role as Leiter is limited to a couple of scenes. Robert Brown would play M again for the third time, taking over the role in 1983's OCTOPUSSY when original M actor Bernard Lee died in 1981. Walter Gotell returns for the 7th and last time as General Anatol Gogol, M's Russian counterpart. Gotell first appeared in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) as a SPECTRE agent called Morzeny. Even Joe Don Baker (WALKING TALL) who portrays International Arms Dealer Brad Whitaker would appear again in Pierce Brosnan's first Bond outing GOLDENEYE (1995) only this time as an ally to James Bond. 

THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS would have an international cast including a couple of actors who are in two of my all-time favorite films. Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe (SOLDIER OF ORANGE) has the most fun with his role as the corrupt snake General Georgy Koskov who's playing both the West and East against each other, even betraying his mistress Kara. American audiences will remember Krabbe as the villain in Andrew Davis's THE FUGITIVE (1993) starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones based on the 1960s television show. German actor Andreas Wisniewski, trained as a classical dancer, plays Koskov's blonde henchman Necros. Wisniewski would team up with another dancer, Russian ballet star turned actor Alexander Godunov as European terrorists in John McTiernan's DIE HARD (1988) starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman. 

The target of Georgy Koskov's treachery is his superior General Leonid Pushkin played by the great baritone voiced John Rhys-Davies, familiar to millions of film fans as Indiana Jones's friend Sallah in Steven Spielberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981). Although born in Wales, Davies could play any ethnicity from the Egyptian Sallah in the INDIANA JONES films to a Russian General caught in a power play in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS.  Rhys-Davies would go on to greater fame playing the warrior dwarf Gimli in Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. And playing Pushkin's mistress Rubavitch is Australian actress Virginia Hey, a fan favorite from George Miller's THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981). Hey was one of the few females in THE ROAD WARRIOR playing the tough Warrior Woman. She shows off her feminine beauty a little more in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Hey would go on to appear in the popular Sci-Fi television series FARSCAPE (1999 - 2002). 

One of the locations in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS has a connection to the great Carol Reed post World War II thriller THE THIRD MAN and a couple of Bond directors. THE THIRD MAN was filmed entirely in Vienna, Austria a few years after World War II.  One of its best scenes takes place at a giant amusement park in the city called the Prater with its stunning Ferris Wheel where Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten first meet in THE THIRD MAN and take a ride.  Bond and Kara would ride and make love in the same Ferris Wheel for THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. The connection between the two films is DAYLIGHTS director John Glen was an Assistant Sound Editor on THE THIRD MAN, his first film assignment.  Former Bond director Guy Hamilton (THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN) was an Assistant Director on THE THIRD MAN and even stood in for Orson Welles in some of the shots of Welles' character Harry Lime running down dark Vienna streets, Hamilton's shadow doubling for Welles.

Beginning in the 1970s Bond films would capitalize on the latest movie trend whether it was car chases (DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER), blaxploitation films (LIVE AND LET DIE), or science fiction and space (MOONRAKER).  The plot of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS throws in current events with the third act of the film taking place in Afghanistan where the Russians and the Mujahideen had been waging a war against each other from 1979 to 1989.  Bond gets to act like Lawrence of Arabia with his white turban as he, Kara, and a bunch of Afghan horse soldiers fight Russian tanks and grenade launchers in their quest to stop Koskov. 

I've been grousing about how director John Glen was my least favorite Bond director but it's not entirely Glen's fault.  Glen took over the reins as Roger Moore became too old for the role in OCTOPUSSY and A VIEW TO A KILL. Glen could not make Moore look younger or more athletic.  Glen was also saddled with some poor scripts in those last few Moore films.  What Glen was good at was shooting action sequences.  Glen himself had been a 2nd Unit Director for THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977).  Glen's (or his 2nd Unit Director) best work is in snowy scenes like the ski chases in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. In THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, Bond and Kara's escape from Czechoslovakia is a well staged action scene shot by Glen complete with cars and motorcycles racing on an icy lake, assassins pursuing Bond and Kara on skis, and the absurd escape by Bond and Kara sitting in Kara's cello case. A shout out to composer John Barry who would do his last Bond musical score for THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. It's one of his best in my opinion. Barry first started with the Bond franchise with FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. 

Dalton's first outing as James Bond in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS would go well, bringing in over $100 million dollars worldwide at the Box Office.  Dalton would follow up his debut as 007 in 1989 with LICENSE TO KILL, also directed by John Glen.  The second in the Dalton era would not be such a hit for myself or Bond fans.  The main Bond girl Carey Lowell wasn't particularly interesting, the main Bond villain Robert Davi (THE GOONIES) as a drug lord not particularly threatening, and even an appearance by Las Vegas crooner Wayne Newton as a corrupt televangelist or an early role for Benicio Del Toro (THE USUAL SUSPECTS) were enough to make LICENSE TO KILL interesting.  Dalton's run as the legendary Bond was over before it had really begun (truth be told Dalton was supposed to return for a third film but legal troubles for MGM delayed the film and Dalton retired from the role when his contract ran out).  It would be six years, the longest stretch in the Bond series without a film, before James Bond would return in GOLDENEYE, this time with an Irish actor taking over the martini shaken not stirred role. 

Timothy Dalton will be better remembered than one and done George Lazenby for his James Bond films.  Like many things about how movies come together, timing and fate and schedules played a part in Dalton not becoming James Bond sooner or longer.  THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS is a worthy reflection of Dalton's contribution to the James Bond series. Dalton brought the Bond character back to how author Ian Fleming had written him, a little colder and ruthless. For the Bond filmmakers, it was back to the drawing board as they would start to cast for the next James Bond when Dalton retired from the role.  And like Dalton, they would end up choosing an actor who had been considered for the role previously but had also been bound by a contract he couldn't get out of.  That actor would be Pierce Brosnan. 

The Blob (1958 and 1988)

It was only inevitable that these two genres were on a course to crisscross each other at some point in the 1950s.  The teenage rebellion genre with films like Richard Brooks BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955) and Nicholas Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (also 1955) colliding with the science fiction/horror genre films such as Christian Nyby's THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951) and William Cameron Menzies INVADERS FROM MARS (1953). The union of these two, very different genres would be born as THE BLOB (1958) directed by the incomparably named Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr about a meteorite with a gooey creature inside that crash lands near a small town full of testosterone charged teenagers butting heads with adults like police officers and their parents. It was around Halloween time one year in junior high in the late 1970s that my classmates and I were shown a 16mm print of THE BLOB.  The teenage angst and hormones went over my head, but the film had some genuinely scary sequences, especially in the first 30 minutes of the picture.

THE BLOB normally would have been just a blip on the horror movie landscape if it weren't for a young actor making his feature film debut in the film.  Steven McQueen (who would soon shorten his name to the cooler sounding Steve McQueen) is the lead in THE BLOB. McQueen is very good and believable as a high school student who tries to convince his small town that there's an alien creature in their midst. It's hard to believe that just five years later, McQueen would be starring in the classic World War II POW adventure THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) directed by John Sturges with an all-star cast including Richard Attenborough, James Garner, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson. 

If there was ever a film that was crying out to be remade in the modern era with the advent of makeup and special effects, it was THE BLOB.  What a talented director like Ridley Scott who made ALIEN (1979) or John Carpenter who directed his own excellent remake THE THING (1982) based on the 1951 original could do with THE BLOB would be mind blowing.  But THE BLOB remake released in 1988 came and went with very little fanfare. I had not seen it but I recall when it came out I was not impressed with the cast (Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith) or the director Chuck Russell whose previous work included A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS (1987). The new BLOB did not discover the next Steve McQueen.  Would it come close to its cult classic original source? CrazyFilmGuy has thrown down the gauntlet in this original THE BLOB vs remake THE BLOB cage match to find out. 

Directed by one hit wonder Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr. from a screenplay by Theodore Simonson and Kate Phillips (later Kay Linaker) from an idea by Irvine H. Millgate, the original THE BLOB takes place over one night in 1957 in a small American town (the movie was filmed around Valley Forge, Pennsylvania). Teenagers Steve Andrews (Steve McQueen billed as Steven) and his girlfriend Jane Martin (Aneta Corsaut) are parked up on a lovers peak when they witness a meteorite blaze across the sky and crash land nearby. An Old Man (Olin Howland) finds the alien rock on his property. When he pokes at it with a stick, a small gooey creature shoots out of the rock, grasping onto his arm. Steve and Jane drive up to investigate and nearly hit the Old Man crossing the road, clearly in pain.  Steve and Jane race the Old Man to the office of Dr. Hallen (Stephen Chase) speeding past classmates Tony Gressette (Robert Fields), "Mooch" Miller (James Bonnet), and Al (Tony Franke) who are in another car. While Dr. Hallen examines the creature attached to the Old Man's arm, Steve is forced to drag race against Tony and his buddies until Lt. Dave Barton (Earl Rowe) shuts down their antics and lectures Steve on his driving.

Steve, Jane, and the three boys team up and return to the Old Man's cabin to inspect the cracked meteorite, picking up his stray dog along the way. Back at Dr. Hallen's, the Blob devours both the Old Man and Nurse Kate (Lee Payton) who had arrived to help the good doctor. Dr. Hallen tries to shoot the gelatinous creature.  Steve and Jane return to Hallen's office. Steve witnesses the Blob kill Dr. Hallen through the blinds of his office window.  Steve and Jane go to the police station to report Dr. Hallen missing. Officer Dave and Sgt. Jim Bert (John Benson) are skeptical of the kids' story.  Officer Dave goes out with them to investigate. The Blob moves on from the doctor's office to the local car garage where it kills a mechanic (Ralph Roseman) working under a car. Officer Dave and the kids find no sign of Dr. Hallen. His cleaning lady Mrs. Porter (Elinor Hammer) shows up, tells them Hallen's off to a convention. 

Officer Dave calls Steve and Jane's fathers to come pick them up at the police station. The kids promise to go to bed. Jane sneaks out of her home, bribing her kid brother Danny (Keith Almoney) not to squeal with the promise of a new dog. Jane reunites with Steve at his house. They roll Steve's car out of the garage. Steve and Jane go to the Midnight Spook show where DAUGHTER OF HORROR is showing at the Colonial Theater and recruit their friends to help. The teenagers spread out to warn the town, but no one believes them. Steve and Jane notice the Old Man's dog barking next to the local supermarket owned by Steve's father.  It's supposed to be closed but Steve and Jane walk in. The Blob almost grabs Jane. Steve and Jane hide in the meat locker.  The Blob tries to ooze under the door before retreating. Steve and Jane convince their friends to all honk the horns of their cars and set off air raid alarms to get the town's attention. The locals, police, and fire department show up. Everyone still refuses to believe Steve and Jane. 

The Blob sets its sights on the Colonial Theater and all the tasty humans inside watching the horror film. It squeezes through a vent and consumes the projectionist. The movie screen goes black as the Blob oozes out into the theater.  The midnight crowd flees nearly causing a riot. Jane's little brother Danny has snook out from home to see what's going on.  Steve and Jane grab Danny and run inside the local diner as the Blob drapes itself over it.  The police shoot at a powerline above the Blob trying to electrocute the creature with no luck.  Steve, Jane, Danny, and the diner's occupants move down into the cellar.  When the Blob attempts to squeeze under the cellar door, Steve sprays it with a fire extinguisher.  The Blob retracts.  Steve realizes the Blob doesn't like the cold, just like when it tried to reach them in the chilly meat locker.  Steve calls out to the police and citizens to grab every fire extinguisher they can find and spray it at the Blob.   The town is able to neutralize the Blob by freezing it.  Officer Dave calls the military for assistance.  He suggests they transport the Blob to the coldest climate possible. The film's final shot is a large crate dropped by parachute onto the snowy tundra of the Arctic. We can only hope a polar bear doesn't try to eat its contents. 

From the colorful title sequence and catchy title song Beware the Blob (co-written by a very young  Burt Bacharach) to the casting of future film icon Steve McQueen in the lead role, the original THE BLOB captured lightning in a bottle for an independent film. THE BLOB uses two tried and true horror formulas within its plot. First, the filmmakers utilize the Boy Who Cried Wolf angle. Steve has seen the gelatinous Blob up close and personal, first attached to the arm of the Old Man and later, absorbing Dr. Hallen through the blinds of the good doctor's office. But he can't convince any adults or authority figures of the danger they're all in.  They all think Steve's just the typical teenager, trying to call attention to himself.  Later, THE BLOB uses the effective small town under siege by malevolent forces mentality that we've come to love from Don Siegel's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) to Wolf Rilla's VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) to Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS (1963) to John Carpenter's THE FOG (1980). The town has to join together to destroy the giant interstellar membrane. 

THE BLOB'S success was dependent on how realistic the filmmakers and their special effects department could make the Blob appear. For the most part, the original THE BLOB passes the test. The film's best sequences are at the beginning of the film. The neophyte Blob jumping onto the Old Man's arm is a terrifying start, a silicone like gelatin engulfing his arm (ALIEN would take this one step farther with the face hugger alien attaching itself to John Hurt's face). Dr. Hallen's death by the Blob is well staged, Hallen pressed up against his blinds, a pink mass behind him.  Miniatures are used cleverly when the Blob squeezes through vents and under doors later in the film. An inflated weather balloon is used sparingly but effectively for some brief shots of the Blob as it begins to grow and move around town. It's only when the Blob becomes larger that the effects become strained by its limitations especially in the climactic diner scene. A matte painting of the Blob is used to show the monster covering the diner. THE BLOB remake would also run into special effect limitations when making its Blob larger. 

One theme THE BLOB doesn't pursue is the communist paranoia that many other horror and science fiction films probed during the 1950s.  The alien or giant insect was an allegory for Communist Russia or North Korea lurking in the shadows and sewer drains, trying to infiltrate the hearts and minds of everyday American citizens.  This BLOB will have none of that Commie BS. This BLOB'S target audience is teenagers.  The film has its teenagers doing what all teenagers liked to do in the late 50s: taking your sweetheart to an out of way location to make out, driving around in your parents' cool car, and catching a late-night horror film at the local cinema. The adults are portrayed as old fashioned and stuck in their own ways. The teenagers are out of control and making up stories.  When Steve and Jane are finally validated by the existence of the Blob to all the adults, director Yeaworth Jr. pokes some fun at the grown-ups. A group rush to the high school to grab more fire extinguishers. The doors are locked. It's Jane's stern father Henry Martin (Elbert Smith) who has to act like a teenager and smash a window to let everyone inside. Mr. Martin's pause as he looks around at the teenagers looking at him before having to commit an act of vandalism is priceless.  

Although director Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr is not a household name, THE BLOB would be Yeaworth's CITIZEN KANE (only because no one remembers his next two and final films 4D MAN or DINOSAURS!). Yeaworth's first love was making religious films which he did both before and after THE BLOB. Yeaworth had talent. Like any good horror film, Yeaworth keeps the Blob out of sight for most of the film, showing the viscous growing goo at short intervals, building suspense as to when it might jump out next. Yeaworth's staging of the panicked moviegoers racing out of the Colonial Theater to escape the Blob is the highlight of the film. The filmmakers must have made the whole town extras and urged them to flee as fast from the theater as possible.  Watch for several collisions and near collisions amongst the locals during the sequence.  It's an intense set piece for a low budget sci fi/horror film (THE BLOB'S budget is estimated to have been $120,000). 

Most young teenage actors or young adults portraying a teenager in horror films are forgettable (see most FRIDAY THE 13TH films excluding Kevin Bacon who broke that rule). They are a dime a dozen.  The same holds true in the 1950s.  Young male and female actors and actresses were all fresh faced, good looking, and trying to become the next star.  Their performances rarely stood out.  That's what makes Steve McQueen feature film debut different.  There's an intensity about McQueen even in a low budget horror film like THE BLOB that separates him from his peers.  McQueen doesn't have a lot to work with (although the cast is uniformly fine if not a tad bland). McQueen makes us believe as teenager Steve that he's seen something literally from out of this world. It's easy to see how he got the nickname "the King of Cool."  Whether he's getting lectured by Officer Dave for his driving habits or his exasperation with the adults who won't believe him, McQueen stays calm and focused. Many young actors would have acted tough or belligerent.  McQueen uses his matinee idol face and eyes to say it all.

Hollywood is big on remembering anniversaries, so it was only a matter of time, say 30 years to be exact, before director Chuck Russell and Tri Star Pictures came up with the idea to remake THE BLOB (1988). It seemed like a good idea with special effects make-up and technology breaking new ground every year.  Does THE BLOB remake live up to the spunky little independently made THE BLOB? THE BLOB remake pays homage to the original THE BLOB in many aspects: the Old Man finding the Blob first, the movie theater chaos, and the siege on the diner.  But any remake needs to expound on the original.  This new THE BLOB has some good additions and some cliche additions plus an interesting Stephen King vibe perhaps brought in by one of the co-writers.

Directed by Chuck Russell with a screenplay by Russell and Frank Darabont (who would go on to write and direct THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION), THE BLOB remake takes place in the fictional Colorado mountain town of  Arborville (actually filmed in Abbeville, Louisiana) where the town is giddy after a Saturday afternoon high school football victory. Cheerleader Meg Penny (Shawnee Smith) prepares for an after-game date with football player Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch, Jr).  Sheriff Herb Geller (Jeffrey DeMunn) asks diner owner Fran Hewitt (AMERICAN GRAFFITI'S Candy Clark) if she'd like to go on a date. Just outside town, rebel teenager Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon) tries out some motorcycle stunts and crashes his bike. Brian heads into town to get a tool to fix his motorcycle. Can Man (Billy Beck), the local hobo witnesses a meteorite crash in the woods. When Can Man goes to investigate the space rock, a baby Blob shoots out and attaches itself to his arm. Brian stumbles upon Can Man in pain upon his return. As Meg and Paul head out for their date, they nearly hit Brian and Can Man on the road with Paul's car. Brian urges Meg and Paul to take Can Man to the hospital.  

Meg and Paul bring the hobo to the emergency room. Paul thinks he sees the Blob consume Can Man. When the doctor (David Lynch regular Jack Nance) pulls off the sheet, Can Man's lower half of his body is missing. This Blob has an acid component to its repertoire. Paul tries to call the Sheriff. The Blob drops from the ceiling onto Paul, killing our young hero. The Blob moves on to kill teenage couple Scott Jeske (Ricky Paull Goldin) and Vicki De Soto (Erika Eleniak) making out in their car in the woods before dropping into the town's sewer. Sheriff Geller sees Brian on the road and picks him up briefly as a suspect to Paul's death before releasing him for lack of evidence. Meg asks the rebel Brian to help her solve what's going on. They're now the only two people to have seen the Blob. They knock around ideas at Fran's diner before she closes for the night. The Blob kills Fran's cook and then crushes Fran in a phone booth as she tries to flee. Meg and Brian duck into the freezer. The Blob briefly tries to reach them before retreating back to the sewer. 

Reverend Meeker (Del Close) witnesses the Blob seep back into the sewer. He finds a sample of the Blob and places it in a jar. Meg and Brian return to where the meteorite landed and run into a swarm of government scientists in hazard suits led by Dr. Meddows (Joe Seneca), leader of the Biological Containment Team. Seemingly friendly at first, the government team quickly places the town under quarantine and forces Meg and Brian into a van, headed back to town. Brian overhears Meddows say that the Blob is actually an experimental biological warfare weapon created by the government. At the local cinema showing a slasher film (with the tongue in cheek title Toolshed Massacre), Meg's underage brother Kevin (Michael Kenworthy) and friend Eddie (Douglas Emerson) sneak in to watch. The Blob shows up in the projection booth and blobs Hobbe (Frank Collison) the projectionist. The Blob moves into the theater, gobbling up patrons. Brian escapes from the van while Meg stays onboard. When Meg arrives back in town, moviegoers are racing from the theater. Meg runs into her parents and learns her brother Kevin is in the theater. Meg rescues the young boys. The Blob chases Meg and the boys down into the sewer. 

The Blob grabs Eddie and pulls him underwater, killing him. Meg's about to get blobbed when the biological team distracts the Blob enough to buy some time for Meg and Kevin. Brian finds Meg and Kevin. They start to climb up onto the street when Meddows orders the manhole sealed. Brian borrows a bazooka from the Bio Agents and blast a hole through the manhole. On the street, Brian and Deputy Bill Briggs (Paul McCrane) have a Mexican standoff with the government biological team. One of the Blob's tentacles grabs Dr. Meddows and pulls him into the gaping manhole. The biological team turns its weapons against the Blob. They believe they've killed the creature when it explodes up through the streets, starting a fire. Reverend Meeker is partially burned but escapes. Meg grabs a fire extinguisher to put out the fire. The cold foam touches the Blob causing it to retract. She discovers the Blob is allergic to cold. Brian borrows the snow blower from the local garage and sprays the Blob with cold snow. Meg ignites a conveniently nearby liquid nitrogen truck, freezing the Blob as an artificial snow falls on the town. The remake THE BLOB ends with a the disfigured Reverend Meeker now preaching at a revival tent about the Rapture aka the End of the World. He holds up a jar with a tiny Blob particle he collected moving around. 

Let's see what the remake THE BLOB got right.  The filmmakers get the color of the Blob perfect, a cotton candy like pink with translucent purple overtones. The body count is higher in this BLOB and the deaths more spectacular. The special effects (as you would expect in 1988) are superior to the original. The special effects work best with individual deaths like Scott's demise at the hospital, Fran's death in the phone booth, or the projectionist at the movie theater. When the Blob grows and attacks the town, the creature's believability suffers. This BLOB touches on all the original BLOB'S highlights and locations while breaking its own ground. We have the set pieces at the movie theater and the diner, their appearances flipped from the original. The Old Man becomes the transient Can Man in the remake, the unfortunate first victim of the Blob. Dr. Hallen's office becomes the town's hospital, a bigger set to unleash the Blob. The town's sewer system becomes a new location for the Blob to move around. 

The new BLOB writers play around with the characters a bit.  Football player Paul would seem to be the likely heir to Steve McQueen's Steve only to be killed early in the film by the Blob.  Instead, outcast Brian and cheerleader Meg become the new Steve and Jane protagonists of the film. In the tradition of strong female characters in horror films like Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode in John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN or Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in ALIEN, Shawnee Smith's Meg is transformed into a heroine as she battles the otherworldly giant mucous. There are no high school friends to back up Meg and Brian in this BLOB.  These two totally different teenagers on the opposite spectrum of high school have to team up together to fight the evil that has come to their mountain town. 

What do the filmmakers of the new BLOB get wrong? Introducing the government and military as the bad guys may seem like a logical new addition to THE BLOB storyline but it's a cliche that has been used many times before (see Steven Spielberg's E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTIAL).  The farthest leap is that the government somehow created the Blob in outer space as some kind of germ warfare project and was waiting for it to return.  How Dr. Meddows and his team pulled this off is never fully explained. Having the Blob move around the town via the sewers works initially.  But director Russell comes back to the sewers one too many times. There are too many convenient coincidences. Brian finding Meg down in the sewers after he's chased on his motorcycle by the government. Meg running into her pharmacist father (Art LaFleur) and mother (Sharon Spelman) just as she gets out of the government van and tell her Kevin is missing and might be at the movie is a bit of a stretch.

I mentioned earlier I wasn't crazy with the lead casting for THE BLOB remake when the film was released. Neither lead actor inspired me to see the film originally. Director Russell makes sure we know it's the 1980s and not the 1950s as both Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith have thick, feathered long hair (which were actually wigs). I have to admit that Dillon surprised me with his performance as outsider Brian Flagg.  He's a heavy metal looking loner, rough on the outside but vulnerable on the inside when he realizes there are bigger forces in play than antagonizing the local police. Dillon (who is Matt Dillon's younger brother) broke into movies in Oliver Stone's Vietnam war drama PLATOON (1986) as the psychopathic Bunny and would have a successful run with HBOs hit cable series ENTOURAGE (2004 - 2011). THE BLOB was probably a nice role change for Dillon who could have been typecast in murderous roles after PLATOON.

Shawnee Smith who plays Meg is an actress I had never heard of before.  She's spunky and athletic as the cheerleader turned Blob killer. She's required to run around and swim throughout a good chunk of THE BLOB.  She's definitely not a weak horror film heroine. Smith (who I still haven't seen in anything else) has gone on to have a long career in films and TV most noticeably in James Wan's horror film SAW (2004) and four of its sequels.  One of the only other recognizable actors in THE BLOB is Jeffrey DeMunn (THE GREEN MILE) who plays Sheriff Herb Geller.   If you blink, you'll miss DeMunn.  In an interesting plot choice by THE BLOB filmmakers, DeMunn is killed offscreen early in the film.  We only find out when Fran (played by the other familiar actress Candy Clark) is about to get squashed in a phone booth and she sees Sheriff Geller who had flirted with her earlier in the night floating in the Blob's digestive system. It's a gruesome, effective image.

Even though the remake has no relation to horror novelist Stephen King's novels, this new BLOB has some interesting connections and references to other King stories most notably King's apocalyptic novel The Stand. possibly in part to co-writer Frank Darabont.  Darabont (who also co-wrote with Chuck Russell A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS) would direct three films based on Stephen King novellas and novels including THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994), THE GREEN MILE (1999), and THE MIST (2007). Kevin Dillon's character Brian Flagg has the same last name as Randall Flagg, the dark villain in King's The Stand. The homeless Can Man who becomes the Blob's first victim in THE BLOB is a reference to Randall Flagg's most ardent follower in The Stand called Trash Can Man. In The Stand, a genetically created flu engineered by the U.S. Government wipes out most of the planet. In THE BLOB, we learn the Blob was not some species from outer space but a result of a bio warfare experiment unleashed by the government. The U.S. Government would also be responsible for a radioactive fog that would create havoc in THE MIST written and directed by Darabont based on a novella by Stephen King. The doomsday/end of the world themes from King's The Stand and The Mist would permeate Darabont who would go on to develop the popular AMC zombie series THE WALKING DEAD about a virus that turns most of the planet into zombies. The last scene n THE BLOB with Reverend Meeker spouting Rapture like prophecies with a tiny Blob in a jam jar seems like a final nod to the Godfather of Horror Stephen King and his dire vision of the future of mankind. 

The new THE BLOB has the luxury of better special and make up effects. There's something to be said for the ingenuity of the original THE BLOB filmmakers (including Jack H. Harris who would be a Producer on both the original and the remake). Working with less money and mostly inexperienced actors, the original THE BLOB caught everyone by surprise, even moving up from a second feature on a double bill to the feature film at theaters when it was discovered how popular the little film was. What the new BLOB can never match is that a Hollywood legend by the name of Steve McQueen was discovered in of all places a low budget sci-fi/horror film. The new BLOB treats the original story with respect and tries to separate itself with some success. I still lean to the original THE BLOB for its freshness. The new BLOB will satisfy horror film fans who love good special effects. Take your pick with either BLOB but remember to watch out for falling meteorites when you're out on a date or camping in the woods.