“Let’s say that the first version was the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional.” – Alfred Hitchcock
I had thought that a director remaking his or her own film would be a rather unusual occurrence. However, after a quick search I discovered that Hitchcock is joined by a number of great directors both past and present - Michael Haneke, Michael Mann and Cecille B DeMille to name a few. It’s definitely a very interesting idea – having another shot at a film once you are a little older and wiser. Certainly in the cases of Hitchcock et al. they also had the chance to make the films with much larger budgets and distribution. So, enough of a preamble, let’s get stuck into the films themselves.
The first film is black and white, made and shot in Britain. It doesn’t contain any big stars for the time, but it does have Peter Lorre in his first English-speaking role as the villain. The film is for the most part directed with a tight economy that clearly makes the best out of a smallish budget and largely gets away with it (other than the opening scenes amongst a horrendously fake backdrop of the Swiss Alps). The locations are endlessly fun, moving from the Alps, to a dentist, to a chapel (complete with gun-toting congregation) before culminating in the Albert Hall and a siege in the East End of London. A lot of this seems to be down to the presence of Alfred Junge as art director who would later go on to work on beautiful set design with Powell and Pressburger.
The tone of the film is that of an energetic, rather silly thriller, and it manages to maintain this feeling throughout. The performances are consistently fascinating if nothing else – Lorre is superb as the sinister, snivelling villain (he didn’t speak a word of English at the time so was forced to learn his lines phonetically, possibly adding to the unusual air he conjures up). Leslie Banks‘ performance as the father trying to save his daughter is at times quite bizarre – his adherence to the British stiff upper lip comes across as a lack of any real concern for his family and makes him ultimately appear to be a bit of a sociopath. Overall then, it’s a good film, be prepared for a bit of (mostly intentional) silliness, but that’s all part of its charm.
For the 1956 remake, Hitchcock clearly had a much larger budget. The film is in colour, the sets and locations are far more convincing than the original. There are also two major stars attached to the film – James Stewart and Doris Day, as well as notable supporting actors including Bernard Miles and Alan Mowbray. The plot differs in various crucial ways between the two films – the opening holiday moves to Morocco in the remake; the agent whose death provides the catalyst for the dramatic events becomes a chance acquaintance as opposed to a family friend and the East End siege is dropped entirely in the later film.
The remake is also notable for the inclusion of ”Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)”, sung by Doris Day twice in the film and released as a hit single in Britain and the US (it also won the film’s only Oscar). Personally, while the song itself is perfectly nice, I find that it feels as if it has been forced into the film using a rather tacky plot device. Indeed, Doris Day herself does not impress me much in this film – her performance is largely banal and she feels rather out of place, as if she’s doing an impression of a Hitchcock leading lady but just falling short. Day has the Hitchcock blonde hair, and she’s undoubtedly pretty, but she perhaps lacks that stunning beauty that characterise so many Hitchcock women.
Indeed, Day for me highlights a problem I have with this film that I struggle to put my finger on. While the original film kept a feeling of a taught thriller with a bit of silliness thrown in, the remake misses the mark a bit. Jimmy Stewart is continually placed in a series of bizarre and humiliating situations – a mistaken punch-up in a taxidermist and drugging his wife to ‘calm’ her have to be a highlight. The problem is that unlike the original there isn’t a strong villain to keep a sense of dread running throughout. We are left then with a film lacking any real drive – Stewart seemingly meanders round London like a violent lost tourist, so we are left with the lacklustre Day and the frankly irritating Christopher Olsen as the couple’s son. The direction and the music are both good if not as excellent as we may be used to from Hitchcock and Herrmann, particularly considering the other films they made together during the period (look out for a rare Herrmann cameo as the conductor at the Albert Hall).
Conclusion
The Hitchcock quote I’ve used at the top of this article has largely been used by critics to show that he preferred the later of his two films; however, while I agree entirely with the quote, I just feel that the original is superior. Yes, some of the backdrops are obviously fake and the accents and dialogue have dated rather badly. Nevertheless, the ’34 film has charm and character by the bucket load, the ’56 film just feels at times like a vehicle for a Doris Day single. There are definitely great moments in it – the Albert Hall scene is even better in the remake than in the original, but overall the film falls short. Hitchcock’s quote for me perfectly sums this up – it’s notable that the amateur is talented, the professional is not. Ultimately, you can make a film as slick and star-studded as you like, but it can never make up for good filmmaking.
Posted by maxhasler 
