I guess I'd rather have this than another superhero or magical coming of age film but the original film is quite exceptional and very time specific. I'm interested yet I got a queasy feeling when learned the extent of remake literalness in evidence. Any serious thoughts?
shareI know that the author of the screenplay William Saroyan was also hired to direct but then removed from the project when he wanted the film to be around 3 hours long. Besides cutting out plot and dialogue, the new director took the film a much more sentimental direction, so much so that Saroyan wrote a novelization of the screenplay that was released when the movie came out to counter the film version.
So yes a remake while maybe not being needed, isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if it ends up being closer to the authors wishes
I wasn't aware of Saroyan's dissatisfaction. I have read Louis B Mayer thought very highly of him, even valued his friendship and opinions. He also paid him a lot of money for the story/screenplay and it got an A movie production. Clarence Brown was their best director and Mickey Rooney gives his best performance. A talented writer dissatisfied with the resulting movie, please, call a cop.
The story is very WWII/FDR era specific. I'm not looking forward to an update even if it's shot on location etc. I love the film and it exists for today's audience to enjoy. The values and sentiments expressed in the film are timeless but very much contemporaneous of that time.
This feels like Kenny G's cover/exploitation of Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World. That's not a good thing.
I studied Saroyan at college, and the story as I came across it was somewhat different. Since Saroyan wanted to direct but had never directed a movie, the studio let him do a short film as a sort of audition, and when they saw the result they decided he didn't make the grade. Saroyan was embittered and even when he'd gambled away all his money, he never let Hollywood get its hands on another story from him during his lifetime. His own direction, at least for the stage, was reportedly quite melodramatic and sentimental.
In the 1960s, Saroyan returned to his Human Comedy novel and revised it slightly. If cruel people could call the original treacly, the revised version was a bit less so.
is that short film available?
The food I've liked in my time is American country cookin'-Colonel Sanders 🇺🇸
That short film, called The Good Job, is safe at the Library of Congress. Apparently it popped up at a film festival in Yerevan in 2008. The festival notes claim that "The film was appreciated by Mayer and others at MGM and was ultimately released as an ‘MGM Miniature.’ Nevertheless, Mayer refused to allow Saroyan to direct The Human Comedy." The TCM website reports the episode a little differently: "But the short was considered un-releasable, and Saroyan's episodic screenplay for The Human Comedy would have produced a four-and-a-half hour movie, so Mayer paid him for his writing, then assigned the re-write to studio scripter Howard Estabrook. Saroyan tried to buy the script back, then consoled himself by turning it into a novel. It came out the week The Human Comedy opened and became a major best seller, driving ticket sales for the film as well.”
sharecool. thanks for info. that would be something to see!
The food I've liked in my time is American country cookin'-Colonel Sanders 🇺🇸
I love The Human Comedy with Mickey Rooney and Van Johnson, and, while I am looking forward to seeing this version, I also dread seeing it. There is only one Mickey Rooney and he won my heart when I saw The Human Comedy for the first time!
sharePlays are done over and over with different directors, casts, sets, etc., so why not movies? It might be good, or not, but either way the original film still exists, no damage done.
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