Winner Sept '01

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Remaking "Some Like it Hot"

Posted by: Leda (LEDA74)

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I despair.  Remains there yet a sacrament that the Hollywood sausage-machine won't devour?

What a gloomy morning I had.  A headache, two late trains, a missed bus and this... to pick up someone else's discarded gossip rag and find that there is talk of a remake of "Some Like It Hot", featuring Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, and Melanie Griffith <pauses, choked by emotion>

Melanie Griffith.

I had considered it implausible that any woman would ever draw breath that could undertake a journey in the footsteps of Marilyn Monroe, a lady whose death signposted the end of the Golden Age of cinematica, and whose passing - for me at least - seemed to immortalise it like a dragonfly in Cretaceous amber.  But to take her moment of greatest triumph and recreate it with Melanie Griffith?

I am at heart a generous soul, and my savaged heart having been cleansed, I shall try to take a more placid look at the rest of this affair.

Our proposed male leads?  Well.  This is a comedy we are discussing, and if the thought of Bruce Willis in rope pearls, golden curls and a cloche hat does not raise as much of a voluminous gut-laugh with yourselves as it did with me (on a crowded commuter train, no less!) then I shall certainly send flowers and condolences for your sense of humour :)

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And Mel Gibson.  I for one am applauding this part!  After the steeping bitterness of "The Patriot", I feel it long past due that Mr Gibson lightens up.  Of course, I didn't envision that it'd take a drag act to lead him to it, but I'm flexible.  I just hope for Mel's own sake that he is, too <smiles>

It's the role of "Spats" Colombo that interests me.  I'm performing my own casting session in my head.  Who, indeed, would dare step up to bat in George Raft's stead?  De Niro occurs.  After his splendid portrayal of Al Capone in "The Untouchables", nobody could reasonably argue against the fact that he wears gangster like a familiar old coat.

I passed briefly over Brando too, but quickly dismissed that idea.  After "The Godfather", I feel it time to leave the poor chap in peace and lay the Brando = Mafioso cliche down in a deep grave.

And to the scriptwriters, if indeed this project goes ahead.  If you are reading this, then please, humour a devoted movie fanatic and get your notepad out now.

Don't - I beg you from the bottom of my artist's soul - tinker with the script any more than you absolutely, positively must.  It's perfect.  And that is not a word I fling about like rose-petals, it's justified right here and right now.  The scene where the girls squeeze in for a cocktail party in "Daphne's" bunk is a platinum-plated moment in my life, it doesn't need altering in the slightest.  And as for the part of Osgood, the amiable if confused millionaire?  I fear you may wish to amend him, too.  Please don't.  He's one of the many jewels of this movie, too.

In the end though, while it may be a horrendously over-used saw, imitation IS the sincerest form of flattery.  And if there's a striving to pay homage to any truly fabulous movie of times gone by, then it only serves to indicate just how inspirational it has been.  Never mind this remake, I sit before cinema screens even now and see distinct reverberations from "Some Like It Hot" in this movie, in that movie, in just about every other comedy in the forty years since its production which has aspired to similar greatness.

In short, it is not a creation which will ever be tarnished or affected by even the worst remake, so I am ultimately quite sanguine.

- Leda

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