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Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Someone in an online forum I frequent made a comment yesterday about his frustration that so many current films seem to be remakes or based on old TV shows. This made me think that there is one film I've never heard anyone suggest was due for a remake: Citizen Kane. I wonder why. Much less well known films, such as Flight of the Phoenix, have been remade. Although the story was very obviously based in part on the story of 19th Century newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst its not hard to imagine a modern version being every bit as relevant to comtemporary viewers. Perhaps its considered too much of an icon to tamper with, just as no one seems to be in a hurry to make a modern take on Cecil B. Demille's 1956 classic The Ten Commandments. (Ironically Demille made a Biblical epic of the same name in 1923.) Perhaps the film is seen as a jinxed one given Orson Welles problems with Hollywood after making Kane. Of course knowing the way things go someone is even as I write this considering a Kane remake.

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