Old movies that couldn't be remade today because of *taboo* subject matter

[LynneSin]

I started a thread about Dirty Dancing, which was released 25 years ago today.

I keep reading rumors about a remake of the movie but they could never redo the original. Part of the storyline revolves around an unwanted pregnancy and trying to get the girl an abortion, which at the time was illegal.

You remove that part of the storyline the rest of the movie doesn't make sense. Johnny (Patrick Swazye) was seen as the low-life dance instructor that wasn't good enough for any of Dr. Houseman's daughter. The Ayn Rand, Harvard-attending, Paul Ryan-wannabe waiter was seen as the perfect catch for any girl. In the end Johnny was the good guy and the waiter turned out to be a real douchebag.

It's odd that during the Reagan administration somehow a movie that had an abortion as part of the storyline was a sleeper hit of the summer and a favorite with young girls & adults. But the way politics are today, they could never remake a movie like that unless they took out that major plotline. And then it would just be a schlocky movie with some dancing in it instead of a movie about the social injustices out there.

[ohiosmith]

1. Heathers.

[Bertha Venation]

6. What a great movie - and great choice for the thread.

[ohiosmith]

14. Thank you Bertha.

[HopeHoops]

2. "To Kill a Mockingbird"

[sadbear]

3. Heck, not only can this movie not be remade, but...

you can't even see it today: Disney's Song of the South.

[hifiguy]

5. Don't know about SotS, but a lot of historical cartoons

with similar content - and some even more egregious - can be seen on YouTube.

[LynneSin]

7. This is about the Censored Eleven from Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censored_Eleven#Censored_Eleven_list

I've only ever seen 'All this and Rabbit Stew' and what's interesting it's basically a Bugs Bunny vs. Elmer Fudd except Elmer Fudd is now an African American in post civil war times. He's even drawn like Elmer Fudd and many of the things he does in the cartoon Elmer Fudd has done in other Bugs Bunny Cartoons. But it still just comes across racist the way they voiced the character.

[hifiguy]

9. Somewhere I have a VHS tape of those very cartoons.

An animation freak who was a friend of a friend was selling them years ago at local comic shops.

[hifiguy]

4. Lolita.

There are people right here at DU who would have a shitfit and fall in it if it were remade, Nabokov or no.

[Honeycombe8]

31. I saw this again recently. James Mason and Shelley Winters were wonderful.

Good movie. It was remade in 1997, as a foreign film, I think. I didn't see that version.

James Mason in the older version....that was one of his best performances, IMO.

[Blue_Tires]

40. Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain

critics damned it, but I thought it was a good remake...

[deutsey]

8. Blazing Saddles n/t

[Broken_Hero]

20. +1 nt

[AnneD]

37. My fist thought......

If you are going to walkup to the bell, you may as well ring it. He almost didn't get it by the censors at the time.

[raccoon]

10. Maybe Blue Denim (1959)?

Also deals with the possibility of an abortion.

[nolabear]

11. GWTW, unless it had vampires.

Come to think of it, Russell Edgington would add a lot to a cotillion.

[raccoon]

12. You could have Sherman's army as an army of vampires. nt

[csziggy]

13. Wouldn't it be more realistic to portray plantation owners as vampires

Using the slaves to feed their bloodlust? The entire Union Army would be armed with wooden stakes and silver bullets. Rhett Butler is still the opportunistic profiteer who gets drawn into the Southern cause by a woman he lusts after, but with the added quirk that she has turned him into a vampire, too.

This could be more fun than "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"!

Call it "Gone with the Dawn" since the Confederates can only fight at night.

[raccoon]

16. Take that idea and run with it! It does sound like P&P&Z. nt

[csziggy]

32. I may suggest it to a writer friend of mine

She already is published in the vampire genre. I really have no interest or talent to produce a work based on the idea.

[nolabear]

34. Wait a minute...I'm a writer. Don't I even get first right of refusal?

[csziggy]

42. Go for it - I make no claim on the idea or the title suggestion

My friend usually has more ideas than she can use. I mostly act as one of her 'expert' consultants, answering questions about horses. If it comes to mind the next time I talk to her I might mention this idea to her, but by then it may have slipped my mind.

[nolabear]

33. NICE. Have your people call my people!

[XemaSab]

35. I would read the shit out of that

[Xyzse]

15. Pinocchio

Children gambling, drinking and smoking just won't do.

[yellowcanine]

17. The Birth of a Nation (1915 Silent Film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation

Basically a KKK propaganda film.

[LynneSin]

18. Isn't the GOP trying to do a Live reenactment of it right now?

Just saying.

[murielm99]

19. Chinatown

After all, an incest victim could not POSSIBLY get pregnant.

[trof]

21. Disney's 'Song of the South'. I saw it when I was 6 or 7.

I thought it was delightful, and can still sing 'Zippity Doo Dah', which won the Academy Award as best song of 1947. It has been perceived as racist by some (including the NAACP), although I don't agree.
Uncle Remus was a loveable and very moral character.
However, you can't find it on tape or DVD.

From wiki:
The setting of the film is the deep South of the Reconstruction era. Harris' original Uncle Remus stories were all set after the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery (Harris himself, born in 1845, was a racial reconciliation activist writer and journalist of the Reconstruction era). The film makes several indirect references to the Reconstruction era: clothing is in the newer late-Victorian style; Uncle Remus is free to leave the plantation at will; black field hands are sharecroppers, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South

[trof]

22. Looks like you can watch the entire movie on youtube.

Decide for yourself.

[LynneSin]

25. Wow Hattie McDaniels is in that movie

did not know that!

[hlthe2b]

27. Wow... I've never seen Song of the South, but wanted to...

Thanks for that link.

[WolverineDG]

23. Plus the fact that Baby was under-age & Johnny was an adult

The screaming would never stop if that movie was made today.

[Enrique]

24. Rambo 3

the Afghanistan mujahideen arent cool anymore the way they were in the Reagan years.

[hlthe2b]

26. Oh, I don't know about that... CiderHouse Rules was made in 1999-- entire plot was about abortion

and the character of the abortionist Doctor, though flawed, was somewhat of a hero figure in the movie...

[LynneSin]

29. But remember in the book Homer rejected doing abortions

I think in the end he did one because of incest but that was one of the reasons he left the orphanage.

[arcane1]

28. The original "The Muppet Movie"

They drank beer and champagne!!

[Paladin]

30. "Peyton Place"

This is where we're at: A 1950's soap opera movie depicts a doctor's administration of an abortion, due to a drunken stepfather's rape---no way in hell would a modern-day studio allow it. If you're not scared by how far this country's slipped, you're not paying attention......

[LynneSin]

38. If they made that today they wouldhave the woman keep the child

and show how wonderful it is to raise the child your birthed because of a drunken rape by your stepfather.

seriously!

[Tabasco_Dave]

36. Over The Edge (1979)

Theaters refused to show this movie because of violence concerns, you had to catch it on cable if you where lucky to have it. I doubt they would make it today.

[Blue_Tires]

41. I saw that as a kid in the 80s and loved it...

I remembered wondering why the kids in the 70s had so ass-kicking much fun while my time in the late 80s/early 90s was mired in suck...

[YankeyMCC]

39. This one came to mind "Gentleman's Agreement"

but I'm not so sure actually, certainly things have changed (I hope!) but maybe not so much that something like this film could not still be made relevant.

[LynneSin]

44. Back in the 60s they did a film called "Black Like Me"

Same thing except this was about the story of a white man who made himself black and traveled throughout the south during the 60s.

[BOG PERSON]

43. "The North Star"

1943 movie about Soviet heroism against the Nazis (unfairly panned by modern day Americans as ww2 propaganda)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036217/