Celluloid Heroes

Your fugitive’s name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him.

When Hollywood announces that it’s going to rape the collective childhood memories of the baby boomer generation and desecrate another television classic for the big screen, the results usually resemble what comes out of the southbound end of a northbound horse. There are rare exceptions, like The Addams Family, which take on a new life of their own when translated to the movies, but having that level of talent on board is pretty rare for such an enterprise. Speaking of enterprises, the Star Trek films are a different kind of exception, being more of a resurrection using the original cast than an actual adaptation.

Hollywood often likes to say they are “re-imagining” these TV shows, which is a laugh. Between the TV adapations, the endless sequels and remakes, “imagine” is a dirty word in that town. For them to re-imagine anything is not only an execise in futile absurdity, but also a violation of the laws of physics.

Thus, if you had told people ahead of time that the 1993 film version of The Fugitive would not only be nominated for Best Picture but that one of its actors would actually take home a statuette, you would have been strapped to a bed, forcibly medicated and not allowed to use sharp objects. In that context, the artistic success of this movie makes raising Lazurus seem like a Vegas sideshow act.

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This ain’t no Salvation Army. This is everybody for himself, dog eat dog…

Stalag 17 would have been a tight little World War II adventure if the writers had show more restraint in using their poor man’s version of Martin and Lewis (Harvey Lembeck and Robert Strauss). Never having seen the play, I can’t say for certain if they’re hijinks are faithful to the original material, but I’d guess that they are. However, one part of adapting material from another medium to film is removing or changing the things that don’t work on screen. The antics of Shapiro and “Animal” should have been cut or sharply curtailed. Unfortunately, I think producer/director Billy Wilder probably felt some obligation to carry over Strauss and Lembeck from the original Broadway production of the play.

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