Sleuth (Kenneth Branagh, 2007)

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Jeff
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Sleuth (Kenneth Branagh, 2007)

#1 Post by Jeff » Sat May 12, 2007 5:38 pm

The remake is currently in post-production, so it may actually make it out later this year. Jude Law is playing Michael Caine's role from the 1972 film, and Caine himself is playing the Olivier role. Kenneth Branagh directed, and Harold Pinter adapted Anthony Shaffer's play.

Here is the first still.
Last edited by Jeff on Wed May 16, 2007 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Belmondo
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#2 Post by Belmondo » Sat May 12, 2007 7:52 pm

Was there some problem with the original? Of course not; but let's remake it anyway and thereby provide more evidence that no one in the business has had an original idea for the last thirty five years. Jude Law did not make me forget Michael Caine as ALFIE and Caine won't make me forget Olivier. Yeah, I know; we are making another classic available for a new generation of younger blah, blah, blah. But, I still want an answer - was there some problem with the original?

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Jeff
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#3 Post by Jeff » Sat May 12, 2007 9:08 pm

Belmondo wrote:Was there some problem with the original?
I think you could count on one hand the number of movies that were remade because there was a "problem" with the original. As a general rule, movies are made to make money, not to solve problems. Obviously, that's not the case with many of the movies discussed on this forum, but as a general rule for studio product (which the Sleuth remake is), I think it applies.

In the case of Sleuth, the impetus of the film was Jude Law's fondness for Shaffer's play and for its previous cinematic interpretation. Law is producing the film, and recruited Caine, Branagh, and Pinter. Perhaps it isn't even fair for me to call it a remake since it is really a new interpretation of the play.

I certainly share your concern that Hollywood seems to be especially reliant on sequels, remakes, and television derivatives to make a buck these days, but I don't really see the harm in a new version of Sleuth. I've seen several plays multiple times with different casts and directors, and often find different things to appreciate each time. I have some hope that the same will hold true for Sleuth.

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dx23
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#4 Post by dx23 » Sat May 12, 2007 10:41 pm

Probably the only good thing that will come out of all of this is the re-release of the original's OOP DVD. i have seen the film several times at TCM and I just love it.

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Jeff
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#5 Post by Jeff » Wed May 16, 2007 10:48 pm

Sony has finally set a release date, and it will indeed make it out this year: October 12, 2007.

patrick
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#6 Post by patrick » Tue May 22, 2007 4:41 pm

I'm actually fairly excited about this one, Caine has been on a bit of a tear lately (I guess he's done using acting gigs as a way to take vacations) and I'd love to see the Olivier role reinterpreted more along the lines of Caine's performance in The Prestige.

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#7 Post by David Ehrenstein » Tue May 22, 2007 8:52 pm

This sounds like great fun. The original was big hit -- making Mankiewicz one of the few directors from the Golden Age to end his career on a professional high note.

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tavernier
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#8 Post by tavernier » Tue May 22, 2007 11:03 pm

The unsolvable problem will be the drop in talent from Olivier/Caine to Caine/Law.

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#9 Post by David Ehrenstein » Wed May 23, 2007 9:02 am

I beg to differ. Olivier is as overrated as Law is underrated. I recall Caine's graciousness to Law on winning his Oscar for Cider House Rules -- beating Law for The Talented Mr. Ripley. Clearly he saw someone operating in his range and temperament -- albeit with a middle-class accent as opposed to Caine's pure Cockney.

I would advise Law-deriders to check out his truly expert performance in I Heart Huckabees.

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nyasa
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#10 Post by nyasa » Wed May 23, 2007 9:24 am

David Ehrenstein wrote:I beg to differ. Olivier is as overrated as Law is underrated.
Agreed. This week's Larry's 100th anniversary, and the evaluations of his legacy have been decidedly mixed.

A few years ago, Britain's Channel 4 had a series called J'Accuse in which the reputations of the likes of Mother Teresa, Linda McCartney and Larry Olivier were trashed. The Olivier episode was devasting. With choice snippets of some of his most affected performances* he was hung by his own petard.

*The consensus this week seems to be that he was a great performer rather than a great actor.

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#11 Post by David Ehrenstein » Wed May 23, 2007 11:18 am

"The consensus this week seems to be that he was a great performer rather than a great actor."
He was a Movie Star -- a big old-fashioned romantic leading man. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But when claims are made puffing him up into someone supposedly refresenting the embodiment of the actor's art, it's hard to keep from giggling.

Let me put it another way : He was no Dirk Bogarde.

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Highway 61
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#12 Post by Highway 61 » Wed May 23, 2007 1:06 pm

I'm no Olivier expert, but I do think his scenery-chewing in Sleuth carried the film quite well. I can't wait to see what Caine does with the role.

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nyasa
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#13 Post by nyasa » Wed May 23, 2007 2:38 pm

David Ehrenstein wrote:He was a Movie Star -- a big old-fashioned romantic leading man.
This side of the Atlantic he still tends to be thought of chiefly as a man of the stage - one of the original lovies, along with Gielgud, Richardson et al - who directed and starred in a trio of great movies. His position as a Hollywood leading man does tend to get lost amid all the dross he was involved with in his later years.

The received explanation that he accepted any old crap during the 70s because he 'thought he was dying' in no way excuses his accent in The Jazz Singer.

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#14 Post by David Ehrenstein » Wed May 23, 2007 2:45 pm

True. I quite like him in Raoul Walsh's The Yellow Ticket. But that was WAY early in his career.

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MichaelB
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#15 Post by MichaelB » Wed May 23, 2007 2:48 pm

nyasa wrote:The received explanation that he accepted any old crap during the 70s because he 'thought he was dying' in no way excuses his accent in The Jazz Singer.
Richard Fleischer - the replacement director who was under no illusions about the quality of the film he was completing - actually asked Olivier what he thought he was doing making this crap. Olivier said that The Jazz Singer paid far better than London theatre work, and he needed the money for school fees.

(Paraphrased from memory - the original anecdote is in Fleischer's autobiography)

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Kirkinson
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#16 Post by Kirkinson » Wed May 23, 2007 3:14 pm

I had an acting teacher who studied Shakespearean acting at Oxford for several years and absolutely despised Olivier. He went as far as blaming him for all the negative stereotypes that the public autmoatically associates with Shakespeare, and said that nowadays when people stage Shakespeare's plays they're more often than not just aping Olivier instead of actually thinking about the text and what it means.

In any case, I do think Olivier's calculated grandiosity worked perfectly in Sleuth, and one of the things that excites me about this remake is seeing how differently Caine interprets the role. Jude Law, on the other hand, seems more naturally charming than Caine, who in his original role had to make some effort to come off smoother. In any case, the Caine/Law dynamic will be much different than Olivier/Caine, and that difference alone makes this one of a scant few remakes that have ever interested me.

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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#17 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Wed May 23, 2007 4:15 pm

MichaelB wrote:Richard Fleischer - the replacement director who was under no illusions about the quality of the film he was completing - actually asked Olivier what he thought he was doing making this crap. Olivier said that The Jazz Singer paid far better than London theatre work, and he needed the money for school fees.

(Paraphrased from memory - the original anecdote is in Fleischer's autobiography)
He also told someone on the set of Inchon (Rex Reed, I think) that he took crap parts because he was an old man, he'd paid his dues, and the only thing he could pass on to his descendants at that point was the money he got taking whatever lucrative jobs came his way, quality be damned. There's a certain logic there, to be sure, but it's pretty depressing.

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Jeff
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#18 Post by Jeff » Tue Jul 10, 2007 9:27 pm

Trailer

I suppose the high-tech revisions were inevitable, but I still find them irksome.

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justeleblanc
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#19 Post by justeleblanc » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:48 am

David Ehrenstein wrote:Obviously Kenneth Bragnagh isn't Joseph L. Mankiewicz, but Harold Pinter is Harold Pinter -- which is more than can be said for original writer, Anthony Schaeffer, who with this baroque two-hander is trying his best to be Harold Pinter -- in a more "popular entertainment" mode.
David, are you kidding me? I love Schaeffer quite a bit and I think his original play and screenplay were far from "trying to be Pinter."

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tavernier
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#20 Post by tavernier » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:33 pm

justeleblanc wrote:I love Schaeffer quite a bit and I think his original play and screenplay were far from "trying to be Pinter."
Thank God for that -- one Pinter is already one too many.

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#21 Post by David Ehrenstein » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:55 pm

David, are you kidding me? I love Schaeffer quite a bit and I think his original play and screenplay were far from "trying to be Pinter."
That's what others said at the time of the play's premiere. Not me. The play (and the Mankiewicz film) being a "two-hander" the overall dynamic is quite susceptible to being converted to a Pinter set-to.

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domino harvey
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#22 Post by domino harvey » Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:44 pm

AP wrote:You could think of "Sleuth" as an erudite episode of "The Itchy and Scratchy Show"

amazing

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Jeff
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#23 Post by Jeff » Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:55 pm

domino harvey wrote:
AP wrote:You could think of "Sleuth" as an erudite episode of "The Itchy and Scratchy Show"

amazing
That's the first review of the film that I've seen that hasn't been viciously negative.

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dx23
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#24 Post by dx23 » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:01 am

I actually completely forgot about the remake and now I'm more surprised that it looks like its a straight to DVD flick. Damn! I was hoping for a re-release of the 1972 feature.

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Jeff
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#25 Post by Jeff » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:05 am

dx23 wrote:I actually completely forgot about the remake and now I'm more surprised that it looks like its a straight to DVD flick. Damn! I was hoping for a re-release of the 1972 feature.
It got a theatrical release in the U.S., but it didn't last very long.

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