Thursday, February 22, 2007

Same Actor, Different Character

One of the movies that will be in the next Martin & Lewis collection is You're Never Too Young. Like several of the team's movies, this was a remake of an earlier Paramount hit: Billy Wilder's The Major and the Minor, with Jerry pretending to be a little boy instead of Ginger Rogers pretending to be a little girl.

But this movie is more than just an entertaining musical comedy; it's also the answer to a trivia question. Or at least one of the answers. Because it's one of the few remakes that features an actor from the original -- in a different part. The lovely Diana Lynn, who played a wisecracking schoolgirl in The Major and the Minor, here plays a teacher, and Dean Martin's love interest.

Are there any other remakes where an important part is played by an actor from the original movie -- in a different role than he or she played originally? (I say "important" part because there are a number of remakes featuring people from the original in small or cameo roles, but that's not what I'm talking about here.)

Update: I thought of another one -- George Tobias, whom most of you know as Mr. Kravitz on Bewitched, was in Ninotchka as a guy who won't give Melvyn Douglas a visa to enter Russia; in the musical remake, Silk Stockings, he played the Commissar of Arts.

9 comments:

Vince said...

It happens a lot more often now, as a heavy-handed way of acknowledging the original. Burt Reynolds plays the tough old bird role in the remake of The Longest Yard. Michael Caine turns up in the Sylvester Stallone version of Get Carter. There are plans in the works for a retooled Sleuth, with Caine taking over the Olivier role and Jude Law stepping in for Caine.

Christopher Mills said...

You may not count this, as it was a movie based on a television show, but in Richard Donner's 1994 feature version of Maverick, James Garner, who had starred as Bret Maverick in the 50's TV series, played a major role alongside Mel Gibson's "Bret."

Anonymous said...

Mickey Rooney played the younger brother in 1935's AH WILDERNESS and then the older brother in the musical remake SUMMER HOLIDAY.

Una Merkel had different roles in the two talkie versions of THE MERRY WIDOW

Anthony Strand said...

Robert Mitchum in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear springs to mind. Other cast members from the original have brief cameos, but Mitchum's police chief is a fairly large, important role.

In fact, it's the role Martin Balsam played in the original, and Balsam also has a cameo.

Anthony Strand said...

Oh, I just thought of another (kind of). Carol Burnett played the Princess in "Once Upon a Matress" on Broadway, and the Queen in the TV movie version some 40 years later.

Loren said...

It's not a movie, but Leonard Nimoy appeared in one role in the 1960s Outer Limits episode "I, Robot," and played a different role when the episode was remade for the 1990s Outer Limits series.

Loren said...

And another that's not a movie remake, when "Some Like It Hot" was adapted into a stage musical a few years ago, Tony Curtis played the old lecherous millionaire.

Anonymous said...

Joanna Barnes played the gold digger role in the original "The Parent Trap". In the 1998 remake, she plays the gold digger's mother.

Anonymous said...

Charlton Heston is the human hero in "Planet of the Apes". In the remake, he plays one of the apes.