Steven Spielberg’s is always a remake of a much better war film

Regarding Hollywood cinema, the 1980s were the decade of Steven Spielberg. It was almost everywhere, making pleat pleasures that succeed in a critical and commercial way which also marked the appointments of the Oscars (“Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “and the extraterrestrial”), producing other tubes at the box office like “Poltergeist”, and the Amblin Entertainment, a production company (itself by the name of Spiellins, “Backlins” A little more “Spielberg produced)” Backlins “which made a little more” Spielberg “. in the future. “However, despite all its undeniable weight and artistic talents, there were still regular accusations of sentimentality. I tend to agree in some cases. I always preferred the most detached sense of wonder in the” narrow encounters of the third type “that the tear of” and “;, and, while the direction of Spielberg was good enough to land” a purple color ” Suspens that it was his Mawkish treatment of the source material that prevented him from winning.

Update the 1943 classic from Victor Fleming “A Guy Named Joe” in a modern setting, “always” features Richard Dreyfuss like Pete Sandich, a cocksure fight pilot whose habit of making his luck causes a concern for her girlfriend Dorinda (Holly Hunter) and the best Palé (John Goodman). Their worst fears arrive then that Pete perished in a forest fire after having heard the life of Al heroically, but it is not the end of Pete. In the afterlife, he meets Hap (Audrey Hepburn in his latest film role), a spiritual guide who sends him back as a guardian of the trainee pilot Ted Baker (Brad Johnson). At the great dismay of Pete, Ted begins to fall in love with Dorinda, but he must put his own feelings aside when Ted is called for a mortal rescue mission.

“Always” must have seemed to be a safe winner. This came because of the mutual love of Spielberg and Dreyfuss for “A Guy Named Joe”, while the pair floated the idea of ​​redoing it while pulling “Jaws”. The film has a lot of things on this subject still beyond, including a solid distribution (with the exception of Johnson’s Fame Fame Rival) and Spielberg manipulating the big sets with confidence. And although he still made money at the box office, the film was ultimately too gloomy for his own good and is generally considered to be one of the worst photos of Spielberg. Let’s take a closer look at the original film and where everything went wrong for “Always”.

Spencer Tracy plays in “A Guy Named Joe” like Pete Sandidge, an American leaflet posed in Great Britain during the Second World War who cannot resist the urge to risk his life by performing acts of dangerous heroism, constantly dropping out in hot water with his commander, “Nails” Kilpatrick (James Gleason). But everything is soft when he is on the ground because he goes out with his compatriot pilot Dorinda Durston (Irene Dunne) and can always count on his faithful friend Al Yackey (Ward Bond). After the nails punish Pete by sending him as well as Al in Scotland on Recon Duty, Dorinda has a bad feeling and gives him an ultimatum: return to the security of the United States and train new pilots, or she will take a new position in Australia instead. LOVE wins and Pete reluctantly accepts just before it is blurred for a last mission to intercept a German aircraft carrier. During the operation, however, his “box” was fatally damaged by an enemy fighter, forcing Pete to put his crew in safety before embarking on an essential race to bomb the ship.

Waking up in the afterlife, Pete is welcomed by his former deceased friend Dick Rumney (Barry Nelson). With his advice, General (Lionel Barrymore) dispatch him on earth to look over the shoulder of inexperienced pilots who train for action abroad. Pete’s candidate is Ted Randall (Van Johnson), a rich and charming young man with a penchant for cheesy cat lines. Shipped to New Guinea, TED can try its collection routine on Dorinda, which is now parked on the island with Al and Nails. They fall in love and Ted proposes, encouraging Pete to take revenge by encouraging Ted to steal recklessly in the hope that he will be broken by nails. Nails has other ideas, however, and selects Ted for a very dangerous mission to destroy a dumping ground of Japanese ammunition.

Released four years after delivering the double stroke of “Gone with the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz”, “A Guy named Joe” is another classic nail of the director Victor Fleming. The excellent cast is taking advantage of Dalton Trumbo’s scenario, which offers sparkling jokes and inspiring speeches in an equal measure. Although some contemporary criticisms have found it unpleasant when people died in combat, the film now stands alongside “A Pressburger” A Matter of Life and Death “as a supernatural romance in wartime which celebrates the vitality of life at a time of world conflict.

A year before “a guy by the name of Joe” was presented in New York, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) stood on a foggy track imploring Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) to get on a plane with her husband of the Resistance, abandoning their luck of happiness for the greater good in the fight against the third Reich. There is a similar scene in the last coil of the film by Victor Fleming when the Heavenly Commander of Pete gives him an inspiring speech, asking him to put aside his personal feelings for Dorinda and to help the people he left to win the war.

Like “Casablanca”, “A guy named Joe” hits an equally poignant propaganda note. After the United States has entered the Second World War, people everywhere in the nation agitated goodbye to their loved ones, not knowing if they would ever see them alive. Films like this one, which struck a deeply relatable note with their romantic scripts, assured the public that the self-signing was crucial if the allies should overcome the powers of the axis. As light and brilliant as “a guy named Joe”, this feeling of uncertainty and mortality is suspended on the whole film. We are focused on three people and their bean hill, but it gives you the greatest meaning that these personal stories take place in all theater of war, with the possibility of death never far.

This is where “always” falls. By updating history and removing the context of war, Steven Spielberg and his screenwriter Jerry Belson are guilty of having narrowed the issues. Of course, there are still lives suspended in balance, but the drama seems more without consequence without the context of a world conflict. The whole emergency is lost, and the film ends up moving away while Spielberg succumbs to its worst sentimental trends. You cannot really blame the crafts or the casting, because it is a beautifully done film and the actors all do their part, even if Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter do not have the chemistry of spine of Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne in the original. In the end, “always” takes a beloved classic and makes it more pretty and more sumptuous, but ends up feeling much less than the sum of its parts.