Old movies you couldn't make today.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Obviously inspired by the old ads you couldn't do today thread I'm asking about old movies you could not make today.

I'll start with the oscar winning movie "The French Connection", that brought gene hackman an oscar for a character that now would be considered intolerable to american movie audiences.

[trekgeezer]

Blazing Saddles.   I own the 30th anniversary edition and Mel Brooks and all the other producers say it could never be made now.

Hell, on American TV they even edit out the fart sounds in the campfire scene.

[Hammock Rider]

Blazing Saddles was the first one I thought of too.  It might be a stretch but I also think you couldn't make Gone with the Wind today. Not because of budgets or societal norms but because the leads were just too perfect in that movie. Robbie Pattinson and Kate Hudson just wouldn't cut it. I would say the same for Casablanca.

[Flick James]

Blazing Saddles was the first one I thought of too.  It might be a stretch but I also think you couldn't make Gone with the Wind today. Not because of budgets or societal norms but because the leads were just too perfect in that movie. Robbie Pattinson and Kate Hudson just wouldn't cut it. I would say the same for Casablanca.

Okay, thanks for making me almost vomit trying to picture Pattinson and Hudson in Gone With the Wind. You are a terrible person.

 

The 1980 film Arthur with Dudly Moore was recently remade with Russell Brand. I loved the original, and I have no intention of seeing the remake, although I have no problem with Russell Brand. But from the trailers I've seen of the remake, it looks like they've taken out the excessive drinking aspect of the character, and I'm not surprised. The original Arthur is almost taboo now. The last time I looked at comments on IMDB about it, half of them were about how drinking is not funny and how a comedy about an alcoholic is just not cool. Whatever. I can't stand puritanical attitudes.

[Raffine]

Many, many films would have to go total racial makeovers if anyone ever decided to do a remake:

CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK (1930) starring blackfaced Amos and Andy
THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (1932) or any of those 'Yellow Peril' movies
Most older Westerns featuring wild Injuns, the kind you can kill 20 of with one shot.

Would anyone ever even try to make these today?

[Raffine]

The 1980 film Arthur with Dudly Moore was recently remade with Russell Brand. I loved the original, and I have no intention of seeing the remake, although I have no problem with Russell Brand. But from the trailers I've seen of the remake, it looks like they've taken out the excessive drinking aspect of the character, and I'm not surprised. The original Arthur is almost taboo now. The last time I looked at comments on IMDB about it, half of them were about how drinking is not funny and how a comedy about an alcoholic is just not cool. Whatever. I can't stand puritanical attitudes.

That's a great example. I loved the original and will probably skip the remake, too. I understand one of the conditions of Arthur's inheritance is he gets clean and sober, which I'm sure he does in a very dramatic and touching montage.

[hudders]

It might be a stretch but I also think you couldn't make Gone with the Wind today.

IO9 did a great article likening Gone with the Wind to a post-apocalyptic story - that's a movie I'd pay to see.

[Flick James]

Well, there's another reason you can't make Gone With the Wind that I'm surprised nobody is mentioning. Having slaves that are loyal to the South and happy to be slaves is something you can't get away with in today's climate. Maybe those things happened historically, maybe they didn't. I'm not taking a stance either way. I just know there's no way depicting such a thing on screen would fly these days.

[bob]

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers from 1954.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Brides_for_Seven_Brothers_(film)#Plot

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Most of the big budget musicals and Fred Astaire vehicles.  People don't find that sort of stuff entertaining.  Those folks had real talents, but its not anything we appriciate these days.
-Ed

[Raffine]

I suppose you could make a BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) type film today, but you'd have to tone down the 'Heroic Ku Klux Klan' business a bit...

[The Burgomaster]

Just about any old movie where all the black characters were butlers, maids or train conductors.

[hudders]

Well, there's another reason you can't make Gone With the Wind that I'm surprised nobody is mentioning. Having slaves that are loyal to the South and happy to be slaves is something you can't get away with in today's climate. Maybe those things happened historically, maybe they didn't. I'm not taking a stance either way. I just know there's no way depicting such a thing on screen would fly these days.

Just about any old movie where all the black characters were butlers, maids or train conductors.

I don't see why. We shouldn't shy away from history - if a movie is set in a particular time period then its characters should reflect the attitudes of that time. If that means relegating black characters to subservient roles, so be it; it would be jarring to watch a film set during racial segregation where tensions and atitudes between races are completely ignored. What if you saw a WWII flick with Nazis played by a mix of races? The anachronism would stick out like a sore thumb and potentially ruin the movie.

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

Just about any old movie where all the black characters were butlers, maids or train conductors.

That brings up another point. While not movies in and of themselves, the old series of Little Rascas shorts couldn't be re-done because of the stuff with Stymie and Buckwheat. There were a lot of sight gags and phrases that was really politically incorrect.

A few of them I can think of now were Birthday Blues,  Shiver Me Timbers and the not-so PC king of them all, The Kid From Borneo, with Bumbo the wild man.   And aside from this stuff, these 3 episodes were truly hilarious.

That, and some of the old Three Stooges stuff too, that starred Dudley Dickerson most of the time.

[lester1/2jr]

in society's defnse, there is probably alot more things you can make today that you couldn't then.