Is it a good idea to remake masterpieces? Usually not. The only reason Karel Reisz and Albert Finney decided to build on their great success of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and Finney's international triumph in "Tom Jones" to attempt just that by remaking this Richard Thorpe/Emlyn Williams 1937 classic, besides the fact that it was a great part for a flamboyant young actor like Finney, is that they figured that in those pre-video days, no one would remember the original film. Today's audiences however can compare the two films and I'd be surprised if more than a fraction of them would prefer the Reisz version over the Thorpe one. Why did it fail? Narcissism. Finney, who is a good actor, was popular enough to create his own company and tailor the film around his screen personality but not experienced enough to know that you can't get through that intricate play on just mugging, cute faces, a hand-held camera and modern editing techniques. Besides overlong cutesy-pootsy scenes like Finney racing his scooter with Susan Hampshire's Austin Mini, the spectator has to contend with seeing his naked body, open shirts and suggested musculature at every possible occasion the script permits. In order to make even more room for Finney's character and personality, Olivia's part has been rendered practically silent. She of the Greta Garbo good looks spends the film pouting mysteriously and letting us guess whether she has a soul or not and whether she is infatuated with Finney's character or not and whether she suspects him or not. The producers (Finney and Reisz) were apparently so worried that the film might be too talky that they removed every piece of inspired dialog (usually Olivia's) from the original and made the 101 minutes of running time feel infinitely longer than the original's 116 minutes in the process. The obligatory modernization of the play also necessitated a good dollop of sex where the original happily did without it so that Dora's character is made ridiculous and given a conspicuously vulgar turn by Sheila Hancock. Despite those flaws, the film is not a total failure and its marriage of image and music does deliver suspense and shocks commensurate to the post-"Psycho" era. Luckily, I don't think it will ever eclipse the originality and audacity of the first film or its importance in the history of film-making.
Review of Night Must Fall
