Speaking of Ronald Reagan – were we speaking of Ronald Reagan? – note that he headlined the Brass Bancroft movies in the '30s and '40s (He smashes a smuggling ring! He goes undercover in a prison to bust counterfeiters! He’s up against saboteurs in a dirigible!), and also did the Brother Rat movies with Eddie Albert.
John Milton’s Paradise Regained, published in 1671, might be the first example of a sequel named by original title + variation.
[QUOTE=Smapti]
James Bond.
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Likewise, Our Man Flint and In Like Flint.
Let us not forget Blacula and Scream Blacula Scream.
Shakespeare wrote a Love’s Labour’s Won, although it is lost and we don’t know if it was a true sequel to Love’s Labour’s Lost or a canonical play under a different name.
Can we count The Old Testament and The New Testament?
No?
Fine, I’ll get my Biblical fix from The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again.
Cyrano de Bergerac’s works include
- The States and Empires of the Moon
- The States and Empires of the Sun
Which, coming back around, reminds me that The Three Musketeers in '73 was of course followed by The Four Musketeers in '74.
And then The Return of the Musketeers in '89.
Incidentally, while the OP asks for a sequel from before STAR WARS, that’s not really the point, is it? Shouldn’t a pre-EMPIRE STRIKES BACK sequel like ROCKY II count?
:smack:
Followed by William Blake with innocence and experience. Bizarro Series?
The French Connection 2 came out two years before Star Wars.
Speaking of which, Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
They were up to the third of those stupid Herbie the Love Bug movies by 1977.
Francis the Talking Mule had a bazillion sequels way before 1977.
The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) then Son of Flubber (1963).
The Blob (1958) then Beware! The Blob (1972)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
I would say that *The Empire Strikes Back *is the key film in that it was the first sequel that both:
[list=A]
[li]Was treated with as much respect (by fans & the industry) before, during & after its production as its predecessor was.[/li]and
[li]Was of equal quality and success as its predecessor.[/li][/list]
I wouldn’t count Godfather II because they’re really just one long movie in two parts (like they do now). Jaws 2 was the quintessential terrible, incompetently made cheesy sequel to one of the best movies ever. Planet of the Apes could get credit as kinda the first modern franchise, but not really. The sequels were all viewed as inferior, and the budgets (and quality) of them steadily decreased as well (IOW they were similar to old-school ‘Son of Godzilla’ stuff).
The Blondie movies and the Andy Hardy movies (in the late 1930’s and early 40’s) are examples of sequels. The Ma and Pa Kettle movies in the late 40’s and early 50’s are another example.
It depend on what you mean by a sequel. A sequel can be another movie using the same characters. Or if you want to be more precise. A sequel could require continuing an original story line. There’s aren’t all that many movies that actually continue a story in a sequel.
Not to mention The Fifth Musketeer and Twenty Years After.
(Did they do a Thirty Years After?)
–G?
This gets at the fundamental change in attitude towards sequels in the modern age (starting, IMO with the Star Wars films). When Charlton Heston was offered the lead in Beneath the Planet of the Apes he specifically said, “I don’t want to do a sequel! That’s Andy Hardy stuff!” IOW he considered it an insult (he eventually only agreed to a small role in its beginning & end and donated his salary to charity). Individual films were then thought of as separate, isolated pieces of art. Sequels were indicative of serials: lightweight, tacky, derivative, comedic dreck churned out to please the masses and the studio bean-counters.
The closest thing to a big-picture franchise in the old studio days were the James Bond films, but their relationship and continuity to each other was deliberately made thin & ambiguous so that they would **NOT **be thought of as sequels but independent films (because sequels got no respect!).
The second Friday the 13th movie started off with the lone survivor of the first one getting killed, so I guess that’s a sequel. The rest that followed, well, it was a franchise, I guess. Then there was the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.
And on a lighter note, those Frankie and Annette beach movies.