# What movies have had more than one version?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 8, 2002, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888 "2002-05-08T12:27:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@berdollos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/berdollos)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/1 "2002-05-08T12:27:37Z")
Little Shop of Horrors had two versions (plus the Broadway musical).
The first was a low production black and white film. The second was a gaudy musical in color with “what’s his name” playing Seymour and a deep Afro-american voice for the plant, Audrey II.
Do you know any other movies in two versions??? or more?
---
### Author:  [@berdollos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/berdollos)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/2 "2002-05-08T12:30:12Z")
Rick Maranis, that is.
---
### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/3 "2002-05-08T12:58:11Z")
Dozens. Hollywood thrives on remakes. Some include:
Frankenstein
Dracula
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Three Musketeers
The Man Who Knew Too Much (one of the few cases where the same director did both films)
Psycho
Mame (a book, play, movie, musical, and movie musical)
Hamlet (at least three versions in the last 15 years)
Henry V
Romeo and Juliet
Cyrano de Bergerac
Tarzan
King Kong
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Anything Goes
Stagecoach (you didn’t specify that the remake had to be good)
The 39 Steps
And that’s just a start.
---
### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/4 "2002-05-08T13:03:29Z")
The Mutiny of the Bounty although you might have to put a limit on what is “the same movie”. Same script? Same story? Same theme?
---
### Author:  [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/5 "2002-05-08T13:59:35Z")
I thought the title was talking about movies like Clue, which actually had multiple versions out at the same time.
---
### Author:  [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/6 "2002-05-08T15:00:18Z")
You are talking about _remakes_. Movies with different versions are less common but still exist. **muttrox** mentioned _Clue_. A different edit will often be released in foreign markets. Star Wars, and others, have been re-released with new material. Also, the director will add (or change) material to give the vision “of what he really wanted.”
Possibly the best send up of this was \*The Simpsons [The Boy Who Knew Too Much](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/1F19.html)
> [@](#):
>
> **Woman:** Oh, no. Free Willy didn’t make it. And he crushed our boy!
> **Man:** Ew. What a mess.
> **Homer:** Ohh, I don’t like this new director’s cut.
---
### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/7 "2002-05-08T18:46:00Z")
**RealityChuck** is correct and probably underestimating when he says dozens. It almost certainly is hundreds.
Go through a book like Leonard Maltin’s video guide and see how many times the entries refer to a remake.
One of my favorite examples is The Maltese Falcon. The version we know and love was actually the third version to be made. His Girl Friday postdates and precedes many other, lesser, attempts to put The Front Page on film. And of course, hundreds of silent movies were remade when sound came out.
[Slipping in this comment before this gets moved to Cafe Society.]
---
### Author:  [@Guy\_Propski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Propski)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/8 "2002-05-08T18:59:11Z")
I would even go so far as to say thousands, but don’t make me prove it.
A lot of movies out there are remakes, but aren’t quite so obvious. For example, “The Maltese Falcon” was filmed under that title in both 1931 (awful version) and 1941 (great version); inbetween it had been filmed as “Satan Met a Lady” (1936; not so great version).
Sometimes the remake is made waaaaay far apart. “The Bachelor” (1999), starring Chris O’Donnell, was a remake of “Seven Chances” (1925), starring Buster Keaton (which was also a remake of 1904’s “Meet Me At the Fountain”).
I don’t know how to include multiple filmed versions of novels. Are the 20+ versions of “The Three Musketeers” remakes, or just different interpretations of the original novel?
---
### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/9 "2002-05-08T20:17:19Z")
Off to Cafe Society.
---
### Author:  [@WSLer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WSLer)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/10 "2002-05-08T21:00:48Z")
Every Friday the 13th, Halloween, Scream, etc after the first one came out
---
### Author:  [@ScriptAnalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScriptAnalyst)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/11 "2002-05-08T22:22:52Z")
And of course, let’s not forget foreign films remade for the benefit of American audiences too lazy to read subtitles:
SEVEN SAMURAI/THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
LA FEMME NIKITA/POINT OF NO RETURN
DIABOLIQUE
THE VANISHING
OPEN YOUR EYES/VANILLA SKY
The upcoming RING and INSOMNIA
And lots, lots more…
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2002, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/12 "2002-05-08T23:12:22Z")
_A Star Is Born_: 1937, 1954, & 1976.
---
### Author:  [@widdershins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdershins)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/13 "2002-05-09T00:43:58Z")
I thought this thread was more like what **muttrox** was talking about. The IMDB even has a listing for alternate versions of films. Mostly TV edits, director’s cuts, changes for foreign markets, etc. But that network TV-only version of _A Fistful Of Dollars_ with the extra footage tacked on to the beginning sounds strange. Who thought of that, and why?
_Brewster’s Millions_ was the seventh remake of that story. I wonder if any of the others is any good.
_Mogambo_ from 1953 was a remake of _Red Dust_ from 1932. Both starred Clark Gable in the same role. There was also a 1940 version called_Congo Maisie_.
---
### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/14 "2002-05-09T04:46:46Z")
_Big_. I swear that this movie does indeed have another ending where the female lead becomes a child and is introduced to Josh’s class as a new student. I had a thread about this awhile back.
_Star Wars Episode IV_ didn’t have the title “A New Hope” unti it was re-released in 1979(to hype up Empire). Many people believed they had seen the movie in 1977 with that title on it, but they were simply confusing '77 with '79.
---
### Author:  [@dabrota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dabrota)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/15 "2002-05-09T05:00:29Z")
Two that I can think of off the top of my head:
“High Society,” the Bing Crosby/Frank Sinatra/Grace Kelly musical from 1956, was a remake of “The Philedelphia Story,” a 1940 movie staring Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn. Some of the dialogue is word-for-word.
Another one is Sabrina, the modern one with Greg Kinnear and Harrison Ford being based on the 1954 version with Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden.
---
### Author:  [@dabrota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dabrota)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/16 "2002-05-09T05:03:07Z")
oops - one more: Sleepless in Seattle.
---
### Author:  [@CzechHistory411](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CzechHistory411)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/17 "2002-05-09T05:16:56Z")
“Being John Malkovich” was quite obviously a remake of “True Grit”, with a few (minor) changes to the characters and storyline.
– CH
---
### Author:  [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/18 "2002-05-09T07:04:24Z")
**Strangers on a Train** , from Hitchcock, is one I’ve seen with noticeable variations, if that’s what you mean. When I rented it from the video store or saw it on TV, it was different from the videotape I bought later. The video contains more scenes that play up the attraction of Bruno to Guy, and the ending takes place in Guy’s girlfriend’s house, not on the train again.
---
### Author:  [@Krab\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krab_King)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/19 "2002-05-09T07:42:54Z")
“The Preachers Wife” with Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston is a remake of “The Bishops Wife” with Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven. Personally, I liked “The Bishops Wife” better. Also, “Major Payne” is a remake of “The Private War of Major Benson”. I liked “Major Payne” much better.
---
### Author:  [@Krab\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krab_King)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888/20 "2002-05-09T07:47:12Z")
By the way…the “deep Afro-American voice” in the color version of “Little Shop of Horrors” was Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the Four Tops. Leave it to a former Clevelander to know that one!
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-have-had-more-than-one-version/107888.md?page=2)