Frozen in Time: Making the Present Period

Posted by Greg Ferrara on July 13, 2011

When Dino De Laurentiis announced plans to remake the Eighth Wonder of the World, King Kong, in 1976, there was no question the movie would take place in the present, just as the original had. The present, for the original, was 1933 and the present for the remake was 1976. However, when Peter Jackson decided to remake King Kong in 2005 there was no question for him that the film would be period, just like the original, which wasn’t period but now kind of was because 1976 was out of the question. Jackson’s version took place in 1933 to play off of the original’s time period which, for whatever reason, works better than the present, especially when dealing with giant apes. Except that in 1933 it was the present and no one seemed to have a problem with that then. For what it’s worth, I think placing the movie in 1933 was the right decision because an undiscovered island in the world of GPS just doesn’t fit. I don’t doubt that if the film were made again, it would still take place in the past.

The past has always been popular with action adventure. Errol Flynn made a whole career out of playing heroes who existed centuries ago, from Peter Blood to Robin Hood. Harrison Ford later made his career even more successful with the Indiana Jones movies, taking place in decades past. Some action adventure is period simply out of loyalty to the source work from such authors as Jules Verne or Arthur Conan Doyle. The whole idea of their stories was that they, in fact, took place in Victorian society. Putting the Nautilus in the present day is meaningless. Not only would an atomic powered sub be nothing special but social mores have changed and would rob the story of most of what it’s trying to say about life in a supposedly civilized society.

But some movies aren’t period that should be and playing around with the original time frame of a story can be a revelation or a disaster, depending on the depth of the changes.

Dracula, adapted from the stage play in 1931, wasn’t period at all. It not only didn’t take place in the nineteenth century as the novel did, it didn’t even bother to keep the names of the characters straight (or just about anything else). Of course, to the modern viewer, it is period but only because it doesn’t take place today, not because it occupied the correct and intended timeframe of the story. I have always found this a mistake and a big one. Dracula derives its power from playing off the social and sexual mores of Victorian society. 20th Century depression era? Not quite the same. And while no Dracula film adaptation has ever been perfect, my personal favorite has always been Hammer’s Dracula (aka, The Horror of Dracula). Right time, right actors, right feel. I highly recommend it.

Sherlock Holmes is another character that simply works better in the period of the original novels rather being updated to the modern world. When 20th Century Fox first made Sherlock Holmes’ movies with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (we only want what’s best for him), the films, including the first one, The Hound of the Baskervilles, were set in the proper Holmes period (late 1800s to early 1900s) but then Universal bought the series and, throwing all reason aside, updated it to the present (1942 in this case) with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, even having Holmes ditch his deerstalker hat for a fedora! Repeat: He ditched his deerstalker hat for a fedora. [hands shake at keyboard. tiny, almost imperceptible vain bursts in Greg's forehead]

I. Hate. Them.

Seriously, I just cannot get into Sherlock and Watson driving around in cars and talking about radars and Nazis. And hearing “explanations” like, “They were trying to save money since they weren’t one of the bigger studios” just makes it worse. One, doing “period” at the time meant Victorian set decoration and some horses and carriages. I think Universal could’ve handled that. Two, if by some alternate reality that really did cost too much for the studio then don’t buy the series! The real reason was they thought the movies would make more money taking place in the present day and while there will never be any way to prove this, I bet they would have made more money done properly. Practically every other adaptation after that, from the Hammer version to the famed Jeremy Brett television series, had the sense to keep the story period. Even the most current version, with Robert Downey, Jr., knew it could take as many liberties as it wanted with the story as long as it kept the period in place.

But the thing is, with all of these, is that they were never intended to be period pieces. King Kong, Dracula and Sherlock Holmes are all characters created in a specific time and presented to the world without delay in their own present. It’s only after time that we choose to make them period to keep the story true to its roots. But there’s more than that. With fantasy or horror, such as King Kong and Dracula, the past creates a kind of fifth wall (the fourth is already taken by the camera) that aids us in our suspension of disbelief. There’s something inexplicably easier about believing that maybe vampires and giant apes could exist back then! The past itself becomes a mythological land. If you don’t already have one, like, say, Middle Earth, the past actually works as a reasonable surrogate.

Of course, that doesn’t always happen, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Some characters are created that keep updating with each new decade, living forever in the present even if they might work better in the past. I have a kind of wish list of characters I would dearly love to see portrayed period all the time. Here are my top three, with the first two acting in tandem.

Superman/Batman. For me, these two superheroes should exist in the thirties and forties and this is coming from someone who actually thinks these two characters have had some pretty good movies made that take place in the present. But somehow (and maybe this applies for all superheroes) the past again lends an element of surrealism that fits the story well. Both of the first big-budget takes on these characters, Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman and Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman (there had been a few before but none with the big budget treatment of these two) blended elements from the past into the present: Fedoras were worn (by Clark Kent), architecture and cars looked like the forties (Batman) but there were also boomboxes, punk fashion and present day trends.

Now if I made these movies I’d place them in the past or, more specifically, the mythological past, the kind in Brazil or 1984 where everything looks and feels old, mechanical and dingy and, as a result, the movies would never, ever look dated, like one with say, a boombox (ahem), would. And Batman’s gadgets wouldn’t simply be modern-day devices jazzed up, like GPS and cell phones, but odd, bizarre Cronenbergian instruments that worked but you weren’t really sure how or even what they did. And Superman coming in from another planet and disguising himself with a pair of glasses and studied impersonation would seem more likely and possible because of the out of place, out of time element a fictional past creates.

But the big one for me, the one I wish dearly existed trapped in the time of the original source novels, is Bond, James Bond. Yes, I understand when they started and were so successful they just kept going and kept updating with each new year. But when they rebooted the series a few years back that would have been the perfect time to go the full distance and take Bond back to Ian Fleming’s postwar world of the fifties and sixties. And since Fleming created his own villains (Dr. No and Blofeld and Spectre and Goldfinger) there’s no need to update the story because it works perfectly within the streamlined, modernist Cold War world of the original novels. And I’ve read those novels and I’m here to tell you, you lose something by not having Bond exist in the Cold War world. Even little details, like when he puts pepper in his vodka in the novel Moonraker, explaining that it sinks the oils to the bottom that come from the cheaply made potato vodka coming out of postwar Russia, make Bond a richer, fuller character with more world-weary experience than any updated Bond could ever have.

And think about the design. Keeping Bond in the sleek modernist world of 1953-1964 (the years from when Fleming was first published to his death) means Playtime-esque eye-candy every time you do see a Bond. I thought about this recently while taking in From Russia with Love, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, older Bonds I hadn’t seen in a few years. I thought about how great they all looked and how that look made Bond more appealing, cooler, sleeker. It made him more… Bondish. Keeping it in the past would also mean, ala Mad Men, not having any foolish worries about “updating” the social mores of Bond or his habits. Timothy Dalton actually ran into problems when he took over the role in the mid-eighties and wanted Bond to smoke again. Look, I hate smoking, and I say that as an official ex-smoker who went through several months of agonizing hell to kick the habit a few years back (gaining 30 pounds in the process), but Bond, like Don Draper, should have a cig in his mouth at all times. And vodka with pepper, unless he’s drinking a Vesper or a vodka martini shaken, not stirred. And his ties should be thin and his suits, tailored, unless he’s wearing a nice short sleeve Jamaican button-down. And he should never drive anything but an Aston Martin DB5, brand-spanking new (so it has to be in the past).

Eventually, the studios of the cinematic world will come around and call me up, desperately seeking advice. Because I’m such a nice guy I’ll listen politely before jacking up my price and demanding a deposit before uttering a word. Oh, okay, I won’t do that but only because they already know what I want anyway, thanks to this piece. I want the past made present for a whole slew of film characters. I want movies with giant apes and incredibly intuitive detectives, with super-powered aliens and ultra-hip spies to retain, or bring back, that extra element that keeps them magical and alive and forever other-wordly: The past. And don’t waste another day, or film, before doing it. When undertaking such matters I always say, there’s no time like the present.

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54 Responses Frozen in Time: Making the Present Period

Posted By James R. : July 13, 2011 9:24 am

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Browning Dracula was supposed to take place some time before WW1. I no longer have any idea where I read this or if, indeed, I ever read it anywhere at all, so I could be totally mistaken. Have you seen the 1970s BBC production?

I note, too, you don’t say anything about the period setting of Universal’s Frankenstein films, or is trying to untangle that mess asking for trouble? (To say nothing of the “futuristic” period settings of the Mummy films…)

Posted By MDR : July 13, 2011 9:43 am

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Westerns have always been popular; their time setting is (more or less) fixed. We know all the stories, stereotypes, characters … there’s even room for historical figures and events to be re-imagined time and time again. It’ll be interesting to see how Cowboys & Aliens does this summer;-)

Posted By Vincent : July 13, 2011 10:14 am

I’m guessing another reason Universal updated Holmes was over some subconscious worry from the studio that a wartime audience might not feel a connection to Victorian England, given the gravity of the present-day situation, and that showing Holmes and Watson as aiding the war effort would be a crowd-pleaser. And Universal was right — perhaps not aesthetically, but financially. (Holmes in a fedora…who does he think he is — Philo Vance?)

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 10:20 am

James, the timeframe of the Frankenstein movies is a post in and of itself, especially when you get to the second one and you’ve got Shelley herself telling the story that may or may not take place in her future. Who knows?!

And, no, I haven’t seen the BBC production but I did see the Louis Jourdan tv version in 1977, although now I don’t remember it so I’d have to see it again. Many people say that one is the definitive version.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 10:22 am

MDR, westerns don’t have to worry about this at all, it’s true. Even if there’s a source novel because if the novel’s a western who the hell’s going to move it, right?

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 10:24 am

Vincent, no doubt Universal saw a part of its mission with Holmes as a kind of war effort but I don’t think there would have been any loss of connection given that there were plenty of films that took place at the turn of the century released before, during and after the war.

Posted By Ed Howard : July 13, 2011 11:48 am

The recent BBC Sherlock Holmes miniseries updated the characters to the present, and it actually worked really well. In my opinion, despite the change of time period, it was much more faithful to the spirit of the original stories and the characters than the Guy Ritchie movie, which was fun enough as a big dumb action movie but barely felt like Sherlock Holmes even though the period was right. To me, that suggests that what really matters, much more than setting and time, is the essence of the characters. The BBC series suggests that the creators really thought about who Sherlock and Watson are and who they would be if they existed in modern London. It’s really fun and clever and pulpy, pretty much a perfect adaptation.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 12:11 pm

Ed, I was completely unaware of this! I’d love to see this now. And, it’s true, most great characters can survive a change in period, setting, etc. Dracula himself has been updated a million times over and has worked for a lot of it. The problem with the Universal Holmes’ also had to do with poor plotting and stories.

All of my examples here have a literary source except Kong and I think, for the most part, it’s best to stick to the source period whenever possible even while some wildly reimagined updates, like Apocalypse Now, have met with great success. Still, I’m going to check out the BBC updated Holmes as soon as I can.

Posted By Peter Nellhaus : July 13, 2011 12:17 pm

Not exactly a counter argument, but how about films made from William Shakespeare plays? The dialogue pretty much may remain the same, usually with some editing, but the settings and time periods can vary wildly. Most of the time these changes work. I am not referring to adaptations, but films like Richard III with Ian McKellen, or the modern day Hamlet with Ethan Hawke, or even Baz Luhrman’s version of Romeo and Juliet, as some examples.

Posted By JeffH : July 13, 2011 1:22 pm

For me, the Universal Holmes films are good B-movies without the gravitas of the Fox films. The hat doesn’t bother me so much as the hair-they gave Rathbone one of the most ridiculous hair styles that ranks up there with Tom Hanks in THE DA VINCI CODE.

As for the FRANKENSTEIN films at Universal, since I do not remember seeing any automobiles in the two Whale films I just assumed that they took place in the late 1890s, but looking back at the women’s fashions, especially by Henry’s fiancee, they appear to be a combination of both late Victorian/contemporary, but since the movies are so good you really don’t notice until you take a microscope to them.

Lastly, the De Laurentiis KONG would have been lackluster no matter what time period it took place in.

Posted By Tom S : July 13, 2011 1:38 pm

One of the interesting things with respect to period for Batman and Superman is that in the adaptations that are, to me, definitive- Batman: the Animated Series and Superman: the Animated Series respectively- there was a conscious attempt to hybridize past and present, and have lots of period detail (cars, hats, even the acting) while still allowing in modern gadgetry and attitudes, and a relatively modern take on the characters. Interestingly, the decade being simulated- the 40s for Batman, the 50s for Superman- means that the genre tone is hugely different, with the former feeling like a noir and the latter feeling like sci fi.

I think it’s interesting that, in general, a movie’s period has gotten more specific in the last few decades- in the twenties or thirties, unless there was a plot specific reason to notice (as in the Roaring Twenties) you could generally have a character’s childhood and adulthood presented both more or less in the present, which seems unthinkable now.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 1:48 pm

Peter, Shakespeare, for whatever reason (maybe the language), works no matter where you place it. Still, for film adaptations, I prefer straight up with no twist, like 53′s Julius Caesar.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 1:51 pm

JeffH, agreed on everything, especially this: ranks up there with Tom Hanks in THE DA VINCI CODE. I still remember seeing the trailer (sorry, never saw the movie) and thinking, “Why does Tom Hanks look like a fifty-year-old man attempting to look like a grungy hipster?” I don’t know the answer, I just know it looked bad.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 1:54 pm

Tom, what you say about the animated series is exactly what I mean. When I wrote, “Now if I made these movies I’d place them in the past or, more specifically, the mythological past, the kind in Brazil or 1984,” that’s the kind of hybrid-past that would really work well with Batman and Superman, and does in the animated series. I didn’t mention those but have seen them and, yes, they did a great job with that.

Posted By Rachel : July 13, 2011 2:38 pm

I’m going to chime in to agree with Ed that the BBC Sherlock series actually succeeded at updating the character to a modern setting. And I think part of why it worked was because they treated modern London with the same kind of care they would have given a period setting, making it feel like a third character. It wasn’t just a gimmicky “Oh look, Holmes is Twittering and making references to terrorism.”

Period Batman/Superman sounds great to me and I think the Animated Series had the right idea. And here’s where I sneak in my not-so-secret opinion that Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is so far, the closest thing I’ve seen to the definitive Batman movie.

I find it interesting that Batman and Superman seem to belong to a different era but Spider-Man, who technically got his start in the 60s, doesn’t feel out-of-place in the 00s at all.

Posted By DBenson : July 13, 2011 3:33 pm

Sherlock Holmes, as you note, was a modern-day character when Doyle began writing him. The story “His Last Bow” had an aged Homes and Watson musing about a cold wind from the East — not just the Great War, but their own mortality. The final stories were mostly set back in the gaslight London of Sherlock’s prime, so Doyle himself quietly transformed the detective into a man of a specific era.

The movies originally kept Holmes up-to-date, beginning in the silent era and up to Fox’s “Hound of the Baskervilles,” which I understand was the first to restore Holmes and Watson to Victorian England. The Universals were officially modern day, but within a few films they took on a quasi-period feel with gothic murders elbowing out Nazi spy rings. You might regard them as the ancestors of the animated Batman and Superman shows.

The new BBC “Sherlock”, besides being an excellent piece of work on its own terms, plays off the canonical stories brilliantly. The three existing episodes are packed with inspired liftings from the original stories, and Holmes and Watson are at once absolutely traditional and intelligently reinvented. For Watson to be a wounded vet just back from Afghanistan in 2010 means something very different than it did in Doyle’s day. And Holmes’ staggering analytical ability becomes more relevant, not less, when everybody has the internet on their smartphone.

Posted By Christopher : July 13, 2011 3:42 pm

I actually prefer the Universal “wartime” Holmes films over the first 2 Fox features.They have a cozy feel and lively pace of the Universal assembly line.Universal (like the old B-westerns of the time)had a knack for creating their own time and space that seemed neither 20th century nor 19th century.A madeup world that disappeared in the late 40s.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 7:57 pm

Rachel, Spiderman seems perfectly fine in the present day to me, too. I feel I should have mentioned the animated series and movies but was sticking with theatrical releases. Thing is, it’s those animated series, and Mask of the Phantasm, that solidified the idea of Batman and Superman being perfect period-type characters.

And I definitely want to see that updated Holmes now!

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 8:01 pm

For Watson to be a wounded vet just back from Afghanistan in 2010 means something very different than it did in Doyle’s day. And Holmes’ staggering analytical ability becomes more relevant, not less, when everybody has the internet on their smartphone.

Like I said above, I’m excited to see these now. Everything in the two sentences from you quoted above seem so wrong to me I have to see it because I trust from the chorus of positive things to say that they made it right.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 13, 2011 8:04 pm

Christopher, maybe I should give them a second look. I watched them a couple of years ago via Netflix and found the mysteries lackluster and was probably allowing my reaction to the story being updated affect my feelings for it. I mean, I really didn’t like them at all but maybe a second look would be different. And I loved Rathbone and Bruce. I always thought they were great.

Posted By Tom S : July 13, 2011 8:16 pm

I like both Rathbone and Bruce as actors, but the characterization of Watson in those movies is hard to take- Watson is the character the audience is meant to identify with, a decent, intelligent man who is loyal to a fault. Holmes is an extraordinary man, a man whom we’re supposed to see from a distance and through a filter- to make him the character we follow, and Watson a bumbling sidekick, lessens both characters and ironically makes Holmes look like even more of a jerk (why on Earth would he lug poor Watson around with him in those movies, if not to make himself look better by comparison?)

I think that aspect is one where the Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke/David Burke series worked much better- Watson’s far the better man of the two, as the actors all agreed.

Posted By smalllerdemon : July 14, 2011 12:57 am

As much as I love Browing’s Dracula, Coppola’s is probably my favorite. It stays in period, uses beautiful practical effects, improves on Stoker’s story by adding the connection between Mina and the Count (as the Count’s move to England in the book is never satisfactorily explain) and includes fleshed out characters excised in nearly every other film version and even retains the proper relationships between all the Characters. I love Browning’s atmosphere, and I have a great deal of affection for Langella’s portrayal of the count in the 1979 version by John Badham (which probably has one of Donald Pleasence’s best performances as Dr. Jack Seward) which stays in period and portrays asylums of the era with some frightening accuracy I suspect, but to me Coppola’s Dracula hits all the best possible high points of the story and characters and adds a depth to the Count and to Mina as well to which Stoker’s original only alludes. (I know Reeves gets a lot of dumping on for his portrayal of Harker, but I found it to be very similar to the nature of the character in the book).

Having grown up with Bond and seeing him always portrayed as a present day icon, it would be difficult to see it rebooted as a period piece initially but I believe with the right crew involved it could be done and done well.

As far as superheros go, I have a couple of favorite period pieces that are very much discounted: Alec Baldwin’s THE SHADOW (1994) and Billy Zane’s THE PHANTOM (1996). THE SHADOW in particular hits many of the bits you describe what you would have liked to see in a period piece BATMAN portrayal and they do it quite well. THE PHANTOM has a mostly forgettable story, but Zane does a great job of taking one of the most alienating costumes a hero could wear and making it fit well and making Kit Walker and The Phantom believably good characters.

The hangups about “seriousness” that the current audiences have for hero movies may have been born from Schumacher’s 1995 BATMAN FOREVER (a movie I have seen very good arguments for being unfairly maligned, even though I don’t necessarily agree with them). Burton set a garish but dark tone for Batman, and six years down the line when Schumacher is filming BATMAN FOREVER we’ve gone strictly for garish and let a lot more silliness creep in. Donner’s SUPERMAN mainly sets Superman into a complex human world of post-Vietnam 70s where a black and white sense of morality is forgotten in many ways and Superman represents an ability to return to that. In that sense I believe the 1978 SUPERMAN is properly set in the present day.

This discussion for me brings up a long standing concept in my head (and a great discussion over beer I have had many times with friends) that most of the horror movies remakes of late 70s and 80s horror icons are going to be unable to recapture the initial feelings of the audience of their period. They can capture the defining elements, but those films exist in a period of time which a whole generation was growing up in the shadow of Vietnam and Watergate. All of the essential horror movies of the genre that we know today, HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13th, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, all have the element of one generation, the parental one, having hidden something important from their children. That makes all of those horror movies period pieces in a way that is difficult to recapture for a new generation.

Great piece of posting. This is they type of film discussion I desperately wish I had available to me over beers among friends right now but why I come here instead. :)

Posted By Tom S : July 14, 2011 1:50 am

I love the Coppola Dracula, but I actually think the two best iterations of the story are the Nosferatus, Murnau’s and Herzog’s. I don’t think Murnau’s needs defending- though I think it’s place as the best known of his movies may be a bit unfair to his other work, it’s incredibly atmospheric, much steadier in tone than Browning’s (and less full of dull grey men doing dull grey things) and full of truly striking images.

Herzog’s, though, is actually a really genius use of both the period setting and the pervasive Victorian mindset that lies under a lot of what’s going on in Dracula- he uses the vampire as an embodiment of the plague, with the flood of rats Renfield describes in Browning’s Dracula made literal and all bringing surer death than any aristocratic monster.

Herzog’s vampire is a creature of nature- he brings all the ugliness and madness that Herzog always sees in nature and which veneer of Victorian civilzation was desperate to hide. The period setting is subtle- the action is switched to Germany, and he is not overly concerned with making the dates obvious- but it’s vital to his criticism of ‘civilized’ people, and takes full advantage of the stupidity and brutality that ‘men of science’ like Van Helsing often represented.

Posted By Richard Harland Smith : July 14, 2011 2:09 am

Coppola’s is probably my favorite. It stays in period, uses beautiful practical effects, improves on Stoker’s story by adding the connection between Mina and the Count

[Spits amaretto. Dabs chin with pressed handkerchief. Smiles politely.]

Posted By Suzi : July 14, 2011 1:23 pm

“. . .improves on Stoker’s story by adding the connection between Mina and the Count. . . .”

[Spitting amaretto with Richard Harlan Smith and also dabbing chin but smiling a little less politely.]

Posted By chris : July 14, 2011 3:11 pm

While I think you’re dead on with King Kong(true, what part of the world wouldn’t we know about today) and, perhaps, Sherlock Holmes(watching him solve the crime without DNA analysis is what makes the character), I disagree with Bond. I think there are plenty of things for him to do in the present day that make the series still relevent and I consider “Casino Royale”(the serious Daniel Craig version) one of the best of the series.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 14, 2011 6:03 pm

Tom, Jeremy Brett is roundly considered the best Holmes but when I watched it, I don’t think I understood enough about the character yet to realize he isn’t the one you’re supposed to identify with so he came off as slightly weird but now I can totally see it.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 14, 2011 6:09 pm

smallerdemon, I’ll stick by Hammer’s version as my favorite Dracula and Hammer’s Brides of Dracula as the best vampire movie ever made, even with the whole leg-chain thing (if you’ve know the movie, you know what I’m talking about). I find Coppola’s version too scattershot to watch. I love what Oldman does but it feels like a lot of disconnected scenes rather than a story. I think Coppola was attempting to emulate the epistolary nature of the novel but, for me, it just didn’t work.

I love what you say about movies existing within their time, though, as I have always believed that all art exists within its moment and remaking something intrinsically loses a little bit of what its trying to capture merely by existing in a different time.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 14, 2011 6:10 pm

[typing comment replies next to Richard and Suzi spitting out their amaretto] Hey! Watch it, guys. Jesus, what the hell, man, that’s my shirt!

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 14, 2011 6:19 pm

Chris, I like the Daniel Craig Casino Royale a lot. I’m not trying to take anything away from those or claim that many Bonds have been terrific. But, at some point (and one day this just might happen) I’d like to see them try to do Bond period, which is to say, his present day of the fifties and sixties. I think it could be pretty damn cool!

I mean, Indiana Jones, for instance. They could have made that character present day and had him treasure hunting in 1981 (hell, the Discovery Channel loves that shit so you know it still happens) with enemies in modern day governments but there’s something special about placing it in the past. Even though we know the Nazis didn’t win World War II, it didn’t make Raiders of the Lost Ark in less suspenseful or exciting. Same with Bond in the cold war, having SPECTRE pit America and the Soviet Union against each other while Bond smoked and drank and slept with women spies in pillbox hats, mini-skirts and high-heels. Again, not saying the Bond in the present isn’t good, just that I’d love to see a Bond in the source novel period, viewed through modern glasses.

Posted By smallerdemon : July 14, 2011 8:46 pm

Amaretto? Yeek. You’re hardly supporting your case against my poor taste with that as your indignant spitting beverage. ;)

Yeah, my view on it has never been *ahem* acceptable in polite circled. Thus my hanging out with the not so polite circles most of my life.

Posted By Sam Juliano : July 14, 2011 9:50 pm

Wonderful dissection of some iconic characters and the time periods they were set in. I smiled when you mentioned that none of the characters were correct in Browning’s DRACULA and that the original KING KONG could never have been effectively set in the present. I’ll admit I like the Universal Holmes/Watson series with Rathbone and Bruce, but I’ll admit some films are better than others. VOICE OF TERROR is rather silly, but THE SCARLET CLAW set in a convincing fog-shrouded moor is an effective mood piece. I pretty much agree with you on Superman and Batman, and was an adolescent fan of both television series, even at one point helping to form a Batman fan club. (Not something I look back on with fondness. Ha!)

Immensely engrossing feature!

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 14, 2011 10:06 pm

smallerdemon, last week I mentioned liking something when they were drinking Brandy Alexanders… man, it was a mess.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 14, 2011 10:16 pm

Sam, great to see you here. VOICE OF TERROR was the one I really didn’t like and it turned me off to the present day ones. It’s possible if I give them another chance I could like them better.

And you, forming a Batman fan club?! That’s awesome! I used to love the mid-sixties show and the fifties SUPERMAN with George Reeve. I still get a kick whenever I watch the 1978 SUPERMAN and seeing Noel Neill on the train at the beginning of the Smallville segment.

Posted By dukeroberts : July 15, 2011 2:23 am

I agree about Sherlock Holmes. I’ve never cared for the modern day adventures set in the 40s. They just don’t seem right. And I think the fedora is a total no-no.

There are some things I like about Coppola’s Dracula, but I have never been able to get past the Keanu. He was so miscast in that movie. He really hurt the quality of the project. I didn’t think that Winona Ryder was all that great either. Gary Oldman was damn good, as was the production design and the brides of Dracula (including Monica Belucci) were smoking hot. With all of that said, Murnau’s Nosferatu is the best Dracula movie because it still creeps me the hell out. There’s something about that grainy black and white that makes it seem more real. I still love Bela and I really like the Langella version, but I think Nosferatu gets it done. It made vampires scary, unlike today’s wussified, weepy, twinkly vampires.

Spider-Man works in any decade because angst and feelings of inadequacy and isolation are not specific to any certain decade. That’s Spidey. He’s a mass of neuroses. Superman, on the other hand, should not be a bundle of nerves, but instead a hero absolutely sure of himself. That’s why I love the old Fleischer cartoons from the forties. They are the truest to how I think of Superman being. I love the George Reeves series, the first two Christopher Reeve movies, the Super-Friends, the 60s, 80s and 90s cartoon series all, but the best representation in my mind is the forties version. He is best set in that era. Batman as an idea works best in a blended time line. As much as I love the Nolan films, the feel of Batman is best evoked in the first Batman movie and the animated series from the 90s. That blended time line is tops.

Bond does work best in the 60s. They have had to PC him since Connery to keep up with current mores, but it is refreshing in today’s society and liberating, as a man, to watch Bond pat girls on the heinie and tell them that men are talking. He’s unapologetic about bedding and running, about smoking, drinking, killing, everything. Isn’t that how a bad ass James Bond should be? Not being told what to do by a female M! Bond is best as a product of his time origins. Speaking of origins, many who have seen the latest X-Men movie felt a bit of 60s swinging Bond in that movie, especially from the actor portraying Magneto, Michael Fassbender. I think he could make a great 60s era Bond. Watch out, Daniel Craig! My word! I do carry on so!

Posted By Tom S : July 15, 2011 12:20 pm

I actually thought Reeves was very well cast in Dracula, because Harker is a nothing character who never does anything interesting in the novel (or any of the movies, as far as I recall.) The only good roles in Dracula are generally Dracula himself and Van Helsing, but Coppola actually got an extra one in there (Lucy).

As far as Bond goes- he’s very much a product of the 50s, not the 60s, and I have no idea of why someone has to be a misogynist to be a badass.

Posted By dukeroberts : July 15, 2011 3:25 pm

No one has to be a mysogynist to be a badass, but it more fits the charcter of an assassin. He has no time to worry about offending anyone. He gratifies women, but mostly for his own pleasure, and then it’s back to killing commie bastards or SPECTRE agents. Daniel Craig is a badass, but I still prefer the un-PC Connery movies to all others.

Harker generally is a do nothing, yes, but Keanu’s dudeness was a little too much for that character. Had they cast a Brit in the part it probably would have worked better.

Posted By Cool Bev : July 15, 2011 6:47 pm

I agree with the Daniel Craig Bond love, esp. In Casino Real. BUT – I cannot accept Texas Hold’em as a modern-day replacement for baccarat. They might as well have used beer pong. I could have seen Pai Gow or even craps but Hold’em just feels wrong.

Posted By Neil : July 15, 2011 9:56 pm

I love this post. I know I’ve touched on this subject and I’ve meant to write something more in depth. I agree on Batman/Superman/Bond. I was going to bring up the Batman/Superman animated series until I saw it in the comments… I think that hybrid is perfect. I’d like to see more things tried in that kind of world. Come down to it, I’d totally watch a James Bond animated project…

Posted By Neil : July 15, 2011 10:06 pm

I also wanted to note the Dracula thing. I move back and forth between love and frustration with nearly all Dracula movies, but I watch them all with some regularity, but the Hammer is definitely my favorite as whole, too. And while I agree the period works, after dozens of period adaptations and any number of modern sequels of one sort or another, I’d be interested to see someone attempt a modern adaptation.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 15, 2011 10:09 pm

I don’t think Bond needs to be a misogynist anymore than Don Draper in Mad Men. It’s about the period and working with it and using it as an extra character, so to speak. I really do love Daniel Craig as Bond but Connery probably is my favorite. I also though Timothy Dalton got the character pretty damn close to the book version, despite his only having two attempts at it and neither being among the best in the Bond canon.

And Neil, I never thought of an animated Bond but, shit, why not?! I mean, there’s the Batman/Superman, there’s Star Trek. Why not Bond?

Posted By Neil : July 15, 2011 10:21 pm

Not really meaning to blow up the comments. I just keep thinking of new points. This is a smaller point, but wasn’t the ’70s the last time things like KING KONG were done as modern and it’s where there develops a question. MARLOWE, for instance, has nods back to the ’30s origins, but seems to exist with no question that it belongs in 1968. By 1973, THE LONG GOODBYE is still modern but almost calls that decision into question as part of its text.

Posted By Neil : July 15, 2011 10:35 pm

And I don’t think I’d ever thought of an animated Bond before either, but between the Batman/Superman discussion and the collage you put up put it in mind.

Posted By dukeroberts : July 15, 2011 11:11 pm

There was an animated series, James Bond Jr, in the 80′s I believe. It was for kids and was not very good, but Sr. may have made an appearance. I’m sure a kiddie cartoon version of James Bond is not nearly misogynistic enough. :)

Posted By The Mutt : July 16, 2011 9:27 am

Technology can really change story.

With the passing of Robert B. Parker, I started a re-read of his Spenser detective series. Spenser started out with an answering service, then a answering machine, then a car phone…

A lot of moments in the early books would have never happened if he had a cell phone.

Posted By bill r. : July 16, 2011 11:01 am

Greg, on the Superman front, if you prefer that those stories take place in the 1930s, I highly recommend (to you and everyone) Tom De Haven’s IT’S SUPERMAN! It’s a novel, written a few years ago, and it is excellent. It’s a real novel, by a real writer — for some reason, DC Comics thought that maybe someone should write a Superman novel, and they approached De Haven, who has written about comic strips in the past (his DERBY DUGAN trilogy) and said he could pretty much do whatever (within reason), and he wrote a great, exciting, pulpy, emotional story about Superman fighting gangster and Lex Luthor and robots. It’s so great, and in a perfect world it would serve as the basis for the next film.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 16, 2011 6:14 pm

Mutt, it’s true, it really can change the story tremendously. It seems like pre-1980, the Bond/Batman tech stuff was a watch that sprayed sleeping gas or a pen that shot poison darts or the ever-popular grapple for scaling walls. But it seems as everyday technology became more and more amazing, the movies just started using… everyday technology. Look at the new Batman movies. He uses cellphones and gps. That’s great but putting it in a period allows for more of the cool inexplicable gadgetry, like the kind that made Q proud.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 16, 2011 6:18 pm

Bill – There’s a novel?! I had no idea. See, I agree (without even reading it) I’d love that to be the basis for the next film. Another thing about Superman is the costume. It seems totally like a costume someone would come up with in the thirties. I mean, if you look at popular adventure characters at the time, like Robin Hood, the whole tights thing seems normal. But today, it’s a constant problem with comic book movies: Use the original costume or make it “cool.” The X-Men opted for not only making it “cool” (in quotes because it’s not cool) but even throwing in a line dissing the blue and yellow costumes of the comic book. Whatever.

Posted By Tom S : July 16, 2011 6:39 pm

Well, the yellow/blue was never meant to be realistically something anyone would wear, it was just a color scheme that popped in four color- if you translate it to real people in any era, it’s going to look campy the way 60s Batman looked campy.

Posted By dukeroberts : July 16, 2011 8:24 pm

I love that they wore the yellow and blue in the new movie. The whole thing really benefits from being set in the 60s if you ask me. The whole feel of the civil rights era adds to it. Aside from some personnel changes that they had to make due to the other X-movies, X-Men: First Class is really good.

Posted By Vanwall : July 16, 2011 9:05 pm

You’ll have to ditch the DB5, Greg, sorry, Bond’s favorite ride was a pre-war Blower Bentley in the books. I could see him in a variety of period cars, tho that would be fun. Bond books always seemed more like sado-fests with sides of nubiles, and not nearly as gimmicky as the films – my preferences for Fleming stories are actually the short stories in “For Your Eyes Only”, they were excellent pieces, quite filmable. But yes, keeping it in period would make the basic good and evil of the plots much more interesting.

The new Sherlocks are quite fun, and very clever if you’re in the know – that seems like a requirement almost, ya ask me. I do see Rathbone as the most memorable, because of his delivery, it sounded Holmesian.

I’d love to see some serious Continental Op period films, that would be fun.

Posted By Neil : July 16, 2011 9:45 pm

I’d love to see some serious Continental Op period films, that would be fun.

That would be amazing!

Posted By Medusa Morlock : July 17, 2011 12:38 am

Fascinating discussion! While FX Network’s animated series “Archer” isn’t quite Bond, it’s about a super spy and is pretty damned funny and supremely silly.

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 18, 2011 12:21 pm

Archer? I’ll have to check that out.

And, Neil and Vanwall, agreed. Continental Ops stories put on film in proper period would be fantastic. Wonder why they never have.

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