Email This to a Friend
Oscar Night Hangover – Is a New ‘Casablanca’ Possible?
In the wake of an Academy Awards when few cared who won Best Picture, no-longer-striking screenwriter Roger L. Simon wonders if there is a way to make movies that would bring a divided America together again... whether there could be a new Casablanca.
On her radio show a few weeks back, Laura Ingraham asked me some all too familiar questions about my hometown: How come those liberal varmints out in Hollywood can’t make a movie favorable to the USA to save their own… or our… lives? Isn’t there anyone in Tinseltown able to produce at least one film on our side to counter the pseudo-progressive garbage like Redaction and The Valley of Elah?
Laura suggested a remake of Red Dawn.
I don’t have anything against John Milius’ 1984 thriller imagining a Soviet-Cuban invasion of the US (John’s a friend of mine), but it didn’t have much impact on our culture, I think even the filmmaker would agree. If you’re looking to change the terms of the cinematic world and alter the zeitgeist into the bargain, why bother to do it in half-measures? You have to reach higher or, frankly, hardly anyone will notice.
What we need above all now, I told Laura in that way you do when you’re pompously trying to get the attention of that talk radio audience dozing in the fast lane of the Pasadena Freeway, is a new, contemporary version of Casablanca.
What would be better than a remake of what is arguably the greatest, certainly the most romantically patriotic, of all Hollywood sound movies and have it be set today against the background of the War on Terror? It’s a tall order, but, hey, fortune favors the daring and it might bring the country together as it hasn’t been since ten minutes after 9/11 – even make a few dollars in the process. (Steve Soderbergh’s recent The Good German referenced Casablanca, but that was set back in World War II again. What’s the point of that?)
But is it possible? To begin with, as we all know, the country isn’t faintly as together as it was in 1942 when Casablanca was made and nearly everyone was united against the big, bad Nazis. Nowadays, the only people we appear united against are each other. Say “Round up the usual suspects” now and almost everyone will jump into their cars to arrest their ideological adversaries at the local Safeway (or organic health food store, as the case may be).
And that’s only part of the problem. I’m not even going to touch how you find modern equivalents to Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, etc. And where do you start? Where do you place Rick’s Café Américain? And who’s Rick for that matter? Not easy, is it?
Let’s try to figure it out by first examining the nub of the original story: Rick Blaine – a cynical American running a café in Casablanca – is walked in on (in “of all the gin joints in the world”) by his great lost love Ilsa Lund. Unfortunately, she is with her husband – Victor Lazlo, an heroic leader of the Czech Resistance. They are trying to get the strategically important Victor transit papers to America to continue the good fight against the Krauts – before the resistance leader gets arrested. Rick, who has access to papers, has the dilemma of keeping Ilsa or setting her free with Victor and losing the love of his life. (They had met in Paris when Ilsa thought Victor dead in a concentration camp.) Obviously the fire still burns deeply between them. But ultimately, as we all know, Rick sacrifices his personal life and helps Victor to freedom. Then Rick drops his cynical pose and goes off to join the fight himself – accompanied by a reformed Captain Renault, the formerly pro-Nazi chief of police who has been his nemesis. They have perhaps the most memorable exit line in movie history: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Of course there’s a lot more detail, but that’s the essence of the conflict that would have to be replicated. The strokes are broad and metaphorical and some of those details don’t make sense. But remember, this is a movie, meant to move hearts – and in this case it surely does. (Wikipedia has a more meticulous outline for those who haven’t seen the film recently.)
What strikes me in all this is that the lynch pin to a new plot is not really Rick or Ilsa, but Victor Lazlo, ironically the one character criticized in the original film for the stiff performance of Paul Henreid. Who is the modern version of the Czech Resistance leader? Who in our times would be so important a couple would be willing to give up their true love to keep him alive and well?
Some ideas spring immediately to mind:
1. An infiltrator inside Al Qaeda. This is the most obvious, but who would that really be? Most Al Qaeda members are, superficially anyway, murderous thuggish Arab terrorist-types with a distinctly unromantic veneer. Hard to marry or build a romantic plot around even if a double-agent. (How do you deal with how he treats the Ilsa character or women in general?) And, sad to say, despite the fact that Al Qaeda is wildly misogynistic and homophobic, seeks world domination through primitive religious law while under the direction of a Saudi billionaire, many see it, incredibly, as an avatar of Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth – in other words, “genuinely” on the side of the poor. Pathetically stupid, but not good for this film.
2. A defecting Iranian general à la Reza Asghari. Now this superficially appeals, but there are complications. Who is Ilsa and where would Asghari have met her? And we would have to deal with all those dissenting opinions about Iran. I think the NIE is a bunch of hooey, but the intelligence agency/State Dept. cartel has succeeded in convincing at least some of the public Iran isn’t such an enemy anymore and may not be that serious about obtaining nukes. We’d be swimming up hill, alas. (Remember, this is Casablanca and has to win everybody – or nearly.) Still, it has possibilities.
3. Pakistan. This is my choice. Not that the story would be located in that benighted country, but it’s scary reality could provide a good background. Unlike Iran, everyone agrees Pakistan has nukes – and almost everyone is terrified they will fall into the wrong hands. On top of that, only a few seem to really know where these nukes are and who has control of them… What if our Victor Lazlo character did? He could be a kind of AQ Khan in reverse – a good guy Pakistani scientist who holds the keys to their nukes and protects civilization by keeping them close and out of the hands of the Islamist madmen. He could be a romantic figure in a way… Oxford educated, a bit stuffy but nice. You could see why Ilsa would marry him, although it wasn’t “the real thing,” as they say. And you could also see why we would all want to keep him safe from those same Islamofascists who are after him.
With me so far? Does it all make sense? Well, not perfectly. But remember, neither did the original film. Nor does Chinatown, when you examine it, not to mention a whole bunch of other movies we call classics.
But never mind. Where do we put this Casablanca with its Pakistani scientist version of Victor Lazlo? Certainly not Pakistan itself. Nobody drinks there and what’s Casablanca without booze? One idea is to set it in Istanbul, that great and atmospheric crossroads city where East meets West. Rick could run a country bar there, of all things, and maybe he sings country himself a bit, although in his past, which he doesn’t want to talk about, he was a Navy Seal or some such. This gives him an opportunity to do his own “As Time Goes By” and to sing to Ilsa when they meet again in the magical light of a Bosphorus sunset. Movies like this have to be as corny as Kansas in August. Otherwise they don’t work. It also gives us the chance to replace the iconic “La Marseillaise” from the original movie with something quintessentially American like Merle Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me” or even “An Okie from Muskogee.” (Just kidding – or am I?)
And who is our Ilsa? One possibility is a part British/part Pakistani woman – a beautiful Eurasian standing between two cultures. She and Victor the Scientist could have met at Oxford where she was reading history or literature and he was lecturing in physics. They marry but are often apart because our Ilsa is uncomfortable in Pakistan where she is forced to wear the veil and live the life of a second class female citizen. Later, when she thinks her husband has been murdered by Al Qaeda (or the Taliban, you pick) she could have met our Rick. This could be in Prague with it’s great locations along the Charles River… or Venice or Florence… many romantic spots would do to stand in for Paris.
Later, when Rick must make his decision to let her go, we know she is especially heroic too, submitting once again to wearing the veil and living the life of an Islamic wife, although she and we know how awful it is, in order to save the world from nuclear catastrophe.
Of course, we’ll need some villains here – Al Qaeda or Taliban bad guys and their Western allies, ready to bring Victor back to Waziristan and get a hold of those nukes. And we also need an ambiguous man-in-the-middle like Claude Rains/Captain Renault who comes clean in the end. It amuses me that he could be with the U. N. I would love to see one of those guys reform – even if it would never happen in real life.
So that’s all I have for now. As with any good movie, leave them when they are wanting more. And to tell the truth, I don’t have much more – yet – and you are likely to have brighter ideas than mine anyway.
But, again sad to say, this is probably an academic exercise. I doubt Hollywood is ready to make a movie like this, even if it would be a hit. They just don’t seem to want to cheer for our team, no matter how much the audience wants it.
But just in case…. you never know, even if it’s a long shot… and especially since the strike is over … this outline has been…
Registered: WGAw.
Roger L. Simon is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, novelist and blogger, and the CEO of Pajamas Media.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
32 Comments
1. freetoken:Roger – regarding the Casablanca remake, you are trying way too hard here. Your proposed outline sounds way too forced. Why not let the past remain in the past?
Why not just accept that there were previous golden ages in Hollywood, but at least for now Hollywood simply reflects a larger national blasé.
And on movies – there are good movies made these days, plenty, though I tend to think of movies made outside Hollywood as being more worth watching (especially films from Asia.)
Yes, there a few movies today that might be termed “patriotic”. This year’s Academy award winner is not really my cup of tea (even though I have enjoyed previous Coen brothers’ movies) but I can recognize that it has some real strengths, grim though it can be as a movie. Its portrayal of America is rough and bloody; its not an anti-American movie, though it could be labeled nihilistic.
Feb 25, 2008 - 3:07 am 2. Mark:Here’s how I would do it.
The setting is Bali.
Victor is trying to get to Australia.
Ilsa is American, met Victor at MIT.
Rick is ex Special Forces.
Victor is Pakistani, educated in the US, and has the complete list of who Pakistan has sold nukes to. (That’s the MacGuffin.)
Victor was captured by the Taliban in the process of trying to confirm that a site in Warzistan was secure. It wasn’t, it was where he found his information (the hard copies of which he destroyed) before being captured. Pakistan declared him dead instead of negotiating with the Taliban.
After enduring months of torture by said bad guys, Victor is rescued by an (illegal) operation by U.S. special forces.
The leader of that operation was in Victor’s dorm at Harvard. Seeing that Victor has been on the wrong end of an ass-kicking machine for a very long time, he isn’t wrapped up as one of the usual suspects.
Victor has his reasons for wanting to get to Australia instead of the United States. (Let’s throw a bone to the anti-U.S. executives here.)
Rick and Ilsa’s affair had been before she met Victor. (Leave it in Paris.) She was studying at the Sorbonne, he was on assignment to the French Government, advising on counterinsurgency tactics. “I understand you had advice for the interior minister about situation in the banlieues? Then you left Paris.” “I really can’t say anything about that.” “His nose was already quite large before that conversation, you know.”
About Ilsa: I went to high school in West Virginia in the ’80s with a smoking hot Iranian/American girl. The melting pot is a wonderful thing. Make her an LSU grad.
Renault? Make him a modern, devout Muslim fed up with what the Wahabis are doing. Not a huge stretch.
Who are the Nazis? That’s the most problematic point. Of course you’ve got Al Q, but Nazis were so 20th century, i.e. government sponsored and condoned. (Well, not so different I guess….) I’d go with having Pakistan accuse Victor of selling nuclear secrets, and sicing Interpol on him, and getting the Indonesian government on his tail. In addition, Al Q is now after him because they didn’t know what he knew when they were feeding him rat droppings and rain water. (We wouldn’t want to turn this into a Bourne Identity thing, but some extra action would make it an easier sell.)
Songs? How about some sad song from Lucinda Williams’ catalog? (Lafayette?) Sam could be a woman, and leave the name “Sam” as a kicker.
Who plays Rick? First choice would be Bruce Willis, I think. A little long in the tooth, but then Bogart wasn’t a spring chicken either.
Anyway, a fun exercise. Hopefully someone who knows their stuff gets interested.
Feb 25, 2008 - 3:39 am 3. Jim Dick:A re-do of The Best Years of Our Lives would be a better choice. The characters could be survivors of the Afghan and Iraq wars, all with some part of their inner being badly mangled by the war experience. The lovers would be found in each of the segments and their love for each other would be sacrificed for the benefit of their country.
Feb 25, 2008 - 6:14 am 4. Curly Smith:Good German referenced Casablanca, but that was set back in World War II again. What’s the point of that?
WWII was the last time we had a universally identified “bad guy”. Those on the left revile the Nazis because they invaded the Soviet Union, those on the right revile the Nazis because they were bent on dominating the world with their left-wing freedom-destroying ideology. Hitler, the great uniter!
You can’t have a great patriotic film when the filmmakers, and a good part of the country, misunderstand the conflict. The common refrain when talking about the Islamofascists (and Hugo Chavez) is “why do they hate us?”. But the thugs don’t hate us, they fear us. They fear what the advance of our ideology will do to their power base. How much power will the Imams have when Muslims start to think for themselves? The argument “why do they hate us” makes it our fault, it means we’ve done something wrong, we’re to blame and must take steps to rectify our behavior. In reality, we have nothing to apologize for and we should be loudly proclaiming the virtues of freedom, liberty and the free market.
But, that’s a serious problem. Think back… how many times in recent history have we heard a clear message that the US stands for freedom? I can only recall two:
- In 1963 when John F. Kennedy made his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Berlin
- In 1987 when Ronald Reagan made his “Tear down this wall” speech, also in Berlin
Sure, Bush made his “Bush Doctrine” speech and he made a statement while atop the rubble in New York but, much like the Democrats after the JFK assassination, he’s dropped the ball. He’s bought into the notion that the free-world causes the oppression in the thug regimes.
You just can’t make a good patriotic groveling apology film.
Feb 25, 2008 - 6:16 am 5. sharinlite:Sorry Roger, I can’t even imagine on a perfect day how today’s Hollywood would or could come up with anything resembling Casablanca…there are so few men left in the world. Hey, I know, make Rick gay and that solves that problem and makes Lollywood happy. Might work.
Feb 25, 2008 - 7:18 am 6. Frazetta_girl:You’ll lose all the women in your audience if Ilsa becomes a Muslim slave.
The original Casablanca was thrilling because Ilsa loved both men. She was going to get her heart broken — and her heart’s desire — no matter what.
Don’t throw any bones to the anti-American idiots. Let Victor have the longing to raise quarter horses in Wyoming on a ranch so gorgeous you burst into “America the Beautiful” just looking at it.
When our American Rick gives up Ilse, he gives the American dream to Victor — the ranch, the mountains, the beautiful wife. Heartbreaking. Yet isn’t that what our soldiers do, when they fight for us and die for us?
Feb 25, 2008 - 9:07 am 7. Atlas Shrugs:Wow, sharinlite, that’s really clever. How droll!
Feb 25, 2008 - 9:39 am 8. Mylai:I have never seen Casablanca, sadly. However, I like the premise as written by Roger but have to agree with Frazetta_girl on the female role.
“You’ll lose all the women in your audience if Ilsa becomes a Muslim slave.”
With the wave of anti-american losers at the theaters in recent months, we really are thirsting for something to cheer about. I think a real live look into the barbarity of radical Islam toward “infidels” as well as the brutality towards each other.
P.S. The Oscars – what a snore-fest.
Feb 25, 2008 - 10:03 am 9. ManekiNeko:It is very easy to set the Casablanca in one of the satellites at the edge of the Iron Curtain before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Nazis are the Communists. The Gestapo/SS are the KGB or Stasi. Victor can be a refusenik or dissident who had been sent to the Gulag and thought to have died there. Casablanca would be Berlin or Vienna, some city under joint control. Or possibly a port city in Poland where the loyalties of the regime were somewhat divided. Rick can still be a disillusioned American expat, pehaps a journalist. Ilsa a local or an NGO worker from Scandinavia. Etc.
Feb 25, 2008 - 11:55 am 10. Morton Doodslag:Spoiler alert! Leaving aside, for a moment, a discussion about the scarcity of pro-Western narratives in movies these days…
I see several problems with this entire premise. To begin with, there’s probably going to be very little that’s uplifting in our fight against Islam (if we ever get it underway, that is…) In WW2, we didn’t allow millions of Nazis into our domain before and during the war, and we certainly didn’t condone the continuing unimpeded indoctrination by Nazis in their tiny local bunds once war was underway. Compare that to the fact that Muslims began waging active Jihad against us decades ago, yet during that same interim, millions of Muslims were welcomed to reside here. They are actively, openly, and brazenly waging Jihad against us as I write these words, and they are doing so against every stratum of our social, legal, and political infrastructure to subvert our side and elevate and insinuate Islam.
Next, the premise that Islam’s assault against the West bears any resemblance to the Nazi onslaught in Europe is wrong. Their Jihad is a very different affair. Also, the Muslims have proven expert at exploiting our post-modern confusion over our own self-identity, and have parasitized all of the hot button levers of manipulations we’ve devised to keep us divided, confused, and on the defensive. We haven’t even named Islam as our enemy, meanwhile the Muslims make steady inroads against us. The Islamic war-making aparatus is not so much about Panzer tanks and dive-bombers, it isn’t even so much about spectacular hijackings and mass slaughter — their most effective weapons against us are steady patient subversion, infiltration on all levels of society, demographic expansion, and death by a million little cuts.
It’s almost impossible to make our side aware of the pervasive gains the Muslims are making against us without severely vilifying them and developing a revulsion for all things Islamic — yet after endless beheadings, endless brutalities and atrocities visited upon our heads, we seem more eager than ever to imagine that Muslims can be our friends, that their hearts and minds a “winnable”, or that there can ever be “a good guy Pakistani scientist who holds the keys to their nukes and protects civilization by keeping them close and out of the hands of the Islamist madmen.”
This is a far more complicated war than anything we faced in WW2, or ever before in history for that matter.
And we’ve made it nearly impossible for “our side” to effectively vilify and dehumanize our enemy to the degree necessary to mount an effective and victorious war against him. That was not the case in WW2.
A last distinction to be made — our enemy suffers under no similar restriction on his capacity to dehumanize, hate and vilify us. He does it every day. In fact, he’s invented a religion around the very notion of dehumanizing, and then annihilating the object of his hatred. It’s called Islam.
Feb 25, 2008 - 11:57 am 11. Dave:What satellite channel was that on?
Are people switching channels from the Oscars and political speeches to a sports channel, or to watch Bambi with their children?
I am one of those people that liked movies until the revised versions started replacing any new idea types. Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Skull is coming out soon. After the public fondled them for years to make another farce about WWII.
Feb 25, 2008 - 12:31 pm 12. BigPoet:Nobody I knew wanted to watch the first one, much less the last one. Starwars was their favorite.
So, you want to make a movie that will unite the people, try making it possible for the people to actually hope their children will escape the horrors of Earths destruction movies with real jobs that finish the Space station before this generation of dreamer forgets who you all are.
Gary Sinese as “Rick”
Feb 25, 2008 - 1:21 pm 13. BigPoet:Gary Sinese as “Rick”.
Chrisianne Ammanpour as “Major Strasser”
Feb 25, 2008 - 1:22 pm 14. jason:What if you replaced Lazlo with a character resembling Ayaan Hirsi Ali, reworking the other characters around that, and set it in Europe?
Feb 25, 2008 - 1:27 pm 15. Paul from Florida:Set it in a pot bar in Vancouver, Canada.( Cheaper filming, good beer. Pot )
Feb 25, 2008 - 1:42 pm 16. Lem:Rick is gay and ran with Victor in the States.
Ilsa hooks up with Sam.
Replace the Nazi’s with FBI/CIA/Postal Inspectors
Have American Lefties trying to get papers to New Zealand.
Obama lifts Casablanca!
I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of.
I’m no good at being a terrorist, it doesn’t take much to see that the Israeli/Palestinian problem don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.
Obama in a letter to his Iman
Feb 25, 2008 - 4:14 pm 17. BMoon:I say the set should be in Southern California. Obamatrons are marching in the streets after winning the election, smashing windows of “greedy” corporate enterprises and army recruitment centers, yelling, “Change is here! Change is us! Change or else!” Rob is a cynical, old-time player on the LA scene who runs a trendy cafe where an eclectic bunch of writers, journalists, bass guitar players, ex-socialist liberals..ETC. hang out. They try to get out of SoCal. due to the increasing oppressive political nuttiness, but the housing market is collapsing terribly. Just then a friend of Robert’s, a petty criminal Democrat friend, shows up with some newly issued Obamatron N.O victim vouchers enough to buy a large house on the coast for the higher market value….
For Robert I’d recomend, Russell Crowe. Victor, Christian Bale, and Isle, Nicole Kidman.
Feb 25, 2008 - 5:28 pm 18. Jack123:Actually, a great movie relevant to our times just got released on 2 DVDs. It is El Cid with Charleton Heston and Sophia Loren. Has to do with fighting the Moors (and even allying with some of the better ones in 10-11th Century Spain.
Feb 25, 2008 - 6:20 pm 19. Chap:Okay, buddy. Maybe it’s Casablanca, maybe not. Whatever the story, I need support here.
Are you going to do this or what?
Feb 25, 2008 - 7:43 pm 20. heather:we don’t want Ilse to end up a Muslim slave; she goes off with Victor to wonderful Montana… where they must disappear forever into the witness protection program, but before he goes, he gives the List to Rick who with his sidekick, marches right over to the (EU???Nato???UN??? urgghhh … ahhh it is PUT UP ON THE INTERNET, WITH PHOTOS AND MAPS, AND EVERYTHING!!!!.
and also, I agree:
Gary Sinise. Wonderful as Rick.
Now, who will be Victor? and Ilse?
Feb 25, 2008 - 9:40 pm 21. C.Siegel:Ilse should be a woman who looks like she would like living on a ranch.
Sandra Bulloch?
Enough with these damn remakes. Quit trying to bleed the original idea dry.
Feb 25, 2008 - 11:05 pm 22. marine 43:I guess you could do a pro u.s. movie, but the only 2 actors i can think of would be tom selleck, or gary sinese. Female leads?Oh Patricia Heaton. wow pretty short list! No one else would be believable.Or would do it, maybe Tom Hanks, but he too is a lib. We should just let hollyweird die a slow painful death. Then hopefully , a new pro America conservative, version.
Feb 26, 2008 - 7:15 am 23. heather:sincerely, Roger, that story is a good story…
Feb 26, 2008 - 7:50 am 24. BMoon:now, all you need is $$$…
continuing the upcoming blockbuster…
Robert hides the New Orleans federal house purchase vouchers in his safe. It is his ticket out of California, which, by way of the new governor, Rosie O Donnell’s referendum 1,894, was voted to leave the Union and become the 16 state of the Republic of Mexico. But that night, the fugitive ex-gov., Arnold and Maria Shriver, show up at the club. Robert had had a fling with Maria in New York when she was a leftist activist, and that was why he moved to the west coast…..to be continued
Feb 26, 2008 - 8:18 am 25. Kerry:I have not gone out to a movie in two years and promise I would go see that one Roger!
Feb 26, 2008 - 9:29 am 26. Dave:Oh!? You really want designs for writing a new version of the movie. Start with Peter Fonda to replace Humphrey Bogart, add Ophra Winfrey as his doll and mix the script with, “A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams” and “Farenhiet 451 by Ray Bradbury” or higher temperatures for burning books, tweak it with lines and spy modern tools suggested in “1984 by George Orwell”.
Get Madonna to play the bar maid secret wisher to be the side of the honky tonk piano singer, add Gun’s and Rose’s lead singer to play the part of the piano player. Is that the one where, “Play it again, Sam!” words were made famous.
I am guessing here soo…I am going to have to go out and rent the movie so I can find out what I missed, since I was only five or so, and fell asleep, almost all the time, when watching shows my parent’s tuned into after nine p.m..
Even though my “80 something” Dad is now a puritan for the nine-o-clock to bed scene I still like to channel surf, sometimes, til twelve on occasion.
Maybe I will get lucky and see it on TNT off the Directv Satellite soon.
Feb 26, 2008 - 11:51 am 27. Lewin Wickes:Yes, I like the whole idea of getting the feel of a movie like Casablanca into a modern context, but I can think of other fine movies that that could more easily make the jump to a modern context. How about Bad Day at Black Rock? Instead of a murdered Japanese American out there in the desert, you could have a murdered Muslim immigrant. Maudlin anti-American lefties would be weeping in their popcorn. Instead of Spencer Tracy coming home from WWII to deliver to the murdered immigrant the medal posthumously awarded to the immigrant’s son, killed in the war, you could have a Marine vet of the battle of Falujah on his way to deliver to that murdered Muslim a special award posthumously awarded to the Muslim’s son, an Iraqi translator horribly murdered during the battle. Us patriotic types would be cheering for the vet. Two other great movies that come to mind for updating are Watch on the Rhine and The Best Years of Our Lives, especially the latter.
Feb 26, 2008 - 4:41 pm 28. Dave:Lewin; blending all what you have there could make a real popcorn eating flic.
I’m thinking shuffling the pits and peace in from all the others. Than adding here the old beatle’s singing, “bits and pieces” as aliens on Tatooweine, in a local scum bar where the main event is interrupted, only briefly, by the incident between Hans and the bounty hunter leading to an all out bar fight, instead of him just tossing gold and walking out.
The main character flaunts his Jim Carrey teeth from “Mask” and start leveling all the new comers to find the young pilot that started it all; while…the regulars can get back to drinking in peace.
Of course Hans Solo still escapes disguised as a guy wearing an Indiana Jones fedora and funny clothes with whip and machete attached to his belt so no one recognizes him as the jerk that started it. (We wouldn’t want him flagging here or the Star Wars effort. Might lose points for the next generation surfing on their Cell phones. Otherwise his escape will become interesting so the noobs will want to open that can of Worm Hole travelers off of HD-DVD, Blu-ray, or whatever the lastest format is, so they search the archive and can watch the antiquated movies later in life. As they become misty eyed over the line, “Just puts your lips together and whistle,” or is it, “Blow”; while riding the high speed trains back and forth to work.)
Do the originators of this site here have the rights to yours and my ideas?
Feb 26, 2008 - 7:28 pm 29. BMoon:…Reality has bit Maria real hard. Her old friend, the Gov. Rosie O’Donnell, has just made by decree and popular referendum, California the 16th state of the Republic of Mexico. There is a growing resistance movement to which Maria and Arnold secretly belong to, but Rosie has discovered their subterfuge.She has heard from ex-lib Dem sources that Robert holds some of the magic house vouchers (called the “Michelle Obama Orleans Outlays for Liberty And Housing ” or M.O.O.O.L.A.H. ) so that they can sell their mansions and get out of California before Gov. O’Donnell captures them and puts them to work in the newly formed “Cesar Chavez Brigades for Karmic Justice to Oppressed People” building free housing to the millions of Mexicans flooding into SoCal.
Shall we copyright this outline, Roger?
Feb 27, 2008 - 8:05 am 30. paul a'barge:The trick would be to turn the story on its head. Make Rick a woman and Ilsa a man. Victor thus would have to be a woman, perhaps someone like Bhutto.
Feb 28, 2008 - 7:43 am 31. Jhn'1:Well, start with a different Rick.
Feb 28, 2008 - 9:13 am 32. RT:Rick turned from his old life because he couldn’t take that anymore. Too easy to make the ex SF into turned away from standard US Mil evil.
How about he was an activist. Lawyer or news producer (not necessarily American) who passed messages that led to his family dying in one of the big 3 terror attacks (World Trade Center, London Subways, or Madrid trains)
His nationality is appropriate for plausibility at where the attack took place ie: ACLU or CNN for 9-11, English for 7-7 ect. When his pregnant wife, sister, and nieces and nephews died in the attacks that he passed the messages for he goes off to Casablanca (wherever it is now situated). Or if you want an older hero, have the terror attack be the Beirut barracks and the dead pregnant spouse had been one of the nurses there. And the new interest is the previous girlfriend who introduced them when Rick was too tied to the activist mindset to be serious about anything but the anti-America theology.
That makes the story also one of redemption.
I think a new Stagecoach would be easier. It could be set in Iraq’s Anbar province, using a hummer being attacked by Al Qaeda. I would actually go to the theater to see it.
Feb 28, 2008 - 4:22 pm