Always, Steven Spielberg’s remake of the 1943 romantic melodrama, A Guy Named Joes, is arguably one of his weakest films.
The movie suffers from outdated material, excessively sentimental tone, and lack of affinity between director and text.
Grade: C (*1/2* out of *****)
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Theatrical release poster by John Alvin
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The triangle played in the original WWII melodrama, which was a blockbuster, Tracy, Irene Dunne, and Van Johnson, is now cast with Richard Dreyfuss (Spielberg’s alter-ego), Holly Hunter, and John Goodman.
This version is best known for offering the lovely Audrey Hepburn her last screen role before her untimely death.
The main departure from the 1943 film is the altering of the setting from WWII to that of a modern aerial firefighting. But the film follows the same basic plot line–how the spirit of a recently dead expert pilot mentors a newer pilot, while watching him fall in love with the girlfriend he had left behind.
The names of the earlier film’s four principal characters are the same, except of the Ted Randall character, who is called Ted Baker in the remake, and Pete’s last name is Sandich, instead of Sandige.
While making Jaws, Spielberg and Dreyfuss traded quips from A Guy Named Joe, a film which they both admired and wanted to remake. A clip from the 1943 picture is included in a scene in Poltergeist (1982), which Spielberg produced, but did not direct. Dreyfuss had seen the earlier melodrama numerous times and knew it by heart. Spielberg had seen it as a child late at night, and he considers it one of the films that inspired him to become a director; his father was a wartime air force vet.
Credits:
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by Jerry Belson, Diane Thomas (uncredited); based on A Guy Named Joe by Dalton Trumbo, Frederick Hazlitt Brennan, Chandler Sprague, David Boehm
Produced by: Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall
Cinematography Mikael Salomon
Edited by Michael Kahn
Music by John Williams
Production: Universal, United Artists; Amblin
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date: December 22, 1989
Running time: 123 minutes
Box office $74.1 million
