THE FUGITIVE (1993)
The Fugitive might not have been the first TV series remade for the big screen, but it was almost certainly the one that proved how bankable- and even respectable- such adaptations could be. The film took as its inspiration one of the most influential series of its day, a four-season cat-and-mouse story of an escaped, convicted killer out to clear his name. While The Fugitive remains true to the spirit of the series, director Andrew Davis and his screenwriters do so in a way that reconfigures the formula for the big screen, beginning with a famous, still-impressive bus crash. The film also benefits from placing nearly equal emphasis on the pursued Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) as it does on pursuer, U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerrard (Tommy Lee Jones, who in a rare display of Academy affection for a genre performance won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar). The Fugitive also has a sense of place that’s rare for a big-budget thriller, utilizing Chicago so perfectly that the story becomes unimaginable in any other setting. But the best scenes in the film are the ones that remain truest to their television inspirations, specifically the near-miss suspense sequences in which Kimble barely manages to evade capture through a combination of luck and formidable intelligence. Of all the TV adaptations up to that time, it was The Fugitive that showed that films of this kind, when done right, could be much more than a simple grab for nostalgia-driven box office, and in doing so became more or less the standard by which big-budget TV-to-film translations are judged.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996)
Yes, really. A huge hit on its original release, Mission: Impossible was mostly dismissed by critics as a dopey Tom Cruise action movie, while being criticized by many viewers for having too much plot, not enough stuff blowing up. But a second look at the film reveals what a gripping suspense movie it really is, translating the formula of the TV series- gadgets, undercover missions, realistic masks, and the like- into the form of a summer tentpole release. Mission: Impossible contains at least three or four wonderfully tense scenes- the opening operation gone fatally wrong, the tête-à-tête at Prague’s Akvarium, that awesome Rififi-esque break-in at Langley- more than most Hollywood thrillers can claim. In addition, the film represents the most successful attempt by director Brian DePalma to fuse the silky-smooth cinema-saturated style of his most characteristic work with a big-budget blockbuster, and in the process becomes a surprisingly lean and satisfying thriller. If nothing else, Mission: Impossible deserves respect as the only film in the series to date that’s remained true to the team-centric nature of the show, with subsequent efforts becoming increasingly focused on Tom Cruise saving the world. Supporting players like Jon Voight, Vanessa Redgrave and Henry Czerny make such a strong impression here that it’s a shame that Cruise has become so intent on hogging the spotlight in later films in the franchise.
THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980)
Netflix, video stores and pay cable movie channels are littered with the toxic waste spew of that very special category of cinematic detritus: the SNL movie. Sure, the never-as-funny-as-it-should-be/ never-as-bad-as-its-rep Saturday Night Live has produced more than its share of legitimate comedy stars and second bananas over the years, from Chevy Chase and Bill Murray to Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. But one-dimensional SNL characters, barely tolerable in five minute doses, can be downright unbearable in full-length features (i.e., It’s Pat, A Night At the Roxbury, Coneheads, etc.). Wayne’s World is one notable exception, but to my way of thinking, The Blues Brothers is far and away the best of the SNL films (and, for the purposes of this list, one of my favorite TV-to-movie adaptations), transforming a recurring, ego-driven musical duo (whose routine and appeal I never really understood) into iconic figures in a John Landis/John Belushi/Dan Akroyd phantasmagoria that bends over backwards in its efforts to entertain: car crashes! cast-of-thousands musical numbers! more car crashes! Illinois Nazis! country and western! rhythm and blues! John Candy! Aretha Franklin! Carrie Fisher with a machine gun! (And did I mention the car crashes?) I mean, fuck! The endless, mind-boggling demolition-derby pile-up of police cars in the climactic car chase alone is worth the price of admission (take that, CGI!), but the musical numbers (by Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway, John Lee Hooker, et. al.) are even better, and introduced me and countless other white people to a whole bunch of talented black people we’d never fully appreciated before. And if all that weren’t enough, The Blues Brothers is endlessly quotable (“We’re on a mission from God,” “Three orange whips,” etc.) and spawned a pretty damn tasty jambalaya at the late-lamented Cambridge House of Blues...and how many movies can you say that about? True, The Blues Brothers also spawned the execrable Blues Brothers 2000...but the original, indispensable 1980 version will forever stand as the Cadillac Ranch of movies, a bizarre, fascinating, coke-fueled white elephant at the crossroads of cracked genius and howling oblivion.
HEAD (1968)
It was 1968 and the studio chiefs were very confused. There was something called “youth culture” or “the counterculture” or whatever – you know, dirty smelly hippies who wanted to see weird shit at the movies! Hopelessly out of touch, these suits had to turn to the scruffy people for help. The kids seemed to like that TV show The Monkees, so Columbia Pictures hired the show’s producer Bob Rafelson, and he teamed with that really weird Jack Nicholson dude from the Corman pictures, and they smoked a bunch of weed and they came up with Head. Surreal, satirical, self-referential, psychedelic and pretty much plotless, the movie bore little resemblance to the kiddie show that spawned it and failed at the box office. In retrospect, it never had a chance; the heads wouldn’t be caught dead seeing a Monkees movie and the young fans of the show wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of it. But there’s enough inspired weirdness, bizarre cameos (Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Victor Mature and Sonny Liston) and good music (notably the Michael Nesmith-composed “Circle Sky”) to make it a worthy cult object, if not a great movie.
THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD! (1988)
The Naked Gun has very little competition as the least likely TV-to-movie transition of all time. It’s derived from a series that only yours truly and four other people watched, one that lasted six episodes and went off the air six years before the movie reached theaters. But Police Squad! had a pedigree; the Airplane! team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker created it, star Leslie Nielsen was nominated for an Emmy for his deadpan turn as Lt. Frank Drebin, and the show became a cult favorite through reruns and home video. Even so, The Naked Gun was an unexpected smash hit, spawning two lousy sequels and an entire craptacular genre of Leslie Nielsen parodies. Don’t hold those sins against it, though. The Naked Gun is a well-oiled laugh machine – from the slapstick stylings of the always hilarious O.J. Simpson to the climactic baseball game honored in an earlier Screengrab list, it’s like a MAD magazine come to life, complete with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it marginalia crammed into every corner of the screen. It’s really the last time Nielsen was ever funny, and that goes triple for the ZAZ triumvirate, who have separately and together foisted the likes of Brain Donors, Rat Race and Scary Movie 4 on their once loyal fans.
TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)
The second and final season of Twin Peaks ended in a flurry of bizarre cliffhangers, so when rumors of a movie began to circulate, those few of us who were still watching shared a brief moment of hope that at least some resolution would be forthcoming. Then we heard that Fire Walk with Me would be a prequel covering the last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life and, well, so much for that idea. Presumably the reasoning was that a reboot of the story would draw in a larger audience than a continuation, or at least that’s how we imagine David Lynch explained it to the suits at New Line. It’s a safe bet that 99% of any potential new audience fled the theater within the movie’s first 30 minutes, set in a deliberately alienating bizarro Twin Peaks called Deer Meadow, where the cops are unfriendly, the waitresses are hags and the FBI is represented by Chris Isaak as a pale echo of Kyle MacLachlan’s Special Agent Dale Cooper. (MacLachlan makes only fleeting appearances in the movie, unaware that his career is Showgirls-bound.) But those who left early missed out on one of Lynch’s most intense and emotionally charged fever dreams. Stripped of the quirky humor that had soured into tiresome shtick long before the series ended, Fire Walk with Me unwraps Laura Palmer from her plastic for a one-of-a-kind descent into hell. Sheryl Lee burns through the screen in a shoulda-been star-making performance and Lynch cooks up some of his most indelible set pieces, most notably the subtitled “Pink Room” sequence set in what appears to be Satan’s roadhouse. Just don’t ask us about the David Bowie cameo.
- Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak
READ PART I