Many people question why this and other films that we think are great are remade. I don't know about many others, but I did hear about why this one may have been remade.
Before there was Cable TV and Movie Classic Channels people like me were at the mercy of TV programmers. We could look through TV Guides or newspapers and hope to find a certain movie would be on and then maybe it was showing at a time we would actually be around to watch it. Didn't have VCR's back then either.
Then there were movies that weren't available for TV. Sometimes the powers that be wouldn't allow the movie to be shown on TV because they didn't approve commercials interrupting the director's vision. Sometimes there was other reasons that they weren't available for TV.
I heard that the 1939 version of Stagecoach was one these movies. I can't find anything about this online, but I seem to remember hearing it. I do know that I didn't see the 1939 version till sometime in the 1990's. I see it was re-released in 1996.
So, if people were deprived of seeing the original, then I can see why a remake was done and they didn't do a bad job either. I had put off seeing the 1966 version simply because the original is readily available and played frequently on TV here. I got to see it today and it in no way comes close to the original, but it isn't anything that anyone connected to it need be embarrassed about.
As for other classics being remade in this day and age when the originals are easily available, well, Don't even get me started on that tangent, makes me want to pick up my Winchester and ride the Stagecoach into Indian Territory!
Before there was Cable TV and Movie Classic Channels people like me were at the mercy of TV programmers. We could look through TV Guides or newspapers and hope to find a certain movie would be on and then maybe it was showing at a time we would actually be around to watch it. Didn't have VCR's back then either.
Then there were movies that weren't available for TV. Sometimes the powers that be wouldn't allow the movie to be shown on TV because they didn't approve commercials interrupting the director's vision. Sometimes there was other reasons that they weren't available for TV.
I heard that the 1939 version of Stagecoach was one these movies. I can't find anything about this online, but I seem to remember hearing it. I do know that I didn't see the 1939 version till sometime in the 1990's. I see it was re-released in 1996.
So, if people were deprived of seeing the original, then I can see why a remake was done and they didn't do a bad job either. I had put off seeing the 1966 version simply because the original is readily available and played frequently on TV here. I got to see it today and it in no way comes close to the original, but it isn't anything that anyone connected to it need be embarrassed about.
As for other classics being remade in this day and age when the originals are easily available, well, Don't even get me started on that tangent, makes me want to pick up my Winchester and ride the Stagecoach into Indian Territory!