1955 Original versus the 2004 Remake: The Importance Casting of the Old Lady

SPOILERS

It remains a mystery to me why the very funny "Ladykillers" with its time-tested premise seems to have failed in 2004.

The black comedy premise always struck me as solid gold. A group of crooks set out to kill the old lady who has discovered their criminal enterprise -- and end up only killing each other.

But the Coens made an interesting choice for their remake.

In the 1955 British original (headed by Alec Guinness as the buck-toothed Professor and Peter Sellers a bit down the cast list), the old lady in question is white, British, TINY, and with a voice like a sweet little bird. (One thinks of Tweety Bird...but as an old woman.) So it is very, very, VERY funny how a group of tough sinister male crooks can never manage to kill such a sweet, tiny little person -- and how they all end up dead and she ends up rich and none the wiser.

The Coens moved the story from London to Louisiana and repopulated it with American Southern characters -- with Tom Hanks wearing the buck teeth.

But the big, walloping change made by the Coens was this: a little tiny bird-voice white old lady became a Big Black Mama of an African-American old lady, bellowing of voice and punishing of manner. The gag from the original rather "inverted" -- instead of a group of men killing each other over a tiny little woman, THIS group of men were pitted against a sizable, grouchy woman who looked like she could beat up all of them at the same time. (She DOES whack the stuffing out of the black member of the gang.)

The menace of the old woman is even suggested in the poster -- the Big Woman (seen from behind) intimidating the gang of crooks.

I've sometimes wondered if this "racial switch" wasn't at least part of the reason why The Ladykillers remake was so poorly received.

While I rather prefer the "tiny little old lady" of the original, I find the racial recasting(and SiZE recasting) works in its own way-- Hanks has to maneuver around a formidable, angry and deeply religious foe in the old woman this time.

I also prefer the expensive, modern, and CGI-moody look of the new version, and its exemplary score of a capella gospel.