[mousepod]

Actually, Heaven Can Wait was a remake of a film called Here Comes Mr. Jordan starring Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains.

This, and many of the examples that Alex cites are fine and wonderful remakes. The people involved in Heaven Can Wait (which, by the way, came 37 years after the original) boasted such talent as Buck Henry, Elaine May, Julie Christie, Warren Beatty etc. In 1978, this was clearly a bunch of talented people with a long history in film, unlike the director, writer and cast of The Hitcher remake, that started my whole series of complaints.

There are plenty of great remakes. I could cite dozens of them. Hell, I prefer many of the Hammer horror remakes to the Universal originals. I think the source of my frustration comes from what appears to be a dearth of original ideas lately from our friends in Hollywood.

By the way - I'll bet that most people who know that Heaven Can Wait was a remake of Here Comes Mr Jordan didn't bother to seek out the original, as they'd already seen a version of the movie. And that's a shame - because as good as the remake was, the original was absolutely worthwhile. What did you think of Here Comes Mr Jordan?