Gambit - the original

In Monday's entry, I wrote about our recent viewing of the 2012 version of Gambit. Having just seen this remake, we decided to check out the 1966 original.  I'd seen it a long time ago, but aside from remembering Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine, and Herbert Lom as the stars, the movie hadn't stuck with me much.

After watching it, I understand why:  The 1966 original just didn't quite work as well as it should have.  Two problems kept the film from being all it should have been.

First, the bad guy, the man they were plotting to rob, simply wasn't all that bad.  In the remake, Alan Rickman chewed the scenery and made himself easy to dislike.  In the same role earlier, Herbert Lom was a bit of a jerk, but not exceptionally so.  It wasn't Lom's fault; he did all he could with the part.  The script simply gave him little to do.

Second, the original was too long, so long that at times it dragged.  A full 20 minutes longer than the remake, it just didn't have enough going on to warrant all the extra time.

I found the exercise of comparing the two films interesting, but even though the original has rather higher ratings than the remake on the few sites I checked, I very much prefer the 2012 version to the original.

 

Gambit

Back in the dim dark days of 1966, Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine starred in a fun little heist romp of a film, Gambit.  In 2012, a new team appropriated the name and the underlying concept of that earlier film and created their own version of Gambit, this time with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz in the starring roles.  The film did so badly in the U.K. that the studio never even released it in the U.S.  Instead, they took it straight to DVD.

To my surprise, I only recently learned about this new version.  Given that it also features Alan Rickman and Stanley Tucci, two actors I follow, I am amazed that I had never heard of the movie before--but I had indeed somehow missed it.  Once I discovered it, however, I ordered it, and the other night a group of us watched it.

I loved it from start to finish.  With Colin Firth doing a blend of his usual performance and the sort of comedy Peter Sellers once provided, he was a wonderful lead.  Cameron Diaz kept up well enough to make her character interesting.  Alan Rickman was, as always, delightful, and Stanley Tucci chewed hard on the scenery.  The plot was engaging and constructed well enough that even though you could spot the ending early on, you still had a great time getting to it.

If you can find this movie on Netflix or for sale on DVD, do check it out.  You'll have a delightful hour and a half.