Do you sometimes have movies on your Netflix queue that you have no idea why you put it there or what it is about? For some reason I had Arthur on the queue thinking it was about Camelot and King Arthur’s Court — stuff like that. It turns out Arthur is a remake of another movie with the same title starring Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli that came out in the 80’s. Once I realized Arthur was a stupid romance I tried putting it at the bottom of my list, but it didn’t take and the next day — here comes Arthur.
My boyfriend and I didn’t want to watch it — he wants me to call him fiance and not boyfriend, but I don’t see a diamond on my finger, so he’s my boyfriend. But he always says in his deep, gruff voice: I bought you a ring and you don’t wear it. I reply: It’s too small it doesn’t fit on my finger! (Translation: I’m too damn fat to wear the ring). Besides what he bought me wasn’t a real diamond it was a synthetically made Alexandrite. I want a real Alexandrite not a synthetic one, and if I can’t have a real Alexandrite I’ll settle for a real diamond but it better be a big one. Anyway, since Arthur was the only CD “at home,” we watched it just so we could send it back and get something we could actually enjoy.
To our amazement we really liked the movie. Arthur is a definite yes! It was so good, I had to immediately netstream the original Arthur and compare.
It turns out the 21st Century remake Arthur is much, much better than the 20th Century original Arthur. The premise in both is the same: spoiled drunk adult rich kid falls in love with poor white trash. A few changes — besides the ones you would change to account for cell phones, computers, interior design and fashion, etc. — make the new Arthur a really fun movie. In the remake, Arthur he has a nanny instead of a butler, and his mother is alive running the company.
In the original you do not understand at all why he has to marry Susan, nor is it clear why Susan would want to marry him. That whole scenario was a little hard to believe. In the remake everyone’s motives are crystal clear, as in: I get it! And it’s believable.
What’s more, in the original, the love of Arthur’s life is a shoplifter and not terribly likable and it’s hard to see the attraction. The remake changes Arthur’s true love to a young woman who is not a shoplifter but still breaks the law in a cute, quirky sort of way that the viewer can definitely understand Arthur’s attraction. The new Arthur allows for character development and the viewer sees Arthur’s drinking as a real problem, rather than in the original Arthur where Dudley Moore seems to be able to quit whenever he wants.
The new Arthur allows the viewer to better understand the spoiled drunk’s relationship with his mother and his nanny. You also understand the nanny’s motives and when that relationship ends the viewer can empathize with what Arthur is going through and also better understands his drinking.
So, if you’re in the mood for a stupid romance, watch the new, improved Arthur. Only if you are a movie nerd do you need to bother watching the original. But if you are a movie nerd much like myself, it is kind of fun to contrast and compare old movie versus new. One of my favorite classics is Harold and Maude: I wonder how Hollywood would handle a remake of that?
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