The Nutty Professor (1963)

My one line summary just about say it all. The remake did well due to the advancement of special effects, stage make-up and prosthetics. This film did not have that luxury. Jerry Lewis is fabulous as the gawky, quirky Professor. Both his natural comic acting talents and his natural straight acting talents shine through. When seen one after the other (i.e the remake and then the original or vice-versa) you can do nothing but agree with me that the original is the far superior film of the two. Eddie Murphy does his best with the remake and the sequel but the remake just doesn't have the class that the original has. Now I know that there are going to be those that say the remake must be better because there was no sequel to the original but lets be honest now, in todays day and age and as things currently are in the film world's state of affairs, if a film is (in the executive's and the board of director's eyes)successful enough, a sequel is always churned out. Back in the sixties when the original was made this very rarely happened if it happened at all. Those same people will also say that the remake made more money but that's because there are FAR more cinemas around now and it's effectively cheaper to go now even with a semi-bankable actor like Eddie Murphy.

(A bankable name, for those that don't know, is a name that guarantees the film being successful regardless of weather or not they can act. Will Smith has somehow become a bankable name and he has less ability to act than Pavarotti does to tap dance. The list of people like that is too big to put them all in and quite frankly I don't want to spend the time doing so. The same thing regarding the names that can act but an example of one that can is George Clooney.).

At the time when the original was made Jerry Lewis was the biggest box office draw of them all; I don't think that has ever been able to be said of Eddie Murphy. It's because of this that when you take into account how much money was taken on the original due to how many were able to see it and how many went to see the remake you will realise that the original comparatively took more and was therefore a better, no, not better, far superior film.