‘Anna and the King’ Reflects Larger Changing of the Guard

If some of the big movies opening this holiday season seem vaguely familiar to you, it’s not just a case of deja vu. Several of the films have in fact been done before.

Perhaps you’ve come across the original version of Graham Greene’s “The End of the Affair” on TV in the wee small hours of the morning or caught “Purple Noon,” the first adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s thriller “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” on video. (See sidebar.) New versions of these films and others--among them “Sleepy Hollow,” “Miss Julie” and “Onegin,”--are now out in theaters, but they’re so different than the originals that to call them “remakes” doesn’t seem accurate.

Fighting Memories of Two Predecessors

That’s certainly the case for Fox’s new lavish period drama “Anna and the King,” which stars Jodie Foster as British governess Anna Leonowens and Chow Yun-Fat as Siam’s King Mongkut. The new “Anna” is battling the warm and fuzzy memories of two memorable films: 1946’s “Anna and the King of Siam,” starring Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison, and 1956’s “The King and I,” the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical starring Deborah Kerr and Oscar-winning Yul Brynner.

So far the new “Anna” isn’t holding up well; it opened last Friday to mixed reviews and tepid box office, taking $5.2 million in its first weekend. But whether “Anna and the King” succeeds or fails, it clearly moves the story in new directions, reflecting the cultural changes that have taken place since the original films.

“It was our intention to tell a story that was really about culture clash, political clash and gender clash,” says Steve Meerson, who co-wrote the screenplay for the new “Anna.” “That was the reason this movie should be made. But it’s even more about looking beyond the color of one’s race.”

“Anna’s” director Andy Tennant wasn’t afraid of tackling the ghosts of the two previous films. His fearlessness “may have been part of my own idiotic nature to feel like there is room for improvement within that story.”

Last year, Tennant’s surprise hit “Ever After” put a new spin on the Cinderella story. “We explored the same motifs that had been done before, but presented them to an audience as fresh,” he says. “It invigorates a classic for a new generation. That is part of the reason for storytelling. That is why Shakespeare doesn’t go away.”

“Anna and the King of Siam” and “The King and I” are very much products of their times. Politically incorrect by today’s standards, the Asian characters were portrayed primarily by British, American and Puerto Rican actors. England’s colonialism was praised to the hilt, whereas Siam was depicted as a barbaric, heathen country populated by “noble savages.” Both films were not shot in Southeast Asia, but on the sound stages at Fox Studios on Pico Boulevard.

Victorian-Era Politics in Current ‘King’

The new “Anna” was shot in Malaysia on sumptuous sets; even critics of the $70-million film praise the lavishness of the production design.

“You look at some of the classics, as they call them, and ‘The King and I’ is sort of wonderful and kitschy and stuff, but [the actors] just appear from behind a pillar,” says Tennant. “They are on the set the whole time. I love these kinds of movies [epics], so for me it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

Still, says Peter Krikes, who wrote the “Anna and the King” screenplay with Meerson, “we had to stay true to that certain story in the collective consciousness. You know if you have them hate each other at the end, people would say, ‘That’s not true.’ ”

The driving force behind the writers’ decision to do “Anna” was the chance to delve more into the politics of the Victorian era. “Siam was the only country in Southeast Asia in the 1860s which was not colonized,” says Meerson. “[King Mongkut] was a very astute politician. As opposed to the other two movies--I am not saying they weren’t written well or they weren’t good movies--but it was also important to expose the political side.”

Notes Tennant: “Siam was an incredibly volatile and dangerous place. It was incumbent upon Mongkut to learn as much about his enemy as he could. The climate and reality of what the king was going through became an opportunity to explore all kinds of things.”

Tennant doesn’t believe audiences will have a hard time buying that this conservative British woman would have fallen in love with an Asian, albeit one with 23 wives and 45 concubines.

“Well, they were two conventional people with unconventional relationships,” Tennant says. “When you strip away the nationalism and racial stuff, it is just a man and a woman. That has always fascinated me with a love story. How do you make that interesting? It is not just sexual chemistry.”

Filmed in Malaysia Instead of Thailand

Tennant even puts the blame for the execution of the concubine Tuptim and her lover on Anna’s shoulders. “I think emotionally she has to take responsibility,” Tennant says. “She killed them. He didn’t. It was her arrogance that she can stop things because she is British. He was between a rock and a hard place. He was trying to navigate a terribly complex time. If he appeared to be weak and at the beck and call of a British woman, then he would lose everything.”

“Anna and the King” was shot in Malaysia because Fox was unable to get permission from the Thai government to shoot it there. “The problem, I think, is tied to their belief that ‘The King and I’ was incredibly offensive,” he explains.

“The wounds have not healed. They felt Yul Brynner was a buffoon. They had taken this gentle man who had been a monk for 30 years--a political genius--and ‘The King and I’ says that a white woman tamed a barbarian Asia king, saved the country, and he died of a broken heart. They were so offended that we almost never stood a chance.”

And this movie doesn’t stand a chance to be shown in Thailand. This week, a Bangkok-based National Film Board official said “Anna and the King” is disrespectful to the Thai royal family and will not be released because of “inappropriate” scenes.

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New Films That Ring a Bell

Here are some of the recently opened films that have had earlier screen incarnations:

* “Sleepy Hollow”: Tim Burton takes on the world of the Headless Horseman in this spooky, fun and gory thrill ride, starring Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane and Christopher Walken as the Horseman.

Previous versions: “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad”: Bing Crosby narrates this 1949 musical-comedy, a Disney-animated version of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” “The Headless Horseman”: Will Rogers may never have met a man he didn’t like, but he certainly didn’t cotton to the Horseman in this 1922 silent version, which features Lois Meredith as Katrina Van Tassel.

* “The End of the Affair”: Neil Jordan directed this erotic adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel about the illicit love affair between a married woman (Julianne Moore) and a writer (Ralph Fiennes).

Previous version: “The End of the Affair”: Deborah Kerr essayed the role of the married Sarah Miles, who has an illicit affair with a miscast Van Johnson in this earnest but mild 1955 adaptation. Edward Dmytryk directed this version, which also stars John Mills and Peter Cushing.

* “Miss Julie”: Mike Figgis directed this new R-rated version of August Strindberg’s romantic tragedy about the love affair between an aristocratic young woman and a common man.

Previous version: “Miss Julie”: Alf Sjoberg wrote and directed this superb 1951 Swedish version of the Strindberg play, which stars Anita Bjork as Miss Julie and Ulf Palme as Jean. Max Von Sydow has a small supporting role. The film won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951.

* “The Talented Mr. Ripley”: Anthony Minghella wrote and directed this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel about a young psychopath (Matt Damon). In Minghella’s film, Damon’s Ripley is more overtly homosexual.

Previous version: “Purple Noon”: Rene Clement directed this superlative 1960 French thriller. The tag line for the film, which was restored and re-released a few years ago, was “Passion at 10. Envy at eleven. Murder at noon.” Alain Delon starred as Tom Ripley with Maurice Ronet as Philippe Greenleaf and Marie Laforet as his girlfriend, Marge. Photographed by the great Henri Decae.

* “Onegin”: Martha Fiennes directed her brother Ralph in this adaptation of the Alexander Pushkin poem about a jaded, dashing aristocrat whose refusal of a beautiful young woman (Liv Tyler) leads to tragic circumstances.

Previous version: “Yevgeni Onegin”: Roman Tikhomirov directed this 1959 Russian version starring Vadim Medvedev as Onegin.