Even now, it’s a solid hook: a poisoned man trying to solve his own murder. It was a great idea in 1950, it was a great idea in 1988, and if we’re all still here in 2030 (surprisingly questionable!), it will remain a good idea for a remake.
And with any luck, the third time will be the charm.
Because despite its heralded status as a classic of the film noir genre, the original D.O.A. is… not actually all that great. It’s not terrible by any means, but outside of a rightly praised opening, some gorgeous on location San Francisco shooting, and Edmond O’ Brien’s great lead performance, the movie is a bog standard thriller, rarely rising to the genius of its premise. And the distinctions it does carve out, such as a genuinely embarrassing love interest and the inexplicable sliding wolf whistle whenever an attractive woman shows up, don’t exactly do much to elevate things.
To say nothing of this scene:
Point being… yes. There is room for improvement.
And credit where credit is due, the more modern (but at this point still insanely dated) version of D.O.A., now available on Blu-ray, makes some very clever choices in updating the story. It still doesn’t work as a whole, but at least they invent entirely new and interesting ways of letting down a seemingly bulletproof premise.
Whereas the 1950 original gets the ball rolling by having an accountant go on vacation to get away from his needy, simpering would-be fiancee, our hero here in 1988 is one Dexter Cornell (who in one brief, wildly clever shot is actually styled to resemble O’ Brien), a writer turned English professor turned hard drinking soon-to-be divorcee, marking time on campus during a blisteringly hot Christmas.
Cornell is played by Dennis Quaid, on a silver streak after the one-two punch of The Big Easy and Innerspace. And unsurprisingly, he’s good in the role. In fact, the argument could be made that he’s a little too good. Because at heart, Cornell is a pretty unpleasant guy to be around, and Quaid leans into his general unsavoriness hard.
I call this ‘Penning’, named in honor of Sean Penn’s performance in Shanghai Surprise, where his commitment to actorly truth resulted in what should have been a lovable rogue type character being portrayed as a genuine sleazeball scumbag and utterly throwing off the delicate balance of what should have been a light screwball romp.
Similarly, Dexter Cornell is gross from the start, and it takes far too long to earn our empathy: our first real encounter with him outside of the de rigueur frame story is in the classroom, where he lights up a Marlboro while bantering with his quietly worshipful acolytes, the absolute epitome of tenured campus smarm. In short order, he further reveals himself to be a drunk, a jerk to student and colleague alike, and his constant badgering of his conflicted wife (an utterly fantastic Jane Kaczmarek) ensures that within ten minutes of the opening credits, there is an extensive list of people who would be perfectly happy to see Cornell get some form of comeuppance… not least of which might be the audience themselves.
Plus, he’s constantly sweating, even before the bad stuff starts happening. It’s just plain unpleasant.
Soon enough, Cornell finds himself poisoned and on the run, implicated in a murder (something of a raising of the stakes from the original). To get to the bottom of things, he enlists the aid of infatuated student Sydney (Meg Ryan), though it’s more accurate to say he forces her into it, via a literally painful method that does little to make our hero more sympathetic.
This is, famously, the movie where former lovebirds Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan first met. And while there’s surprisingly little evidence of their real life chemistry here (Quaid generates far more sparks with Kaczmarek; their too brief scenes together sparkle with tenderness and conflicted affection), Ryan’s natural charm and effervescence does manage to make Quaid’s performance feel a little less grody. She hasn’t quite come into her own just yet, but she makes a perfectly acceptable stand-in for Goldie Hawn.
It’s the charm of Ryan, and the winningly arch performances of the supporting cast, including an obscenely young Robert Knepper and the ever imperious Charlotte Rampling, that prop the movie up in a major way. The plot, as it unfolds, loads up on some plot twists that feel more like soap opera than noir, and the resolution is pure Murder She Wrote. Still, most of the actors are in on the joke, which does wonders to make it all go down smooth.
Screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue had an interesting career, with more misses than hits; but the misses were, at the very least, never boring. And however else the film fails to cohere, he still deserves a lot of credit for picking out such a unique setting; moving all of the murder and mayhem in the halls of academia is a genuinely witty creative decision that pays off in spades.
The story is itself may be nonsense, but the university backdrop and how it all plays out do a better job than the original of highlighting the inherent cosmic sense of futility that powers the best noirs. The original tries to get at this with its revelation about why O’Brien got poisoned in the first place, but it doesn’t really land, due to the rest of the film being so awash in the typical tropes of the genre. But again, this new setting pays dividends; when the remake lays its cards on the table, the absurdity and the pointlessness of it all truly feels right in step with the bleak Post-War sense that nothing matters, and fate can conspire to ruin your life for no real reason. All of which is very noir.
And curiously enough, the other place that the remake surpasses the original is in that aforementioned style. Husband-and-wife director team Rocky Morton and Anabel Jankel started out in music videos, and they shoot the film with a restless, modern (well… modern then, dated now) camera; they don’t exactly evoke the genre they’re supposed to be riffing on, but they do go about their business with a certain visual wit. Stuck with a half-baked script, they keep it punchy and go all in on the technique, which works far better than it should.
(I just wouldn’t be doing my duty as a film critic if I didn’t point out that after the success of this film, Morton and Jankel followed it up by directing the infamously catastrophic live action Super Mario Brothers movie. And curiously enough, a viewer can very easily draw a straight line from this movie to that one; say what you will about the pair, their insanity was remarkably consistent.)
One can’t help thinking that between both versions of D.O.A., there’s an actual, fully successful treatment of what remains a truly genius high concept. This version is closer to the noir ideal in several key ways, but also lacks the self-control to really make it all come together. The film is undercooked and overheated. But it’s never boring.
SPECIAL FEATURES: Separate commentaries from the since divorced Jankel and Morton. Some highlights: We learn the dated score was composed by Jankel’s brother Chaz; Morton proves to be fascinatingly ambivalent towards horses; Jankel cites her love of The Night Porter to explain why she wanted to cast Charlotte Rampling. Which is… interesting. Plus, fun fact: Before they got this job, Morton and Jankel campaigned to get the job directing the first Child’s Play movie, which Jankel endearingly keeps referring to as ‘Chucky’. Not that I don’t enjoy the version we got, but I’m never not going to wonder what could have been…
Also, they both go on at surprising length about Dennis Quaid’s jacket. Not sure what that’s about, but… there it is.
