- “31 Days of Oscar” on TCM – Day 12–13: On Feb. 24 (primetime/late night) and Feb. 25 (daytime), Turner Classic Movies’ Oscar-pedigreed lineup consists of 11 “remakes.” Included are Gaslight, Show Boat, The Merry Widow, Imitation of Life, Cimarron, and A Star Is Born.
‘31 Days of Oscar’ on TCM – Day 12–13: Gaslight, Show Boat, and A Star Is Born among 11 Academy Award-pedigreed remakes
Turner Classic Movies’ 2026 edition of “31 Days of Oscar” continues on Tuesday (primetime/late night), Feb. 24, and Wednesday (daytime), Feb. 25, with the presentation of 11 Oscar-winning or -nominated remakes – in a few cases, re-remakes. (See TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar 2026 – Day 12–13: Remakes” movie schedule further below. Most entries should remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
Bear in mind that one or more of these “remakes” may have been, at least officially, based on the original source material, be it a novel or a play – and not in a past big-screen version.
Below is a brief overview of each “31 Days of Oscar – Day 12–13: Remakes” title, listed in chronological order.
The Sea Hawk (1940)
Four years after playing Queen Elizabeth I in William K. Howard’s British-made Fire Over England, Flora Robson reprised the role in Michael Curtiz’s Hollywood-made The Sea Hawk, a flag-waver – World War II had begun the previous year – starring Errol Flynn as a heroic privateer out to take down the Spanish Armada of Adolf Hitler stand-in King Philip II.
The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t believe your lying eyes and ears, or, for that matter, your history books: England/Britain stands for democracy and freedom, even if during the course of four centuries it colonized and exploited for its own gain a large chunk of Planet Earth.
Note: Despite sharing the title of Rafael Sabatini’s 1915 novel, the glorious-looking* The Sea Hawk is actually about the “adventures” Sir Francis Drake, here renamed “Geoffrey Thorpe.” For a more faithful big-screen version of Sabatini’s book, check out Frank Lloyd’s largely entertaining 1924 adventure epic starring Milton Sills.
* Oscar-nominated black-and-white art direction by Anton Grot; cinematography (some of it sepia-tinted) by Sol Polito.
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Vivien Leigh is at the heart of Metro-Golwyn-Mayer’s romantic drama Waterloo Bridge, as costar Robert Taylor spends much of the film off screen, fighting the good fight during World War I.
Based on Robert E. Sherwood’s 1930 play – transferred to screen, in more modest fashion, the following year at Universal (James Whale directed Mae Clarke and Douglass Montgomery) – the basic Waterloo Bridge storyline is both simple and proudly old-fashioned: Ballerina becomes a sex worker after fiancé is reported killed in action.
And yet, Waterloo Bridge works beautifully because of director Mervyn LeRoy’s no-romantic-holds-barred handling,* Joseph Ruttenberg’s Oscar-nominated black-and-white cinematography, Herbert Stothart’s nominated score, and, of course, Vivien Leigh’s stellar performance as the doomed ballerina.
Lest one forget: The “Farewell Waltz” sequence is one of cinema’s dreamiest.
Note: Retitled Gaby, a far less successful 1956 version of Waterloo Bridge stars Leslie Caron and John Kerr. Curtis Bernhardt directed.
* Mervyn LeRoy would use a similar approach in the equally preposterous and even more entrancing Oscar-nominated 1942 romantic drama Random Harvest, starring amnesiac Best Actor nominee Ronald Colman and loved-then-forgotten-but-at-last-remembered Greer Garson.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Ingrid Bergman herself requested to play the “street” sex worker* – Lana Turner** ended up getting cast as the good girl – in Victor Fleming’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring Spencer Tracy as both the Dr. and the Mr.
Considering Tracy’s characterization – it’s the usual pre-1955 Spencer Tracy performance – and the fact that his makeup is far more subtle than the one applied on Fredric March in Rouben Mamoulian’s superior 1931 version, don’t feel too bad if you can’t tell the difference between Jekyll and Hyde. W. Somerset Maugham, for one, was unable to.†
No qualms, however, when it comes to Joseph Ruttenberg’s Academy Award-nominated Black-and-White Cinematography. Additionally, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was shortlisted for Best Film Editing (Harold F. Kress) and Best Original Score (Franz Waxman).
Note: John Barrymore starred in John S. Robertson’s 1920 silent version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; the two women in his life were Nita Naldi (bad) and Martha Mansfield (good). Miriam Hopkins (bad) and Rose Hobart (good) were the ones in Fredric March’s life in the 1931 movie adaptation.
* This wasn’t the first time in her career that Ingrid Bergman played a “bad girl.” Check her out in Gustaf Molander’s 1938 Swedish drama A Woman’s Face. (The 1941 Hollywood remake – not listed below, as it was bypassed at the Oscars – stars Joan Crawford.)
** Lana Turner can also be found in two “Oscar Remakes” listed further below: The Merry Widow and Imitation of Life.
† Invited by George Cukor to the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde set at MGM, W. Somerset Maugham, upon watching Spencer Tracy in action, asked: “Which [one] is he now?” Admittedly, this quote may be a total fabrication – the earliest versions that we could find date from the late 1960s. But the point made is a valid one.
Gaslight (1944)
Ingrid Bergman won her first of three Academy Awards* for George Cukor’s psychological thriller Gaslight, in which suave, blatantly untrustworthy Charles Boyer tries to drive insane his wealthy, pathologically naive wife (Bergman).
The movie itself looks great,** but the two leads are all Hollywood. Indeed, Gaslight’s best performances are to be found in the periphery: Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress nominee Angela Lansbury, Barbara Everest, and scene-stealer Dame May Whitty.
John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, and John L. Balderston were credited for this Oscar-nominated adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light, previously transferred to the screen in the U.K. Released in 1940 as Gaslight (later on, Angel Street in the U.S.), that more dramatically effective – if less visually striking – version was directed by Thorold Dickinson, and stars Diana Wynyard, delivering a far more compelling performance than Bergman’s, and Anton Walbrook.
A 21st-century remake was announced some years ago, but that has yet come to pass. Perhaps the filmmakers felt it would both redundant and pointless. Why go to the movies, when gaslighting is all around us and it’s perceived by the masses as a good thing?
Note: Maybe a mere coincidence, but Gaslight will be presented on TCM at the time the individual currently occupying the White House will be delivering his State of the Union address.
* Ingrid Bergman’s other two Oscars were for Anastasia (1956) and, in the Best Supporting Actress category, Murder on the Orient Express (1974).
** Oscar-nominated black-and-white cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg; Oscar-winning black-and-white art direction by art directors Cedric Gibbons and William Ferrari and set decorators Paul Huldschinsky and Edwin B. Willis; costumes by Irene. (The Best Costume Design Oscar would be introduced four years after Gaslight.)
Little Women (1949)
Although less well-liked than George Cukor’s Academy Award-nominated 1933 version starring Katharine Hepburn as Joe March, Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Women is an agreeable, good-looking transfer of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868–1869 novel about four daughters (no connection to the Oscar-nominated 1938 romantic drama starring Priscilla Lane) and their troubles during the Civil War.
Making this clear: Being in New England, the March sisters and their mother, Marmee, are not at the front.
June Allyson plays Jo March; the sisters are Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh, and Margaret O’Brien. Peter Lawford and Rossano Brazzi, making his Hollywood debut, are the good-looking men in their lives. Mary Astor is Marmee.
Little Women 1949 topped the Oscars’ Best Color Art Direction-Set Decoration category (art direction: Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse; set decoration: Edwin B. Willis and Jack D. Moore). It was also nominated for Best Color Cinematography (Robert H. Planck and Charles Schoenbaum). The currently available print is good enough; in other words; it needs a thorough restoration job to do justice to this handsome production.
Note: In the 1933 version, Katharine Hepburn’s sisters were Joan Bennett, Frances Dee, and Jean Parker. The men were Paul Lukas and Douglass Montgomery. Spring Byington played Marmee.
Show Boat (1951)
A sizable box office hit, George Sidney’s color musical Show Boat – based on Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1927 Broadway hit* – is one of the finest Hollywood musicals of the studio era.
Howard Keel is surprisingly believable as the riverboat gambler who romances Kathryn Grayson, who, as Magnolia, shows that she could be a capable dramatic actress. Top honors, however, go to Ava Gardner as the tragic mulatto Julie.†
Came Oscar time, Show Boat was nominated in a mere two categories: Best Color Cinematography (Charles Rosher) and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (Conrad Salinger & Adolph Deutsch).
* Previously filmed at Universal by Harry A. Pollard in 1929 (with Laura La Plante, Joseph Schildkraut, and Alma Rubens) and by James Whale in 1936 (with Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, and Helen Morgan). Both versions were wholly bypassed at the Academy Awards.
† On screen, Ava Gardner’s singing was dubbed by Annette Warren, though Gardner’s voice is featured in the soundtrack album.
The Merry Widow (1952)
Despite its poor reputation, Curtis Bernhardt’s lush The Merry Widow isn’t really at all bad. Lana Turner (singing voice by Trudy Erwin) is the title character; Fernando Lamas is Count Danilo. Having said that, this version is unquestionably inferior to Ernst Lubitsch’s masterful 1934 transfer of Franz Lehár’s 1905 operetta; Jeanette MacDonald (no dubbing) and Maurice Chevalier starred, while Una Merkel, who is also featured in the 1952 movie, had a supporting role.
The Merry Widow 1952 received two Oscar nominations: Best Color Art Direction-Set Decoration (art direction: Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse; set decoration: Edwin B. Willis and Arthur Krams) and Best Color Costume Design (Helen Rose [women’s costumes] and, posthumously, Gile Steele [men’s costumes]. Steele had died at age 43 in a March 1952 flash flood incident in the Los Angeles area).
Note: Directed by Erich von Stroheim, a 1925 silent version starred Mae Murray and John Gilbert. The movie is a bit overlong and Murray is a bit too old for the role (besides, there’s no synchronized score); even so, The Merry Widow 1925 was major box office hit all the same for the one-year-old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio.
Imitation of Life (1959)
Lana Turner never suffered more glamorously than in Douglas Sirk’s blockbuster mothers-daughters melodrama Imitation of Life, the former MGM star’s biggest (Universal-made) commercial hit. Considering that Turner had been shortlisted for Mark Robson’s (20th Century Fox hit) Peyton Place two years earlier, it’s a bit surprising that she wasn’t included on the 1959 roster.
Susan Kohner (mother of filmmakers Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz) and Juanita Moore, however, found themselves among that year’s Best Supporting Actress contenders. They both lost to Shelley Winters for George Stevens’ The Diary of Anne Frank. Long-suffering Juanita Moore should have won.
Now, no matter what you think of Imitation of Life’s visual and thematic gaudiness – think what you will, it’s the perfect look and feel for what it is – get your handkerchiefs ready for the funeral sequence.
Claudette Colbert, Louise Beavers, and Warren William were the leads in John M. Stahl’s Oscar-nominated – and far more low-key – 1934 big-screen transfer of Fannie Hurst’s socially conscious 1933 novel.
Cimarron (1960)
Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Anthony Mann (with some assistance from Charles Walters), and starring Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, and Academy Award winner Anne Baxter (The Razor’s Edge, 1946), the costly – and ultimately money-losing ($3.6 million in the red) – Western Cimarron garnered two Oscar nominations: Best Color Art Direction (art direction: George Davis and Addison Hehr; set decoration: Henry Grace, Hugh Hunt, and Otto Siegel) and Best Sound (Franklin Milton).
Out of its seven nominations (there were only nine categories for the period 1930–1931), the original Cimarron – based on Edna Ferber’s sweeping 1930 novel about what became the state of Oklahoma* – topped Best Production, Best Adaptation (Howard Estabrook), and, deservedly, Best Art Direction (Max Rée). Wesley Ruggles directed Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, and Estelle Taylor. The first three were nominated; silent era veteran Taylor was bypassed.
* Following the theft of land belonging to the Cherokee and other Native American tribes.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
A Mexico-set remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic Seven Samurai, John Sturges’ Western The Magnificent Seven is perhaps chiefly notable for its Oscar-nominated score (Elmer Bernstein) and for providing an important early role in an A production for superstar-in-the-making Steve McQueen. Oscar winner Yul Brynner (The King and I, 1956) heads the nearly all-male cast.
A Star Is Born (1976)
As a screenwriter-director, Frank Pierson’s biggest commercial hit ($80 million in the domestic market alone) was the poorly received melodrama A Star Is Born, the second (official) remake* of the 1937 Hollywood-set tale about intersecting show business lives: One is going up, the other is going down. Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson star in this version set in the world of rock music.
At an interminable two hours and 20 minutes, A Star Is Born is only for die-hard Barbra Streisand fans. One plus: Composed by Streisand† herself, the Oscar-winning song “Evergreen” is pretty good – as long as you don’t pay too close attention to Paul Williams’ lyrics.
* Before the 1937 A Star Is Born, there was George Cukor’s 1932 melodrama What Price Hollywood?, in which Constance Bennett’s waitress-turned-film-star goes through some of the same thrills and tragedies as Janet Gaynor (1937), Judy Garland (1954), Barbra Streisand, and Lady Gaga (2018). For What Price Hollywood?, Jane Murfin and veteran movie columnist Adela Rogers St. Johns were nominated for the Best Story Academy Award (1931–1932).
† Barbra Streisand became the first female composer to win an Academy Award in the Best Music categories. She’s also the only individual to have taken home Oscar statuettes in the Best Actress (Funny Girl, 1968; tied with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter) and Best Music categories.
Immediately below is TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar – Day 12–13: Remakes” movie schedule.
‘31 Days of Oscar – Day 12–13: Remakes’: Daytime TCM schedule (EST) – Feb. 24–25
8:00 PM Gaslight (1944)
Director: George Cukor.
Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury, Barbara Everest, Edmund Breon, Terry Moore.
114m10:00 PM Imitation of Life (1959)
Director: Douglas Sirk.
Cast: Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner, Juanita Moore, Robert Alda, Dan O’Herlihy, Karin Dicker, Ann Robinson, Troy Donahue, Jack Weston.
125m12:15 AM The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Director: John Sturges.
Cast: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholz, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter.
126m2:30 AM A Star Is Born (1976)
Director: Frank Pierson.
Cast: Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson, Paul Mazursky, Gary Busey, Oliver Clark, Venetta Fields, Marta Heflin, Sally Kirkland, Maidie Norman.
Cameos: Rita Coolidge, Tony Orlando.
140m5:00 AM Show Boat (1951)
Director: George Sidney.
Cast: Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown, Agnes Moorehead, Gower Champion, Marge Champion, Robert Sterling, Leif Erickson, William Warfield.
108m7:00 AM The Merry Widow (1952)
Director: Curtis Bernhardt.
Cast: Lana Turner, Fernando Lamas, Una Merkel, Richard Haydn, Thomas Gomez, John Abbott, Marcel Dalio, King Donovan, Robert Coote, Gwen Verdon, Matt Mattox.
105m9:00 AM Cimarron (1960)
Director: Anthony Mann.
Cast: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O’Connell, Russ Tamblyn, Mercedes McCambridge, Vic Morrow, Robert Keith, Charles McGraw, Aline MacMahon, Harry Morgan, David Opatoshu, Edgar Buchanan, Mary Wickes, Royal Dano.
140m11:30 AM The Sea Hawk (1940)
Director: Michael Curtiz.
Cast: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Flora Robson, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, Henry Daniell, Una O’Connor, James Stephenson, Gilbert Roland, William Lundigan, David Bruce, Ian Keith, Victor Varconi.
127m1:45 PM Little Women (1949)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy.
Cast: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh, Margaret O’Brien, Rossano Brazzi, Mary Astor, Lucile Watson, C. Aubrey Smith, Elizabeth Patterson, Leon Ames, Harry Davenport, Richard Stapley, Connie Gilchrist, Ellen Corby.
121m4:00 PM Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Director: Victor Fleming.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Donald Crisp, Ian Hunter, Barton MacLane, C. Aubrey Smith, Peter Godfrey, Sara Allgood, William Tannen, Frances Robinson.
113m6:00 PM Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy.
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Lucile Watson, Maria Ouspenskaya, Virginia Field, C. Aubrey Smith, Janet Shaw, Janet Waldo, Steffi Duna, Virginia Carroll.
109m
“Oscar Movies on TCM: Remakes” notes
“31 Days of Oscar on TCM: Remakes” schedule via the TCM website.
A Star Is Born domestic gross via boxofficemojo.com.
Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman Gaslight image: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
“Oscar Movies on TCM: Remakes” last modified in February 2026.