Favorite Classic Movie Remakes

By Gabrielle Meyer

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm sharing a list of classic movie remakes.

I love classic movies, so I'm a little skeptical when they are remade. Surprisingly, some of them are done very well (maybe even better than the original, like Father of the Bride or Little Women), and other times they fall a little short (like Yours, Mine, and Ours). I'm usually disappointed when the remake doesn't even resemble the original, but in those instances, I try to see the remade movie as a completely different story and analyze it on its own merits.

If you're looking for a good movie to curl up and enjoy this weekend, consider some of the movies on my list. I'd love to hear what you think.

Original: The Philadelphia Story 

Released: 1940

Starring: Cary Grant, Katherine Kepburn, & James Stewart

Remake: High Society ~ Musical

Released: 1956

Starring: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, & Frank Sinatra

My Opinion: Both movies are about a rich woman who is about to remarry in a high-profile wedding, but her ex-husband (who happens to be her neighbor), and a tabloid reporter, show up and threaten her plans. They also help her discover the truth about herself.  Both are equally amazing, with top-notch movie stars. 

Original: Bachelor Mother

Starring: Ginger Rogers & David Niven

Released: 1939 

Remake: Bundle of Joy ~ Musical

Starring: Eddie Fisher & Debbie Reynolds

Released: 1956

My Opinion: These movies are about a single, working girl who finds a baby, which is mistakenly assumed to be hers. Her employer feels obligated to keep her on at the department store, thinking she’s a single mother, though he was just about to let her go. Both are excellent, though I love Ginger Rogers. 

Original: The Parent Trap

Starring: Haley Mills, Maureen O'Hara, & Brian Keith

Released: 1961

Remake: The Parent Trap

Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, and Natasha Richardson

Released: 1998

My Opinion: Both movies are about twin girls who were separated as babies when their parents divorced, and were accidentally reunited at camp. The comedy that ensues when they switch places to get their parents back together is priceless. I love both versions, but there is no replacing Haley Mills! I do enjoy the modern edge to the newer version, though.

Original: Father of the Bride

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and Elizabeth Taylor

Released: 1950

Remake: Father of the Bride

Starring: Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, and Martin Short

Released: 1991

My Opinion: Both movies are about a father who has to face the reality of his oldest child's impending wedding--and all the hilarity involved in planning the celebration. By far, this is my favorite movie ever remade. I love the original cast, but the modern cast is even more hilarious and easier to relate to. 

Original: Father's Little Dividend

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and Elizabeth Taylor

Released: 1951

Remake: Father of the Bride Two

Starring: Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, and Martin Short

Released: 1995

My Opinion: Both movies are sequels to the above mentioned movies and focus on a man who is about to become a grandfather for the first time--but the second version has a twist! He is also going to be a father, again. I love the remake of this one! Such a cute story--I could watch it over and over again.

This is a short list of my favorite classic movie remakes! There are plenty more, but for now, I'd love to now if you've seen any of these movies and what you think about the remakes.

Gabrielle Meyer lives in central Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River with her husband and four children. As an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society, she fell in love with the rich history of her state and enjoys writing fictional stories inspired by real people, places, and events.

Find her on Facebook
Find her on Pinterest
Find her on Twitter
Find her on Amazon
Find her on Goodreads
Find her on Her Website
Sign up for Her Newsletter

St. Paul Winter Carnival

As a native Minnesotan, I'm used to people from other parts of the country misunderstanding winter in the North Star State. Yes, it gets cold (but only in the winter), and yes, we get a lot of snow (most years), but no, it's not cold year-round and it's not so cold that we can't enjoy December, January, and February.

In 1885 a New York reporter visited St. Paul and declared the city to be another Siberia. He said it was "unfit for human habitation." Offended by the attack (and rightly so!), the people of St. Paul decided to retaliate by showing the world how much fun winter in Minnesota can be.

In 1886 the St. Paul Winter Carnival was born and holds the title of being the oldest winter festival in the United States, predating the Tournament of Roses Festival by two years. That first year, it was held in the month of January and included bobsledding, ice horse racing (on frozen lakes), a royal crowning, dogsled races, snow and ice sculpting contests, a parade and much more.

1886

One of the highlights of the first Winter Carnival was this ice castle. It was designed by Alexander Hutchinson, the man who designed ice palaces in Montreal the three years previous. It was built with over 35,000 blocks of ice taken from Minnesota lakes and cost about $5,210. It was 106 feet tall. In comparison, the castle built in 1992 (shown below) cost $1,900,000 and stood 165 feet tall (a Guiness World Record). 

1888

The ice castle has been the centerpiece of a festival that has continued to grow for many years. 

1986

1992

2004

Ice Sculptures

Snow Sculptures

The carnival was canceled in 1889 and 1890, due to extreme temperatures--and not because it was too cold. It was canceled because the temps were too high those years and it would be impossible to build the palace, skate on the lakes, or do any of the other winter activities for which the carnival had become famous.

A wonderful book to check out if you're interested in the fascinating history of the St. Paul Winter Carnival is called Fire & Ice, by Moira F. Harris.

What about you? Would you visit a winter carnival? Do you live in a cold weather climate? Have you been ice skating or sledding?

Gabrielle Meyer lives in central Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River with her husband and four children. As an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society, she fell in love with the rich history of her state and enjoys writing fictional stories inspired by real people, places, and events.

Find her on Facebook
Find her on Pinterest
Find her on Twitter
Find her on Amazon
Find her on Goodreads
Find her on Her Website

Sign up for Her Newsletter

Classic Christmas Movie List

I have loved classic movies since I was in the second grade. I used to go to the local library and borrow all the movies from the 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's I could get my hands on. Names like Doris Day, Gene Kelley, Fred Astaire, and Betty Grable were often on my 8-year-old lips. To this day, I still prefer an old movie to a new one. And when people say: "I love Christmas movies!" my mind always goes to the great classics, instead of the newer ones on Hallmark or Netflix.

Here is a list of my favorite classic Christmas movies, in no particular order, with the release date, stars, and synopsis of each. I hope you take the time to watch a couple of these this holiday season.

Remember the Night (1940)
Starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray
A shoplifter and her prosecuter fall in love, creating tensions in their family lives.

It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)
Starring Don DeFore, Ann Harding, and Charles Ruggles

A homeless New Yorker moves into a mansion and along the way he gathers friends to live in the house with him. Before he knows it, he is living with the actual home owners.

Holiday Inn (1942)

Starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire

At an inn which is only open on holidays, a crooner and a hoofer vie for the affections of a beautiful up-and-coming performer.

The Bishop's Life (1947)
Starring Cary Grant and Loretta Young
An angel in human form enters the life of a bishop in order to help him build a new cathedral and repair his fractured marriage.

Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Starring Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan
A food writer who has lied about being the perfect housewife must try to cover her deception when her boss and a returning war hero invite themselves to her home for a traditional family Christmas.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Starring Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Starring Maureen O'Hara and Edmund Gwenn
When a nice old man who claims to be Santa Claus is institutionalized as insane, a young lawyer decides to defend him by arguing in court that he is the real thing.

White Christmas (1954)
Starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye
A successful song-and-dance team become romantically involved with a sister act and team up to save the failing Vermont inn of their former commanding general.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Starring Donna Reed and James Stewart

An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.

All Mine to Give (1957)
Starring Glynis Johns
An immigrant family in 1850's Wisconsin prospers until tragedy strikes and the oldest brother is forced to find homes for his siblings on Christmas Day.








Have you seen any of these on the list? Do you have any to add? What are your favorite Christmas movies?

If you're looking for a beautiful Christmas book, my recent release, A Christmas Promise, is available in the Victorian Christmas Brides Collection with eight other delightful stories.

Experience a Dickens of a Christmas

Faced with the daily extremes of gluttony and want in the Victorian Era, nine women seek to create the perfect Christmas celebrations. But will expectations and pride cause them to overlook imperfect men who offer true love?

A Christmas Promise by Gabrielle Meyer
London, England, Christmas 1899

Lady Ashleigh Pendleton is hosting a houseful of guests for Christmas when railroad executive Christopher Campbell unexpectedly arrives from America with a mysterious agreement signed by their fathers before their birth.

Gabrielle Meyer lives in central Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River with her husband and four children. As an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society, she fell in love with the rich history of her state and enjoys writing fictional stories inspired by real people and events. 

Find her on Facebook
Find her on Pinterest
Find her on Twitter
Find her on Amazon
Find her on Goodreads
Find her on Her Website
Sign up for Her Newsletter

One of the Greatest Freedoms

The original star spangled banner - on display at the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of American
History in Washington, D.C.
http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmah/starflag.htm

Recently, many of us exercised one of the greatest freedoms known to mankind - the freedom to cast a vote. We also honored Veteran's Day, where we celebrate the countless men and women who have served our country to ensure this basic freedom, knowing the great importance of maintaining a democracy.

With the tip of a pen, we possess the ability to rise to power men and women who will make decisions that not only affect us, but future generations to come. We shouldn't, for one moment, take that responsibility lightly.

When we cast our educated vote, our end goal should not be the hope of who fills the Oval Office, or a seat in the House or Senate. We should vote with the knowledge that it is but one step toward making America the kind of home we want a generation not yet created to inherit.

With the election so recently held, I think of our Founding Fathers and the nation they envisioned for us. Many of them didn't simply cast a ballot, they cast their lives for a dream - a dream of one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

"Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature.... If the next centennial does not find us a great nation ... it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces."

James Garfield, the twentieth president of the United States, 1877

"Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature."

Benjamin Franklin

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Abraham Lincoln

"We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation

"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Where, some say, is the king of America? I'll tell you, friend, He reigns above."

Thomas Paine

"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."

William Penn

"If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."

Daniel Webster

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."

Patrick Henry

What about you? Did you exercise your freedom to vote? Who did you honor on Veteran's Day?

Gabrielle Meyer lives in central Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River with her husband and four children. As an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society, she fell in love with the rich history of her state and enjoys writing fictional stories inspired by real people and events.

Find her on Facebook
Find her on Pinterest
Find her on Twitter
Find her on Amazon
Find her on Goodreads
Find her on Her Website
Sign up for Her Newsletter

Charles A. Lindbergh: A Legacy and an Enigma

Gabrielle Here:

January 13, 2017, Erica Vetsch shared a little about our amazing Minnesota Historical Society and the twenty-five sites that dot the map of our beautiful state. One of those sites is the Charles A. Lindbergh Historic Site in Little Falls, Minnesota.

I'm especially fond of this historic site because it sits right across the river from where I live in my hometown, and I spent ten years of my life working there as a site guide, an assistant site manager, and later as an interim manager.

Charles Lindbergh is one of the most fascinating men I've ever studied. On the surface, many people know him as the shy, handsome hero who made the first non-stop, transatlantic flight in his monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, in May 1927.

Others may know him as the father of the baby who was kidnapped and murdered on March 1, 1932. The horrible event became known as The Crime of the Century and an important law, known informally as the Lindbergh Law, was enacted from that event, which allows federal authorities to step in and pursue kidnappers once they cross state lines with their victim.

Some may be more familiar with Charles Lindbergh's wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who wrote several books, her most famous being A Gift from the Sea. It continues to change women's live, over half a century after it was written.

And, yet, many others remember Charles A. Lindbergh for his stance on America's entry into WWII and his connection with Nazi Germany.

For a few, when they think of Charles Lindbergh, they think of his conservation work toward the end of his life, his design of the perfusion pump, which was the first apparatus to keep organs alive outside of the body, his work on the first rocket with Robert Goddard, and the routes he and Anne mapped out for air traffic, many of which are still used to this day.

Still others see Lindbergh as the father of illegitimate children in Germany, who came forward in 2003. DNA test proved their story was true, and they are now able to claim one of the most famous men in history as their father.

But, for me, I see Charles Lindbergh as a young boy, growing up on the banks of the Upper Mississippi River in Little Falls, Minnesota. A quiet, curious boy whose father was a lawyer and U.S. Congressman, and whose mother was a school teacher. He loved nothing better than working on the family farm until he left for college in 1920.

If you thought of any of those things, you'd know exactly who Charles Lindbergh was--yet, how many people really knew him? I spent ten years studying his life, reading his journals, letters, biography, and autobiographies--yet, I learned something new about him all the time.

He was a quiet, reserved man who was thrust into the world's spotlight as the first super-hero. He became the most famous person in the world in 1927, and despite his attempts to "retire" from his public life, he could never escape the fame. Very few people know what it was like to be Charles Lindbergh. He was hounded his entire life. Out of desperation and survival, he learned to keep things hidden, to shy away from reporters, and he drew into himself more and more.

There are points in his life that I admire--and others that I abhor. He was an American icon, a role-model for millions, yet he did unthinkable things throughout his life. He invented devises that saved lives, he was a pioneer for aviation, and he was tireless in his work for conservation efforts--yet, his respect for Nazi Germany is questionable, his marital affairs were deplorable, and his relationship with his wife and children was less than commendable.

Lindbergh is an American Legacy, and I applaud him for the great advancements he made. I even understand a few of the choices that shaped his life. But I still like to think of him best as the young man who made the transatlantic flight in 1927, or the child who roamed the woods of his family's property in Little Falls, before fame changed him forever.

He's also an enigma. A man hard to understand, who led a life that few will ever experience.

When I look at his life, I have to look at it through the lens of all these things. Not one individual moment, but the accumulation of seventy-two years of remarkable events that changed the world forever.

Gabrielle Meyer
Find me on Facebook
Find me on Pinterest
Find me on Twitter
Find me on Amazon
Find me on Goodreads
Find me on My Website
Sign up for My Newsletter