Films reusing footage

[Ignatius_S]

Werner Herzog used very little original footage for The Wild Blue Yonder and the film chiefly is formed from NASA footage and documentaries, quite brilliantly. Herzog had previously used a similar technique for Lessons of Darkness.

I'm very partial to the way that Harold Lloyd and Preston Sturges re-used footage from The Freshman  in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (A.K.A. Mad Wednesday).  At the beginning, Lloyd's character is shown to score the winning touchdown – it then skips forward 23 years, showing what's become of him. The Howard Hughes edit of the film can be found at http://www.archive.org/details/harolddiddlebock

There's also good use of old footage showing a main character in their younger glory, in The Shootist. The film opens with a montage of John Wayne clips, illustrating the life of the main character. I'm not a massive John Wayne, but I'm fond of this film, which boasts a great cast.

[Ignatius_S]

The Limey uses old footage of Terence Stamp from the 60s when he's thinking about his dead wife & his missing daughter.

So well done in that film. The older footage is from Poor Cow and Stamp's character is a petty thief in that film, which adds an interesting dimension to the use.

[gepree]

Here are a couple of others:

Back to the Future 2 uses clips from part 1

Star Trek season 1 episode The Menagerie uses LOADS of footage from the pilot The Cage.

[Mister Six]

I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned the theatrical version of Blade Runner yet. You know the bit at the end where Deckard and Rachel are driving out into the suspiciously grassy and cheerful-looking countryside? All extraneous helicopter shots from the start of The Shining.

[Brundle-Fly]

Boris Karloff (as Byron Orlok) watches one of his old Roger Corman horror films, The Terror (1963) in Targets (1968).

I highly recommend this great Peter Bogdanovich film.

[Feralkid]

].
I'm very partial to the way that Harold Lloyd and Preston Sturges re-used footage from The Freshman  in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (A.K.A. Mad Wednesday).  At the beginning, Lloyd's character is shown to score the winning touchdown – it then skips forward 23 years, showing what's become of him. The Howard Hughes edit of the film can be found at http://www.archive.org/details/harolddiddlebock

There's also good use of old footage showing a main character in their younger glory, in The Shootist. The film opens with a montage of John Wayne clips, illustrating the life of the main character. I'm not a massive John Wayne, but I'm fond of this film, which boasts a great cast.

Yes and both are terrific examples, always really impressed with the make-up for the "young Lloyd" at the start of that movie when we see him in the dressing room accepting the job he'll be chained to for the next twenty odd years.   The Shootist is great too, especially the way it allows us to see the JT Brooks of legend before showing us the patently diminished Brooks of now.   In a similar vein I always loved how footage from Mad Max (including at least one deleted scene) turn up in the masterfully edited montage at the start of Mad Max 2. 

There's also an episode of Boston Legal which does a similar trick with Shatner, incorporating an early performance of his from some courtroom drama and turning it into one of Denny Crane's flashbacks.   

[Jack Shaftoe]

Obviously, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Always wondered why more people didn't use this technique for an old black and white SF story. Actually fuck it, I'm going to go and do it now.

*goes back to Assassin's Creed 2*

[NoSleep]

Tarzan films featuring Olympic diver Johnny Weissmuller and even subsequent actors recycled Weissmuller's dive from the same cliff in almost every film. Not to mention his famous call:

http://youtu.be/MwHWbsvgQUE

Which is merely audio, but made it all the way through to Ron Ely's TV Tarzan in the late 60s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDL9pnpXXOU

[Feralkid]

Obviously, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Always wondered why more people didn't use this technique for an old black and white SF story. Actually fuck it, I'm going to go and do it now.

*goes back to Assassin's Creed 2*

Kim Newman's The Night Mayor is just begging for the Wear Plaid treatment, it being set in a Virtual reality patterned after 40's noir.   

[Harry Badger]

Game of Death, in which the director pulls off a series of increasingly desperate tricks to get the Bruce Lee character to the point in the story where he can have a facelift and be played by another actor (before metamorphosing back into Lee in the final 20 minutes, which is all that had been shot before his death). As well as splicing in grainy footage from Way of The Dragon, there is also a scene where Lee's character sits in a dressing room looking into a mirror while a mob guy threatens him. Except when you look closely, it's just a paper cut out of Lee's face pasted onto the mirror - the double's neck moves independently of it. There is also footage of Lee's actual funeral used after his character fakes his death. It's ghoulish in the extreme, but it's not a bad time-passer and the final fight scenes are superb. Good score from John Barry too.

As for the Godfrey Ho films, the same shot of Richard Harrison lying on a bed, talking on a Snoopy phone (!) appears in most of them - the caller varies though.

And as for Targets - what a great film that was. I must watch it again. Boris Karloff, at the end of his life, shot a few scenes down in Mexico which formed the basis of, I think, four sci-fi horror films released some years after he died.

[Blumf]

Obviously, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Always wondered why more people didn't use this technique for an old black and white SF story. Actually fuck it, I'm going to go and do it now.

If you haven't see this, get it (it'll have to be torrent, etc. Legal red-tape has hindered it's release)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Lasts_Forever_%28film%29


Bill Murry! Driving a bus! To the moon!

[Jack Shaftoe]

Christ, never even heard of that! I'M ON IT.

Feralkid: I do love The Night Mayor, must give it another read.

[Gulftastic]

The TV series of 'V' that follwed the 80's mini-series re-used some effects from the 1950's 'War Of The Worlds' movie.

[Phil_A]

The TV series of 'V' that follwed the 80's mini-series re-used some effects from the 1950's 'War Of The Worlds' movie.

Confusingly, there was also a War Of The Worlds TV series that also used footage from the 50's movie.

[kidsick5000]

Confusingly, there was also a War Of The Worlds TV series that also used footage from the 50's movie.

I'm pretty sure that must be what Gulftastic is thinking of. I don't remember V continuing into the 90s

[Harpo Speaks]

I have a vague memory of there being a repeat run in the 90s though, possibly on channel 5?

[sirhenry]

Oh and re: the Wilhelm tag.  Another oft-repeated sound effect is the crack of thunder one.  Presumably it originates from a BBC sound effects disc, probably a 78, probably released in the 1930's or something, and every fucker uses it.  It's always the same and I cringe when I hear it.  Ditto the sound effect of a baby laughing.

And that bird (apparently a red kite) shriek sound effect that is used to denote remoteness, whether it's jungle, desert, an alien planet, anywhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp2B9lpjd9Q
Still used today, it goes back at least to the 60's on TV and probably further in film. Once you start spotting it, it becomes really off-putting.

[Gulftastic]

I'm pretty sure that must be what Gulftastic is thinking of. I don't remember V continuing into the 90s

No, no, I never said there was a 'V' series in the 90's. It was short lived in the 80s (19 episodes).

The re-used shots were of buildings being destroyed and such. The nerd in me spotted them straight away.

[uglybob1986]

The shots of the Saturn V launching in Austin Powers 2 were taken from Apollo 13

[SteveDave]

Mark Kermode has a blog about this very topic now on the BBC.

[Zetetic]

It's here.