It's always hard to remake a movie that has achieved classic status, as is the case with the 1950 movie DOA. But Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton's 1988 remake of the film breathes new life into it. The basic question that must be posed to the directors of any remake is: Why bother? Why not make an entirely new movie? The answer in the case of this film is that the directors have created a new movie out of an established story and have done so in large measure by using more modern camera techniques. The 1950 version of DOA, directed by Rudolph Mate and starring Edmond O'Brien and Pamela Britton, is a fairly classic of film noir. In part because the film was shot in black and white, but mostly because of the directorial decisions that Mate made, the film seems to take place in a world in which there is little light. This is less true of the 1988 version, and the basic choices that the director has made about how to light the actors and the scene very much determines the overall feel of the movies.
Both movies tell the paradoxical story of a man who is DOA - dead on arrival - even though he appears to be very much a
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