Can we talk?

Stolen Movie Plots

         I'm always shocked when I see a movie or TV show that rips off the story of the other without acknowledging it. Some movie remakes are done, usually with a reference to the earlier one(s), even with a title change.

         Hogan's Heroes was a rip off of a movie, but they had legal battles over that after it became a hit show. No one won. There was no acknowledgement to the original movie. Even Sgt. Schultz was a direct carry over. But they're not always so blatant.

         Yesterday I watched a movie with James Stewart and Rock Hudson from 1952 called Bend In The River. They were going to establish a new settlement in Oregon, needed supplies for the winter and paid in advance to have them sent by riverboat about six weeks later, once they were settled. Meanwhile a gold rush happened, and other settlers increased the demand for the supplies, raising the asking price. The supplies that were already sold, were resold at higher prices by the time Stewart went to check on them. He and a friend hijacked the supplies. He hired people to help, who turned on him when they realized they could sell the supplies directly for greater profits. He tracked them down, got the supplies back and rescued the starving settlers.

         Today for the 50th anniversary of Daniel Boone, the TV show that ran around the mid 1860's, I watched the original two episodes. It was like watching Bend In The River. The same story outline, minus the boat on the river, and minus the Gold Rush. Daniel Boone would have been in the 1770;s, the Oregon story in the 1870's. Even the girl friend had the same story line, falling for the wrong guy before getting hooked up with the hero. The outlaws did the same things, the merchant used the same lines, Boone tracked just like the Stewart character.

         It's easy to see the 1952 movie was done before the 1966 TV show. Was there any historical accuracy to how Daniel got his wife? Or to any part of the story? If so, maybe the movie was based on a story the author stole from history. Which one was total fiction? This will drive me crazy. Who plagirized whom?