'Smart Alec' Hanks avoids the Guinness

Movie star Tom Hanks arrived at the Cannes Film Festival today to promote the new Hollywood remake of classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers – then admitted he had never seen the original.

Hanks plays the lead role made famous by Sir Alec Guinness in the 1955 film.

The new version is from the Coen brothers, makers of Fargo, The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Asked whether he was a fan of the original, Hanks admitted: “I had actually never seen The Ladykillers. As a fan of the cinema I’m certainly aware of the Ealing comedies, but out of that school the only one I recall seeing is Kind Hearts and Coronets.

“I might have seen a few minutes of it on TV but I don’t have a recollection of seeing it.”

Even after signing up for the remake, the 47-year-old actor still avoided watching the original because he wanted to avoid comparisons with the “great” Sir Alec.

“You have to have some sort of philosophy when you take on the idea of a remake,” he explained.

“The last thing I wanted was to see the film and have it entering my head and have it censoring me or inadvertently making me imitate the great Sir Alec Guinness – there is a reason why he is ’Sir’ Alec Guinness.

“What I wanted to do was keep myself as ignorant and oblivious as possible so I wouldn’t be stepping on anybody’s toes.”

He added: “If we’re opening up the body of the great Ealing comedies to a wider American audience I believe it just pays credit to the original work of art more than anything else.”

Asked if the film was despoiling the original, he joked: “Rather than despoiling a work of art, we are elevating it to the level of Hamlet. Americans try to do Richard II and Hamlet all the time – sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad.”

The Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, have shifted the action from post-war London to Mississippi in the American Deep South.

Where Sir Alec played Professor Marcus, Hanks is Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, who assembles a gang of crooks to rob the vault of a floating casino.

The gang plan to tunnel there from the cellar of their landlady’s house, pretending to her that they are a classical quintet using the cellar for rehearsals. When she uncovers their plot, they resolve to kill her.

The little old lady of the original film, played by Katie Johnson, has been replaced by actress Irma P Hall’s formidable Southern Baptist widow.

Despite the presence of box office favourite Hanks and the usually golden touch of the Coen brothers, The Ladykillers has not been a hit in the US.

It took just $12m (€10m) in its opening weekend last month and $38m (€31.7m) to date, and critics have given it a lukewarm reception.

Hanks insisted the film had translated well from the original because the story is so strong.

“There are some films I don’t think travel particularly well – a remake of the Carry On movies wouldn’t work, for example, because the verbiage wouldn’t translate to American sensibilities. But this is a Coen brothers movie and the source is able to translate.”

Joel Coen – brother Ethan was not in Cannes because he is at home recovering from a bout of pneumonia – has at least seen the British original.

He said: “I think I saw it originally on TV when I was a kid and the next time I saw it on screen at a film festival 15 or 20 years ago, when the director Alexander Mackendrick was there. When we were asked to do the screenplay we got the film out and watched it a few times.

“We loved the original movie – we stole a line from it for our very first movie Blood Simple.

“But remaking it wasn’t intimidating in any way. We liked the bones of the story, it’s a great story, and it will survive our mucking about with it a little bit. We approached it very non-reverentially even though we liked the original movie quite a bit.”

Although it has not been a success in the US, the film is in competition for the Palme d’Or prize at Cannes.

The actor broke ranks with the Hollywood contingent in Cannes to voice his support for US troops.

While film-maker Michael Moore and actor Sean Penn yesterday used the festival to attack the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, Hanks instead praised the courage of American soldiers.

Hanks, star of Second World War TV drama Band of Brothers and the movie Saving Private Ryan, was asked to compare the current situation in Iraq with the experiences of troops in those battles.

He said: “From D-Day on June 6 1944 to the end of hostilities on May 8 1945, it was 11 months of life and death struggle for Americans and the Allies.

“That is a huge amount of time to take out of one’s youth and one’s futur that’s no small sacrifice when someone’s life is lost forever.

“To our troops now, all you can say is God bless every one of them. Let’s hope they find safety and a peaceful world. I’m sure they will find the American populace much more understanding of what they’ve been through.”

He went on: “These are extremely tough times, not just for America but for the world. We are up against a type of philosophy we don’t quite understand. We are in a difficult sort of grey area now that defies logic and defies common sense. We understood the evil of World War Two.”

Urging support for US soldiers in Iraq, he said: “We have to just welcome them home and say thank you for coming back to us, thank you for your sacrifice and God bless you.”