More Great Romantic Movie Double Features --Part 3 Review

DOUBLE FEATURE # 1

ROMANCE A MYSTERY PLEASE

The Thin Man      1934  Directed by Woodridge S. Van Dyke

Here's the one that set the rules for most husband and wife detective teams that followed.  It's based on a Dashiel Hammett novel, and was so popular.. there were 5 sequels created with After the Thin Man and Shadow of the Thin Man very good runner-ups to the original.  William Powell and Myrna Lowell are the sophisticated couple who trade quips and act quite sophisticated while constantly sipping alcohol.  There's Asta, the wired haired terrier who appeared under other names in movies like  My Favorite Wife, Bringing Up Baby  and others.  Quite a canine star !  The plot here has something to do with Nick and Nora Charles investigating the disappearance of a wealthy inventor.  Powell and Loy had great chemistry in these films.  Check them out.

And

Charade  1963  Directed by Stanley Donen

Well you want suave and sophisticated?  Here's the recipe: mix  director Stanley Donen,  Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn and some mystery and intrigue and a supporting cast that includes James Coburn and Walter Matthau  and you just know a classic is born.  It's called the best Hitchcock movie, Hitchcock never directed.  Smart, sassy, romantic suspenseful... you really can't get much better than this one.  Hepburn's husband is murdered and crooks and double agents who insist she knows something about money her husband stole during World War 2  won't leave her alone.  Then there is Cary Grant.  Is he a good guy nobody or part of the espionage?  It all happens in and around Paris.

Double Feature #2

UNEXPECTEDLY, UNDENIABLY ROMANTIC

You may not have been expecting them but these two movies have solid romantic vibes.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind   2004   Directed by Michael Gondry

An utterly original premise involving erasing memories drives this surprisingly touching, tender, odd romantic film.  It features great performances from Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson and Mark Ruffalo and the best performance of  Jim Carrey's career.  Written by Charlie Kauffman and Gondry.   Imaginative AND romantic!!!!

AND

Out of Sight (1998) - directed by Steven Soderbergh

Bank robber (George Clooney) breaks out of jail, kidnaps a U.S. Marshall and  plans his next heist.  Will the three time loser be lucky in crime or love?  Superb script and direction, based on an Elmore Leonard book. It gives us Jenifer Lopez' finest performance on film. A surprise performance from Albert Brooks and a superb supporting cast that includes  Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Dennis Farina, Steve Zahn, Nancy Allen. There's also a nifty cameo from Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson that's linked to the movie Jackie Brown which is also based on an Elmore Leonard book.

Warning: it's got some gore and foul language in it... but believe it or not... it also has some very romantic scenes.  

DOUBLE FEATURE PART 3

AGAINST ALL ODDS -- ROMANCES THAT CAN'T BE STOPPED

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) - Directed by Taylor Hackford

Richard Gere is the guy from the wrong side of the tracks that aspires to get through the tough regiment of Navy Flight School to become an aviator but it seems the tough gunnery sergeant played by Louis Gossett Jr. (who got a supporting Oscar for his fine work) has it in for him.  There's a very hot inconvenient romance with Debra Winger. 

Nice supporting work from  David Keith, Louis Gossett, Robert Loggia, and Lisa Blount. A bit sappy in spots perhaps but quite tough and near brutal in other scenes.  An audience favorite for sure.

And

THE  GENERAL  1926--  Buster Keaton , Clyde Bruckman

What Buster Keaton won't do for love. . .  Keaton created his most ambitious, most expensive movie ever with this meticulously historically accurate telling of a civil way story.  It's full of adventure, and an incredible staged train wreck scene.  There's also a touching and very romantic romance in the movie as well.   It's a silent movie... it's an old old movie... and I'll bet if you give it a chance... you'll be absolutely charmed, mesmerized and entertained by this remarkable film.

DOUBLE FEATURE  PART 4.

GIANT sweeping HISTORICAL ROMANCES

Gone with the Wind  1939   Directed by Victor Fleming

The epic tragic romantic love triangle taking place in the south pre-during and post civil war  that Titanic tried to top, is still the biggest, most colorful weepie ever made.  A who's who of Hollywood stars and supporting players that include George T.V.'s Superman Reeves, Ward Bond, Eddie Anderson, Hattie McDaniel, Butterfly McQueen and Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, Olvia de Haviland, Lestlie Howard and Thomas Mitchell.  Screenwriter Sidney Howard had help on the script from producer David O. Selznick and F. Scott Fitzgerald.   The burning of Atlanta scene used the huge King Kong sets as fuel for the fire and it features one of the most spectacular shots of Hollywood history when we see what appears to be miles of injured soldiers at the train depot.  Frankly my dear,  you will give a damn!!!   Beautifully restored DVD awaits.

And

Dr. Zhivago   1965  Directed by David Lean

Epid adaptation of Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize winning novel.  A Russian poet and intellectual is caught in the middle of the Bolshevik Revolution.  Some of the performances are un-even perhaps but you'll be caught up in the spectacle and romance. Cast features: Julie Christie, Omar Sharif, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Klaus Kinski, Ralph Richardson, Tom Courtenay, Rita Tushingham.  Adapted screenplay by Robert Bolt.

DOUBLE (Make that an all night super marathon)  FEATURE  PART 5

SCREWBALL ROMANCE MARATHON

Start with the proto-type of the screwball romantic comedies:

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT  1934   Directed by Frank Capra

You might call this the archetype, the movie that solidified the formula for the screwball romantic comedy...that would reach its peak in the 1940s.  It's a formula that with a few twists is still used in the majority of  Romantic comedies today.  So what's ground-zero for the film?  Writer Robert Riskin and Director Frank Capra's delightfully entertaining story about a run-away heiress who needs a newspaperman's help to make in the world of ‘real people'.    Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are the couple and they became even bigger stars after this movie was released.  Even though it's an old one.... It is not nearly as dated as you might think.  It will entertain and amuse you better than most films you've seen.  

But wait.. we are just getting started. . . .

FOR THE 2ND FEATURE

CHOOSE ONE OF THESE:

My Man Godfrey   1936   Directed by Gregory La Cava

Spoiled rich girl (Carole Lombard) picks up someone she believes is a bum in a scavenger hunt and then decides to keep him (William Powell) around as a butler.

He's not a very good butler, but he winds up teaching her some important life lessons and then the complications and romance thing happens.  Fast-moving, inventive comedy written by La Cava and Morrie Ryskind.

OR

Twentieth Century  1934  Directed by Howard Hawks

John Barrymore plays an intense Broadway Producer who transforms a shop girl (Carole Lombard) into a successful broadway star.  Fed up with Barrymore's excessive manipulative ways, she heads to Hollywood with Barrymore in pursuit.  Fast moving, and very funny script by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht

Then  for your 3rd feature  choose a loud farce or a slightly quieter gentler screwball comedy:

Bringing up Baby (1938) directed by Howard Hawks

People talk a mile in a minute in the movie regarded by many as the best romantic comedy ever made.  You've never seen Katherine Hepburn as positively neurotic as she is, in this movie, or Cary Grant hamming it up as a nerdish paleontologist.     Cary Grant is David Huxley, a befuddled paleontologist who is about to finish a large dinosaur skeleton he's been putting together for several years.   David is engaged to another woman who is busy courting a huge donor for the museum.    Meanwhile theirs is Susan Vance (Hepburn) a free-wheeling rich girl who meets David on the golf course and then decides she really likes this interesting David character.  It is one mis-hap and calamity after another in this zany, downright crazy  comedy.  You can barely catch your breath watching this one.  Most of the absent minded professor/ nerd  cliché's were started right here.   That famous wire haired terrier is also part of the action.  

Or

If you want a romantic comedy a bit less zany and mad-cap  then try:

Holiday 1938  Directed by George Cukor

Based on a play by Phillip Barry, this sophisticated screwball comedy is a love triangle involving  Cary Grant about to marry into a very rich family.  He has to approved by his future father-in-law of course and that may not be easy.  In the mean-time he meets his future sister-in law played by Katherine Hepburn and soon discovers he has more in common and likes the sister better. Uh-oh.....  Cast includes  Doris Nolan, Edward Everett Horton, Ruth Donnelly, and Lew Ayres. 

Then  for your feature number 4 :

His Girl Friday (1940) - Directed by Howard Hawks

Never will you witness people talking so fast and furiously funny for 92 minutes straight as they do in this fall on the floor laugh out loud funny romantic comedy battle of the sexes.  Rosalind Russell goes toe to toe with Cary Grant and others.  It was based on the Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur play The Front Page, which was made into a decent movie in 1931.. but the leads were male.  Hawks and writer Charles Lederer decided to do a slight twist and make the reporter and editor feud about an ex-wife and husband as reporter and editor feuding and then fighting over a big story involving an escaped condemned man who insists he is innocent-and maybe he is.  Complications and twists and turns ensue until the couple discovers after all the fighting and fussing... they might still love each other!!!   They don't have people talk this fast in movies anymore and few movies have ever been this funny.

For Feature #5   CHOOSE:Then

The Lady Eve   1941   directed by Preston Sturges 

Two con artists are after a wealthy but very naïve beer tycoon Henry Fonda.  Unlikely love blossoms and the best laid plans turn into complications that quickly grow into the ridiculous.  It's witty funny and the great cast includes:  Fonda, Barbara Stanwyck, Charles Coburn, and William Demarest (Uncle Charlie on T.V.'s My Three Sons).

Or

Palm Beach Story   1942  Directed by Preson Sturges

Another wild far fetched premise introduces us to quirky characters leading to a laugh out loud screwball comedy farce  Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert love each other but they have no money, so they decide that Colbert will divorce Joel, marry a rich millionaire and finance her former husband's business venture.  It's off to Palm Beach to hunt for a husband and meet some eccentric characters.  Zany stuff.

AND  TOP IT ALL OFF WITH:

Philadelphia Story  1940  Directed by George Cukor

The studios decided that Katherine Hepburn could not be made into a star and were snubbing her.  Kate went out and found a great play, bought it, and spearheaded the effort to make it into a movie. It would be turned into the musical High Society in 1956.  It was a big hit and Kate Hepburn was treated much better by Hollywood for several years.

Kate plays the woman who is engaged to be married again when her dashing ex shows up on the scene.  Then there's a reporter who is supposed to spy on the upcoming nuptials and falls in love with the bride.   Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart are the trio.  Phillip Barry wrote the play, Donald Ogden Stewart wrote the screenplay, and George Cukor directed this multi-award winning, gem of a film. 

BONUS

And if you wanted to add another movie to this marathon

Grant and Dunne Together Again

My Favorite Wife - 1940  Directed by Garson Kanin

A personal fave of mine.  Grant gets his marriage annulled so he can re-marry.  His first wife was lost at sea 7 years ago and is presumed dead.   Well  guess who shows just as the newly married couple start their honeymoon?   Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott and Gail Patrick star in this unique witty and very entertaining comedy.  A gem from start to finish. 

Or

The Awful Truth - 1937  Directed Leo McCarey

First pairing of Grant and Dunne.   They are married and decide to get a divorce and go their separate ways.  When they begin seeing other people, they sabotage each other's relationships because as it turns out.. they really do love each other very much after all.  A very funny screw-ball comedy with wonderful performances  from  Cary Grant, Irene Dunne Ralph Bellamy, and others.  

(And please feel free to add just about any Preston Sturges, Ernest Lubitsch (To Be or Not to Be), Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, film anywhere you would like into the mix.  )

And you can always do newer ones based on actors like Meg Ryan,  Kate Hudson, Julie Roberts,  Diane Keaton,  Juliette Binoche for instance.  You could even do a gross out romantic comedy using flicks like Shaun of the Dead,  Corpse Bride, Blue Velvet, etc.

Enjoy and let me know if you enjoyed reading this.

Part 1  of the Romantic Double Features   is right here:

http://www.viewpoints.com/I-Love-You-Great-Romantic-Double-Feature-Movies-for-Valentines-Day-review-7ecc1

Part 2  of the Romantic Double Features is  right here:

http://www.viewpoints.com/Best-Romantic-Movie-Double-Features-for-Valentines-Day-Part-2-review-7ba6