The Lady of the Camellias

A tragic story of love, loss, and love again is the 1936 George Cuckor film Camille puts together a group of amazing actors to retell a classic novel. This film has gone on to be one of the most praised love stories, even making Time magazine's list of 100 Best Movies of All Time. If you want to watch this film, you can start here.

The original story is titled "The Lady of the Camellias", referring to the camellia flower the main character always carries. The name Camille was derived from the flower and is what the story is more commonly known as today. The novel was written by Alexandre Dumas, but not the Alexandre Dumas famous for writing The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo. The author of Camille is that author's son with his mistress, Parisian dressmaker Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay. The younger Alexander was taken away from his mother at a very young age to live with his father. The story of Camille was partially based on the struggles of Dumas's own mother, but more based on the story of Marie du Plessis, perhaps the most famous French courtesan who ever lived.

The story follows Marguerite Gautier (Greta Garbo) who is born into a poor family but works her way up using her charms to become the Dame Camille. Encouraged by Prudence Duvernoy (Laura Hope Crews), who is the person Camille might become in her old age, Camille is to meet and then seduce the Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell), displacing rival courtesan Olympe (Lenore Ulric). Of course, Camille spies the wrong man and believes the baron is the handsome Armand Duval (Robert Taylor), who she instantly falls in love with her. Camille is kept by the Baron but still loves Armand, who thinks Camille only cares for material possessions. Eventually, Camille leaves the Baron to be with Armand, but Armand's father (Lionel Barrymore) points out to Camille that her reputation will ruin Armand's chance at getting a better life forever. Camille pretends not to love Armand, sending him away. Yet when her consumption begins to grow worse, Camille is convinced that Armand will come back to her.

It is easy how to see that the film Moulin Rouge basically completed ripped off the entire plot of this film, which in turn ripped of the book, but more clever analyses have been made. For more background information on the film itself, you can look at this page from filmsite.org. The Dusted Off blog does this interesting comparison of Camille to modern day Bollywood films.

For more reviews of this film, you can look here at the 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die blogspot. The Classic Film Guide has this review of the film more in the context of the time period. The Garbo Forever fan site has this review of the film as well. And here is one of the original trailers for the film:

Loneliness, Love, and Italia

Tons of movies have been made about falling in love abroad. After all, nothing is more exciting than a new place, new experiences, and new people to enjoy them with. The 1955 David Lean film Summertime, sometimes retitled Summer Madness, is based on the play Time Time of the Cuckoo, written by Arthur Laurents. You can watch the film, segmented into parts, here on YouTube.

Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) is a happy-go-lucky middle-aged secretary from Akron who has finally gotten to go on the dream vacation of her life: a trip to Venice. Jane is an "independent type" and cruises Venice not with a lover but with a trusty movie camera to capture her experiences. . Despite the wonder and magic of Venice, Jane has no one to share her experiences with. However, Jane meets antique shop proprietor Renato de Rossi (Rossano Brazzi) in a cafe in the Piazza San Marco, a man who might change the course of her vacation and her life. The film truly captures what it is like to be a tourist in a foriegn country and is humorous but also romantic.

For some extra info on the film, you can look here at theauteurs.com or here, thanks to the Kate the Great fansite. Though it wasn't his most acclaimed film, David Lean said it was his favorite and it has gained some recognition through the Criterion Collection and some other sources. Filmsite.org ranked it one of the top films of 1955, which is a big honor considering other films that made the list include Rebel Without A Cause, The Seven Year Itch, Blackboard Jungle, East of Eden, and To Catch a Theif.

For some reviews of the film, you can get one from noripcord.com here. Another one comes from The Guardian in the UK. The BBC offers this review and this one comes from the Radio Times. For some images from the film, you can look here, thanks to Flickr. For a trailer of the film, just look below.

Wanna See Some Great Movies?

For the month of February, Turner Classic Movies puts together perhaps one of the best themed film marathons, in my personal opinion. From February 1st until March 3rd, they put on their 31 Days of Oscar Marathon, saluting some of the most award-winning films, actors, and directors to grace the silver screen.

Rather than dividing the films up into Oscar category, such as Best Director or Best Cinematographer, TCM has come up with a more creative approach. The films are divided into themed or genre segments. For example, the segemnt called "The Southwestern United States" features the films Tulsa, Oklahoma!, and Cimarron. Each day is divided up into "departments", like a college, and the various departments have name like "The Education Department", "The Law Department", and "The Philosophy Department" and each "department" is subdivided from there.

For example, "The Foriegn Language" Department features segments entitled "Introduction to Italian" and "Intermediate French", including foriegn movies like The Four Days of Naples and Mr. Hulot's Holiday whereas the "Dance Department" features segements like "Advanced Tap" and "Introduction to Choreography", featuring various musical and dance films like Royal Wedding and 42nd Street. I'm not sure if this schedule will be better than the old standby, but it may help group together movies that will attract viewers with common interests in all of them.

For more information about what to expect with this year's 31 Days of Oscar, you can read this article twitchfilm.com did with Robert Osborne, who will be emceeing the majority of the event. Monstersandcritics.com has more on the set up of the marathon along with a schedule that will be more easy to access than downloading the pdf schedule from the TCM website. For those of you interested, here is TCM's press release about the event.

So, crack open those schedules and cancel all your plans for the rest of the month because some great films are coming to a television near you!

Murder Trials Agatha Christie Style

With an all-star cast, based on a play written by legendary Queen of Crime Agatha Christie, and directed by the famed Billy Wilder, the 1957 film Witness for the Prosecution is a film you know is going to be good before you even watch scene one. This is a film so filled with suspense, drama, and surprise after surprise that it even tells you at the film not to spoil the ending for others. Even the Royal Family was sworn to secrecy not to reveal the plot after being screened the film.

After being kicked out of the hospital for bad behavior, barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton) returns to London after suffering a heart attack, pestering, badgering nurse Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester) in tow. A fellow lawyer convinces the ailing Sir Wilfrid to take on the case of Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), a hapless inventor who is accused of murdering wealthy widow Emily French (Norma Varden), who he befriended and may have sent mixed signals to. After French was brutally murdered, it was revealed that she left the majority of her money to Vole, making him look even more suspicious. Vole hopes that his wife Christine (Marlene Dietrich), a German immigrant who he met and married during WWII will help him out of his jam and places all of the hope he has on evading the charges on her. Sir Wilfrid doesn't trust Christine or her testimony. The trial begins and everything you think you knew about the case goes out the window as one shock after another are revealed, leading to a resolution that will have you on the edge of your seat.

It is often mistakenly assumed that Alfred Hitchcock directed the film, since it seems to be just the right plot for the Master of Supsense. Hitch commented on this mix-up, saying that Billy Wilder was often given credit for Hitch's film The Paradine Case. The on-screen camaraderie between Laughton and Lancaster was easy for them to create because they were husband and wife. This was Tyrone Powers' last feature film as he died of a heart attack the following year. Una O'Connor is the only cast member from the original Broadway play to reprise her role in the film. She played Janet McKenzie and also had starred in Bride of Frankenstein with Elsa Lancaster. This was O'Connor's last film as well.

You can watch the film yourself as it is divided into segments on YouTube and can be found here. Afterward, there are some reviews you can check out of the film. I wouldn't do so before because some of them give away spoilers. This review comes from crazy4cinema.com and is a good, brief review. Another review comes from classic film at about.com and is a good overview of the film. The review from apolloguide.com focuses a lot on the directorial side of the film, whereas this review from Marquette University of Law comes at the film from a legal aspect. Finally, this all encompassing review comes from allwatchers.com. So, have fun with all of the twists and turns in this rollercoaster ride of a film.

Of Love Triangles and Elephant Stampedes

The 1954 film Elephant Walk did not receive much critical acclaim when it came out. In fact, most critics panned it. Still, that did not stop audiences from coming to see a love triangle set in the breathtakingly exotic landscape of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. The film was based on the book Elephant Walk by Robert Standish, which is the pseudonym of Digby George Gerahty.

While in a small town in England, John Wiley (Peter Finch) meets the beautiful bookshop clerk Ruth (Elizabeth Taylor) and after only a period of knowing each other, the two marry. Wiley owns a tea plantation in colonial England's Ceylon post World War II and the two move to the estate. The plantation is called "Elephant Walk" because it was built on the path elephants used to use to get to water and a large wall was built to keep the elephants at bay by Wiley's late father, who is buried at the plantation. The house is a glorious mansion and Ruth meets her husband's devoted servant Appuhamy (Abraham Sofaer), who has an unwavering devotion to Wiley and his dead father while he remains suspicious of her. Ruth also meets her husband's American overseer, Dick Carver (Dana Andrews), who tells her not to trust the legacy of Wiley's father. He tells her that Wiley's father "rules Elephant Walk even from the grave" and that local gossip states Wiley Sr. was a factor in his wife's death. Wiley throws a lavish party at which Ruth is the only woman and the men become rough and rowdy while Ruth is upstairs, trying to sleep. Like his father, Wiley is somewhat arrogant and self-involved and he tries to live up to his father's legacy, leading to many confrontation between him and Ruth. Wiley breaks his leg during some rough housing with his friends and Ruth asks Carver to come back to help her husband run his plantation. A romance develops between Ruth and Carver because of her husband's behavior and they plan to leave together, stalled by a cholera outbreak at the plantation. The story takes twists and turns as the love triangle becomes more complicated and the beautiful nature of Ceylon turns deadly.

The film was originally supposed to star Laurence Olivier and then wife Vivien Leigh in the lead roles of John and Ruth Wiley, but Olivier had a scheduling conflict with the film he was working on, The Beggar's Opera. Leigh worked on the film for a brief time but had to quit because she was suffering through a bout with bipolar disorder. There are still some scenes were Leigh can be found in the background. The film was made in Colombo, Ceylon, which is now Colombo, Sir Lanka. The elephants in the movie were trained and borrowed from the Cole Brothers Circus in Chicago.

Though I personally liked this film, reviews of it remain mixed. For a general synopsis, you can read this, thanks to Turner Classic Movies. The original New York Times review can be read here. This brief point based review is from weekly-movie-review.com, and this review was written by Dennis Schwartz on Ozus' World Movie Reviews. If you do not find the film believable, I think you can at least enjoy the beautiful native scenery, ritual, and costuming as well as the glamour of Elizabeth Taylor.

Hitchcock, Psychosis, Romance and Suspense

Another one of Alfred Hitchcock amazingly filmed psychological thrillers is the 1964 film Marnie . Based off of a book of the same name by author Winston Graham, the set of the film reportedly had tons of stress and problems yet remains a classic film and the professed favorite of leading actress Tippi Hedren. The film uses elements of sex, drama, mystery, and cinematic effects to create the thrilling atmosphere Hitchcock is known for.

The film is about Marnie Edgar (Hedren), a psychologically distressed woman who has many unnatural fears including thunderstorms, the color red, and close relationships and the trusting of men. She is also a compulsive thief and has a long history of stealing from the businesses she works for. She persuades Sidney Strutt (Martin Gabel) to give her a job and then ultimately steals everything out of his company safe and leaves. One of Strutt's best customers is Mark Rutland (Sean Connery), a widower who owns a printing company and remembers the young woman who Strutt reports stole the money from him. When Marnie comes to work for Rutland's company, he keeps watch over her and when she steals from him, he tracks her down and blackmails her into marrying him. Living with the Rutlands is Lil Mainwaring (Diane Baker), the young sister of Mark's late wife who is jealous that Marnie married Mark instead of her. She connives to expose Marnie to Mark and to everyone else, which Mark has to keep under wraps. Throughout their strained marriage, Mark is determined to discover what is the reason behind Marnie's deep psychological problems. He tracks down Marnie's mother (Louise Latham), a former prostitute, and at last, a long kept, dreadful tale of murder and intrigue is revealed with Marnie at it's center.

The movie is not considered a financial success though its expressionist style and the cinematic techniques it used are generally considered to be ahead of their time, perhaps the reason the movie was not widely positively received. Diane Baker was not allowed to read the script before signing on to the film, but instead was merely told it was a Hitchcock film with Tippi Hedren in the lead role. Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly to be the leading lady for this film, but the citizens of her new homeland Monaco were outraged at the thought of their princess playing a psychologically disturbed kleptomaniac. Hitchock then went with Hedren who he had previously directed in The Birds but during shooting, Hedren and Hitchcock had a major falling out which lead to the end of their friendship.

For more opinions on this film, there are a variety of sources you can access. Turner Classic Movies has a synopsis and tons of goodies that can be found here on the film's homepage. Web site thedistractedglobe.com has this article, which reviews, analysis, and gives a brief history of the film. Frank's Movie Log has this short, to the point review. The Movies and Frontier's blog has this review about the lasting quality of the film, and finally, dearcinema.com has this article about how Marnie differs from Hitchcock's other films.

Consider the Lilies

The 1963 film Lilies of the Field incorporates the drama and humor of race and religious relations against the backdrop of the American southwest. A great inspirational film, it echoes the biblical verse Look at the lilies of the field, they continue to appear beautiful even though they get no payment. The bloom is to honor God, but not to get paid for their work. Verse comes from Matthew 6:28 and was part of the Sermon on the Mount.

Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) is an itinerant worker who who finds his way onto a small ranch in Arizona, owned by a group of East German nuns who escaped through the Berlin Wall. The head none, Mother Maria (Lilia Skala), hires Smith to do a small repair and then keep him working with them, though all he wants is to get paid and get out. Mother Maria's small group consists of Sister Gertrude (Lisa Mann), Sister Agnes (Isa Crino), Sister Albertine (Francesca Jarvis), and Sister Elizabeth (Pamela Branch) The nuns believe that Smith is an instrument sent to them by God to help them build a chapel on their property since the only chapel around is basically a U-Haul. While he builds the chapel for them, he also teaches English to the nuns and they exchange religious songs. In town, Smith makes friends with local priest Father Murphy (Dan Frazer), and proprietor Juan (Stanley Adams). Smith clashes with Mother Maria at times, but it is his determination to help the nuns build their chapel that involves the whole local community in the task.

Sidney Poitier won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role, the first African-American man to win an Oscar for acting. The film was #46 on AFI's list of 100 Years... 100 Cheers. The film is based on a book by William Edmund Barrett, which was written 1962. After the success of the film, it was turned into a play.

For some marvelous screen shots of this film, you can look here, thanks to the Screen Shot World Blog. For reviews and synopsis of the film, you can hread this review, thanks to movie-page.com, this review thanks to decentfilms.com, this one courtesey of robink.ca/movies, and this one thanks to Soul Food Cinema. Below is the trailer for the film:

When All Else Fails, Rob a Train

The 1965 film Cat Ballou is one of those films that has it all. Though the genre it settles into is definitely Western, Cat Ballou has elements of comedy, drama, and still remains a family film. Directed by Elliot Silverstein, the screenplay for the film was written by Walter Newman that was based on a novel written by Roy Chanslor.

The film stars Jane Fonda as Catherine "Cat" Ballou, who is traveling home to Wolf City, Wyoming after spending time at teacher's college. She is going to meet her father Frankie Ballou (John Marley), a rancher, but on the train there, she aids in the escape of Clay Boone (Michael Callan) from the sherrif transporting him while Boone's Uncle Jed (Dwayne Hickman) distracts the sheriff. When Cat arrives home, she finds out the local government is trying to take away her father's ranch, which her father works with the help of Jackson Two-Bears (Tom Nardini). The goverment has sent out a murderer-for-hire with a silver nose name Tim Strawn (Lee Marvin). Clay and his Uncle Jed come to help Cat and she also hires legendary gunfighter Kid Shelleen (also played by Marvin) to help. Unfortunately, the years have not served Shelleen well and he is down a drunken mess who can't even hit the side of a barn when he shoots. When silver-nosed Strawn kills Cat's father, it is up for her and her four accomplices to bring justice to Wolf City before the noose literally tightens around their own necks.

The film's plot is narrated by two "Shouters" known as Professor Sam the Shade and The Sunrise Kid, played by Nat 'King' Cole and Stubby Kaye, who with their banjo, guitar, and Western ballads, serve as a sort of Greek chorus for the movie, laying out the plot and mixing in a little of their own opinions about what is going on. Cole died of lung cancer before the film was released. Lee Marvin won an Oscar for his part in the film, mainly do to a comedic rough riding scene in the film. When he accepted his award he thanked "a horse someplace out in the valley".

Though this film is not particularly well-known or high on the popularity meter, it did manage to rank #10 on AFI's List of Greatest Western films. An article you can read here talks about a group who tried to track down the filiming locations for this movie and their own adventures in the American West. The blogspot No Smoking in the Skullcave has a review of the film, which can be read here. All in all, Cat Ballou is a great film full of comedy, suspense, and all of the horseriding, gunfighting action a good Western requires. As a special treat, here is a trailer that gives a brief synopsis of the film:

Here's to New Years

I apologize for the hiatus over the past month, but everyone knows that the beginning of the year always gets a little hectic. I would like to start out this year of blogging with a film about New Years, resolutions, and new beginnings. Part black comedy, part drama, part romantic comedy, Billy Wilder's 1960 film The Apartment has it all. It includes slick corporate businessmen in the Madison Avenue heydays, honest guys working their way up through not so honest means, adultery, divorce, deception, rowdy holiday parties, love triangles, the beautiful backdrop of New York City in the winter, and the quest to find true love.

The film stars Jack Lemmon, who would later be working under Wilder again in the steamy Marilyn Monroe film Some Like It Hot and female rat-packer Shirley MacLaine. Lemmon is C.C. Baxter, an honest guy who can't get ahead in corporate America no matter how hard or good he works. Baxter finds himself loaning out his apartment to the major company players (pun intended) who use his apartment as a place to take their mistresses so the wives don't find out. Baxter finds himself being chased out of his apartment at all hours of the night, sleeping on park benches, and catching colds while the high-powered bosses have their fun, messing up his apartment, drinking all his booze, and giving him a bad playboy reputation with all of his nice neighbors. Baxter almost decides to quit entirely when he is given a promotion, on the basis that he loans his apartment out to and only out to big boss Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) so Sheldrake can have his affair unbeknown to his wife and two kids.

Baxter realizes that Sheldrake's mistress is none other than elevator girl Fran Kubelik (MacLaine), who Baxter has been crushing on for quite some time. In a parallel plot, Fran wants Sheldrake to leave his family and marry her, though he said their relationship was only a summer fling. He rekindles the romance until Christmastime, when Fran hears at the part about all the past women Sheldrake has made a similar promise to. She tries to commit suicide and C.C. Baxter comes home in time to save her with the help of Dr. and Mrs. Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen and Naomi Stevens). Fran slowly starts to realize that C.C. Baxter might be the good guy she was always looking for while Baxter starts to think there is no such thing as a good woman. The entire film is centered around the holidays with Fran's suicide at Christmas. The last part of the movie has a great climax on New Years Eve and keeps you guessing if Sheldrake ever gets caught and if C.C. and Fran end up together.

For more information on the film, you can access the reviews, synopsis, and various information provided here, thanks to Filmsite.org. To read the entire script, if you would like to for whatever reason, you can do so here, thanks to DailyScript.com, which provides tons of movie scripts for free. Shirley MacLaine also did and interview/article about what it was like filming and working on The Apartment, which can be read here at the Cinebeats blog.

The film also has tons of acclaim. Premiere Magazine voted it as one of the 50 greatest comedies of all time and it made #80 on AFI's list of Greatest Films of All Time. Total Film ranked Jack Lemmon's performance as C.C. Baxter as #12 in its list of Greatest Performances of All Time. Oscar-wise, the film won for Best Picture, Art Direction, Editing, Best Director, and Original Screenplay. Jack Lemmon was nominated for Best Actor, Shirley MacLaine for Best Actress, Jack Kruschen for Supporting Actor, as well as Cinematography and Sound. The Apartment was also the last black and white film to win an Academy Award for best picture until Spielberg's Schindler's List .

The critics aren't the only ones who adore this movie; it's a big hit with film fans both old and new. The blog Twenty-Four Frames does a great review, critique, and synopsis of the film which can be read here. Another great review can be read here at the Tea at Trianon blogspot. Another positive review can be read here at The Distracted Globe. However, the Film Jock offers a contradictory view on the movie, which I could encourage you to read here and then think about while or after watching the film. As always, I encourage you to watch the film for yourself before letting critics help you make up your mind.

Three Wisemen: Western Style

Though it is obviously a western, the film 3 Godfathers is much more than that. It is a feel good move, a drama, and a comedy all in a western package. The film is set around Christmas time, but you wouldn't know it because of the dessert scenery. Then again, though it doesn't fit our stereotypical idea of a white Christmas, it fits in well with the desert scene from the first Christmas and the biblical allusions throughout the film are quiet obvious. It mixes elements of tragedy and hope in a way that embodies the Christmas spirit and the idea of doing the right thing, even after getting yourself into the wrong situation.

Three bank robbers, Robert Hightower (John Wayne), Pedro Rocafuerte (Pedro Armendáriz), and William Kearney (Harry Carey Jr.), come to the town of Welcome, Arizona and first thing they do is meet Sheriff Perley Buck Sweet (Ward Bond) and his wife (Mae Marsh). The second thing they do is rob the local bank, sending Sheriff Sweet and a posse after them across the Arizona dessert. Sweet cuts off all their water supplies and the threesome find themselves backtracking, where they run into a woman in a covered wagon (Mildred Natwick). Her husband has destroyed the water supply, lost his cattle, died, and left her for dead. Worst of all, she is about to deliver a baby. The three robbers help bring the baby into the world and vow to raise it for her when she dies. The robbers turned godfathers find themselves trying to trek to the town of New Jerusalem to bring the baby to safety before Christmas Day, disregarding their own well-being and facing many obstacles in the way.

Done by John Ford, this one is a remake of the 1916 silent film The Three Godfathers. The star of the original film was a long time friend of Ford's, Harry Carey. After Carrey's death, Ford remade the film in Technicolor and cast Carey's son in one of the lead roles. The film also features legendary cowboy ballad "Streets of Laredo", also known as the "Cowboy's Lament" as a lullaby sung to the baby. You can access screenshots of the film, thanks to The Art of Memory blog, and you can find a messageboard about the film, thanks to filmspotting.com.

Though I really like this film, the reviews on it are mixed and there are many places you can look for another opinion. This review is offered by cinema100.com. The Diary of a Mad Movie Fanatic blog has a review, which you can read here. Frank's Movie Blog has a review of the film as does Monstersandcritics.com, which can be read here. As an early Christmas present, here is a trailer for the film.

“Who would ever think that so much can go on in the soul of a young girl?”

For as long as I can remember, by favorite book has always been Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. Since tonight begins Hanukkah, I was thinking about the book and the movie as well, in particular the Hanukkah scene. I have read the diary around six or seven times, have watched the movie a few times, and have seen two plays about Anne Frank. I think during this holiday season, it is important to talk about the film about Anne’s brief but inspiring life.

The diary was turned into a Pulitzer award-winning play and then was adapted by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett into a film, which was directed by George Stevens. The 1959 film, The Diary of Anne Frank, was a major project of Stevens and he put a lot of himself into telling the story. Stevens spent four years working on the film, used black and white to create more drama, and Otto Frank as well as Johannes Kleiman were consulted during the making of the film.

The role of Anne was offered to both Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood. Audrey refused because she had lived in Holland during the same time as Anne and has witness the Nazi occupation and brutality first hand. She did not want to bring back old memories. Millie Perkins, instead, played Anne with Joseph Schildkraut as her father Otti, Gusti Huber as her mother Edith, and Diane Baker as her sister Margot. Shelley Winters played Mrs. Van Daan and won one of the three Oscars for the film for the supporting role. Other roles were Ed Wynn as Albert Dussell, Richard Beymer as Peter, Lou Jacobi as Mr. Van Daan, Douglas Spencer as Kraler, and Dodie Heath as Miep.

There are a plethora of reviews for the film. You can read this one, thanks to Apolloguide.com. Another comes from Altfg.com. This one comes from the Oscar Movies blog. And another great review and synopsis can be found here, thanks to beliefnet.com. If you want more information about Anne Frank, you can access the home site of the American Anne Frank Museum or the site that houses both the one of the house she hid in and the official Anne Frank website. At the bottom of this post, I will place the trailer for the 1959 film.

In one of the last pages of her diary, just before she was captured and taken away, Anne wrote: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart”. I believe this is a testament to how brave and how hopeful humanity can be, even surrounded by the most fearsome adversity and despair. No matter your religious practices, this is the spirit that the holiday season embodies. And to any Jewish readers out there, Chag Chanuka Sameach.

Ready for Love, but Not Ready to go Home for the Holidays

The 1940 film Remember the Night is a romantic dramedy film centered around Christmas, though this is a flick for adults, not the whole family. It was the last film written by Preston Sturges before he added director to his job description and was directed my Mitchell Leisen. The film stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck as a passionate, opposites attract couple.

When Lee Leander (Stanwyck) is arrested during the holiday season for shoplifting from a jewelery store, she is brought in before Assitant DA John Sargeant (MacMurray). Being in the Christmas spirit, Sargeant decides to postpone her trial date until after Christmas so she won't be behind bars during the holidays. John and Lee get to talking and find out they have some things in common. He offers to drop her off at her parents' house on his way to his mother's (Beulah Bondi ). When Lee's mother (Georiga Caine ) disowns her for her crimes, John brings Lee home to stay with him, his mother, Cousin Willie (Sterling Holloway ) and his Aunt Emma (Elizabeth Patterson ). John confides Lee's history of crime to his mother, who becomes upset when it is apparent that John and Lee have fallen in love during the holidays. John offers Lee an out to getting sentenced, but she refuses. When the trial comes, their love is tested. The filmography and music helps to create the emotion of this film.

Struges originally wanted to call the film Great Love, but director Leisen disliked it. Leisen changed around a lot of Sturges' script and changed the focus of the movie from MacMurray to Stanwyck, perhaps the final nail in the coffin that lead Sturges to directing his own movies rather than letting others direct his scripts. The friendship between Sturges and Stanwyck on this film lead to Sturges latter writing The Lady Eve , which Stanwyck starred in.

Tons of reviews have been done of this movie, each with their own personal style and focus. The blog Self Styled Siren did this review of the film, focusing primarily on Stanwyck. The blog Abby Normal Ramblings did a short review of the film, as did Allmovie.com, which can be read here, and the blog Phoenix Cinema, which can be read here. Filmjournal.net did this review and summation of the film and why it remains widely unavailable, despite its quality and early popularity. The Washington Post also did a review of the film, talking about how it is an underrated holiday classic. So, if you dread going home for the holidays and want to see something with a little romance, Remember the Night is the movie for you. Just in case you aren't persuaded, here is the original trailer to help you make up your mind: