Many people would consider a
great love story one where a couple falls in love, undergoes misunderstandings,
tragedy, and/or hardships, (possibly being separated) and then come together
and get married: TheEend. (Alternately, i.e. Romeo and Juliet, death separates
the lovers.)
But “the end” is the beginning of
the love story. That is why I believe the greatest love stories involve couples
who are already married.
My three picks: The Scarlett Pimpernel
(1934 Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon); Random
Harvest (1942 Ronald Coleman, Greer Garson); and Make Way for Tomorrow (1937 Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi).
The first two I wrote about in
this very context 11 years ago in this space: http://bethunecatholic.blogspot.com/2005/01/love-stories.html
The last I mentioned briefly about
just a year ago.
We watched Make Way for Tomorrow again last night.
Orson Welles said about it: “Oh my God, that’s
the saddest movie ever made! It would
make a stone cry!”
It is the story of a couple
married for 50 years who have fallen on hard times and have to go live “temporarily”,
but separately 300 miles apart, with two of their children. Of course all
things temporary become permanent if there is no plan.
Near the end, they reunite for a
few hours and go on a date-reliving the happiness and failures of their 50
years of marriage. The “date” is captivating.
One particularly memorial reminisce
is when Bark (the husband) recalls that Lucy (his wife) chose him over another
she had been dating. The other became a banker and had foreclosed on their
house at the beginning of the movie. Bark says, “He got my house, but I
got his girl.”
One of the best scenes of acting
I have ever watched without dialog occurs at the end, performed by Beulah Bondi
– who was in her 40’s at the time playing a 70 year-old woman.
It was reissued on DVD a few
years ago. We borrowed it from the library. Roger Ebert gives it a 4/4.
The Criterion Collection calls it: "one of
the great unsung Hollywood masterpieces". The director of MWfT, Leo McCarey, won his first Oscar that same year for The Awful Truth (Cary Grant, Irene Dunne). However, he commented that he got the Oscar for the wrong movie. I agree.
Do see it.
Oremus pro invicem!
2 comments:
That sounds like a winner. A movie I would recommend on married love is The Thin Man series with William Powell and Myrna Loy playing a private detective and his wife who have a banter between each other that has captivated people for decades. The shocker is that they are not a couple falling in love for the first time nor a couple who have grown tired of each other over the years. Instead, they seem to really enjoy each other's company. We never see that today. It seems every state but the married state is the happy one in contemporary cinema.
I have enjoyed the Thin Man movies, and the married banter is refreshing. You are right: "It seems every state but the married state is the happy one in contemporary cinema."
Of course the married state has its challenges-but the overcoming of them leads to the happiness.
Cheers,
Jim
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