My fourth and final contribution to Wonders in the Dark’s romantic film countdown was posted earlier today. At #3, it’s Charlie Chaplin’s seminal masterwork City Lights (1931): There are ostensibly two romances at work in City Lights–both of which admittedly play backseat to the comedic elements that dominate the majority of the film (the movie is not…
My third post for the ongoing romantic films countdown at Wonders in the Dark is live. At number five, it’s F.W. Murnau’s lovely and deceptively simple silent allegory Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927): Out of context, the idea of ranking a film in which a man is seduced into plotting to kill his wife as one…
My second post for the ongoing romantic films countdown at Wonders in the Dark is up now. At number 32, it’s Frank Capra’s seminal sexy screwball classic, It Happened One Night (1934). Night has been cited as one of the founding pictures of the screwball genre, and indeed, many of the elements that would come to define…
Our friends at Wonders in the Dark are currently hosting their annual film countdown. This year, it’s all about the romance, with a wide selection of talented writers posting articles on the top one hundred romantic films as voted by the site’s contributors. This week, it’s my turn, with the first of my four pieces going live…
To finish up the month of May, the Month of Mothers (hey, we changed a lot of diapers; we deserve more than just one day of recognition!), we’re delighted to feature a guest post analyzing the role of Mrs. Danvers in the 1940 film version of Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Over the years, some critics have…
Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 Italian opera La bohème has seen many forms in the century since its first performance in Turin. The story–itself borrowed from Henri Murger’s 1851 collection Scènes de la vie de bohème–has been retold in many forms, with and without the music. It’s been made into films, produced in countless venues featuring storied performers like…
Maria (Olivia de Havilland) is a princess of a small, unnamed European country that has been overtaken by the Nazis. As the war rages on, she and her uncle, Holman (Charles Coburn), have settled into a posh New York apartment, where Maria spends her days reading in relative solitude. Though Holman pressures her to marry…
Several years ago, I was flipping through the TCM listings for films to record and came across The Valley of Decision (1945), with a star-studded cast featuring Greer Garson and Gregory Peck, and decided to give it a shot. I am so glad I did. The film opens in 1873 as Mary Rafferty (Garson), Irish immigrant…
True Classics 