Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Bell Book and Candle

It was interesting for me to see James Stewart and Kim Novak in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE because I’m so used to them from VERTIGO. These two very different movies both starred the same two actors in romantic roles in the same year, but where VERTIGO was dark and twisted, BELL BOOK AND CANDLE is light and fluffy.

VERTIGO is the better film, and features the better performance from Stewart, but there is something quite alluring about Novak in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE. Novak stars as a modern day witch living in Greenwich Village. In one of the movie’s more clever conceits, the witches and wizards of the world hide out in beatnik bars behind beatnik fashions. I’m not sure if this is to say the beatniks were the way they were because they were all witches and wizards, or if it was just a safe place for eccentrics to hide. Either way, it’s funny.

Even though Novak gets to play what pretty much amounts to a dual role in VERTIGO and shows quite a bit of range there, it is nice to see her with less makeup on, in less glamorous fashions, walking around a modern day apartment, barefoot. She has a breezy vibe about her, which up until now, I would have never associated with Novak – an easiness that stands at odds with her severe, but beautiful, face. She seems. . . inviting.

The plot involves Novak using her witch powers to cast a love spell on Stewart. Under the influence of the magic, Stewart falls for Novak and abruptly leaves his fiancé (Janice Rule) who just happens to be Novak’s old college nemesis and has one of the best lines in the movie. When Stewart tells Rule that Novak is a witch, Rule deadpans, “You just never learned to spell.” Zing!

The usual romantic comedy ups and downs ensue as the two leads wonder whether they’re really in love with each other, or if it’s just magic, spend some good times together, split up, get back together, etc. An added issue involves the film’s rules when it comes to witchcraft – apparently witches lose their powers once they fall in love, so Novak has to decide between magic and Stewart.

The film has an eclectic supporting cast, appropriate for a movie about magic, I suppose, including Elsa Lanchester (the Bride of Frankenstein herself) as Novak’s aunt who is also a witch, an early role for Jack Lemmon as Novak’s brother, a wizard, and Ernie Kovacs in a scene stealing role as a drunk writer. I was especially pleased to see Lanchester later in her career in such a comedic performance. On the other hand, knowing what Lemmon would do later in his career made him seem underused here.

BELL BOOK AND CANDLE is about magic, but it’s not quite magical. There is something flat about it. A movie like this should have momentum, be light on its feet, and jump effortlessly from one scene to the next. Instead it kind of slogs along, which is not the fault of the cast or even the screenplay, necessarily. It’s not bad, it’s not great, but it’s fine, and the ending is appropriately romantic enough for Romancefest.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Talk to Her

Like most movies by Pedro Almodovar, TALK TO HER is romantic but it is not your typical romance. Javier Camara and Dario Grandinetti star as two men hopelessly in love with totally unavailable women. This is partially due to the nature of their relationships – Camara is a socially awkward, slowly developing stalker with a hopeless crush on a woman he’s barely even met and Grandinetti is in love with a woman who is more powerful and successful than he is who might be indulging in another romance on the side.

But, the nature of these relationships is nothing compared to the other major obstacle: both women are in comas, and they may never wake up again.

The two women are Rosario Flores as a confident and passionate bull fighter and Leonar Watling as a young and innocent ballet student. Most of Grandinetti’s romance with Flores takes place before she is gored by a bull and rendered comatose – he’s a handsome and intense writer who finds her fascinating and becomes her lover. But Camara’s romance happens almost entirely in his head, first as he watches Watling from afar, and later as he dotes on her night and day as her nurse at the hospital.

The captivating thing about this film, aside from the unique premise, is the way Almodovar deftly changes tones and point of view as the film unfolds, masterfully pulling the audience’s sympathy from one character to another as crucial information is slowly revealed. Someone we identify with early on might turn out to be a monster by the time the movie ends. It all just depends on where Almodovar chooses to point his camera and when he chooses to do so; where Almodovar chooses to insert a flashback and when he chooses to do so.

As usual with Almodovar, the film is a beauty to behold – all primary colors, fascinating faces, and pretty music. Almodovar also uses some dance sequences and choreography by Pina Bausch, who appears in one of the scenes in the “Café Muller” performance I was pleased to recognize from the recent documentary PINA.

There is a key scene in the middle of the film in which Camara’s nurse character recounts a silent film he saw, and it unfolds before our eyes – in a scenario straddling the realm of nightmare and fantasy, a man (Fele Martinez) shrinks to a miniscule size but still attempts to please his lover (Paz Vega) who towers over him. Almodovar takes this sequence exactly where you think it might go, as the tiny man explores every inch of his lover’s body. The beauty of this sequence is the way it unabashedly mines what seems like the most obvious Freudian symbolism in a way few other filmmakers would dare to – it seems obvious, but in its sheer audacity, it is not.

The same could be said for the entire coma plot – a seemingly obvious metaphor for one sided relationships, unavailable people, the way we idealize a lover to the point where we might choose to ignore reality. But, again, this premise is so fully and fearlessly explored, it doesn’t matter how obvious it might seem. That’s a gift – to be able to say what others want to say in true and simple way others cannot.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Truly, Madly, Deeply

If you're going to watch TRULY MADLY DEEPLY, I recommend going into it totally blind. I'm glad I did. All I knew was that it was a love story starring Alan Rickman and directed by Anthony Minghella. I didn't know anything about the plot, and I think it succeeded in being more thought provoking and emotional than if I had gone in with an understanding of the premise.

So, stop reading if you don't want to know the basics.

As the film opens, we meet Juliet Stevenson as a translator who has shut herself off from the outside world, crippled with the mourning of her recently and untimely deceased boyfriend, played by Alan Rickman. She tells her therapist she still hears him talking to her, sometimes, in her head, and just as the black hole of her depression seems like it's about to swallow her, Rickman inexplicably shows up as a ghost.

At first, the two lovers are overjoyed to see each other. Stevenson plays hooky from work and the two play together in her apartment in the child-like way that people who intimate with each other often do. These scenes are both amazing and awkward. On one hand, Stevenson and Rickman throw themselves into these performances with abandon, disappearing into the characters. On the other, most audiences probably aren't used to seeing this kind of behavior taking place anywhere other than behind the safety of closed doors.

So, Minghella has hooked us and tricked us twice, here -- first, allowing the viewer to settle down into a depressing tear jerker mood, then switching things to a rather light-hearted fantasy story. But the master stroke comes in the last half of the film, when the most unexpected development of all occurs, more unexpected than the existence of ghosts -- Stevenson starts to get over Rickman.

This third layer of the story, after grief and reclaimed happiness, is probably the most uncomfortable for most people, romantics and cynics alike, to confront. The idea that the person you thought was perfect, who you thought you'd love forever, who you wanted back so badly, maybe wasn't so perfect after all.

Part of this creeping dissatisfaction comes from the way Rickman infiltrates the home Stevenson was just beginning to claim as her own as she came into her own as an independent woman. Rickman insists on cranking up the heat, invites all his ghost buddies over, starts rearranging the furniture. Was he always like this and she had just forgotten about it? Is this some side effect of being a ghost? Or does Rickman have his own ulterior motives?

Despite the fantasy elements, this is about as realistic a take on a mature, intimate relationship that you're likely to see in the movies. But that's not to say TRULY MADLY DEEPLY is a cold and sarcastic movie. It is as warm and alive as any other romance. It's just a little more grown up.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Perfect

There is a key scene about 40 minutes into PERFECT that, I think, must be the only reason this movie is remembered today, if, indeed it is remembered at all. It features John Travolta working out in an aerobics class led by Jamie Lee Curtis. Together the two of them sweat, thrust their pelvises, and hump the air aggressively, all the while staring into each others' eyes, which, awkwardly, turns out to be straight into the camera. The scene lasts almost 5 minutes.

They both look crazy for opposite reasons. Curtis looks crazy because her character, the aerobics instructor, seems to take this so seriously. She's kind of like Patrick Swayze as the bouncer in ROAD HOUSE. She has taken a rather mundane day job and approaches it as if she is dealing with important, life and death world affairs. She works out as if she'd leading a boot camp. I suppose many aerobics instructors may be like this, I don't know -- my waistline should make it clear that I do not hang out in health clubs. Point is, it's ridiculous.

Travolta, on the other hand, has a goofy grin on his face the whole time. It looks like he thinks this new-fangled aerobics thing (or, "slimnastics" as we're informed, a term which is never, ever used in real life) is the most fun he's had since Saturday morning cartoons. Now, you and I, the viewer, know this is John Travolta, the star of GREASE and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. We know the man can dance, so while it's not very fun to watch him thrust in short shorts with a visibly bulging package swinging dangerously free, we at least know he's at ease doing these things.

But if you take the movie on its own terms, you're supposed to believe Travolta is a reporter for Rolling Stone who has uncovered a scandal involving a cocaine smuggling business tycoon who claims high ups in the U.S. government are behind drug trafficking. He's convincing enough in his scenes, and I guess it's not impossible such a guy would take to aerobics with a child-like vim and vigor, but come on. Wouldn't the scene be more interesting if he was bad at aerobics, or took a while to get the hang of it, or couldn't keep up, or looked confused, or looked embarrassed, or anything other than completely at ease?

You might be wondering why hard-hitting reporter Travolta is even in an aerobics class at all. Well, after busting the cocaine scam wide open, his next big story idea is to expose the new singles clubs of the 80s -- the gym. It's hard to imagine, looking back on 1985 from 2012, that there was a time when it was shocking and new for giant workout emporiums like 24 Hour Fitness to exist. But, there was a time, apparently, when hungry journalists went from exposing government corruption directly to exposing gyms as. . . I dunno. . . places people meet each other?

Early on Travolta zeroes in on Curtis as the star for his story, but she's resistant due to a bad run-in she had with "gotcha journalism" (as Sarah Palin would say) earlier in her previous career as an Olympic hopeful swimmer. As he attempts to court her for his story, he ends up instead courting her for romance, and soon their personal entanglements add another hurdle to the story. Ethically, Travolta refuses to mix business with pleasure, so he's forced to look elsewhere for his sources and to tread lightly writing a Curtis-approved story, instead of the sex filled expose Rolling Stone wants.

The supporting cast includes a few familiar faces and names, including Marilu Henner and Laraine Newman as a couple of gym groupies looking for men, and Jann Wenner, infamous editor of Rolling Stone, playing a fictionalized version of himself. Newman is particularly effective in an almost heart breaking performance as a woman who is driven to great lengths to make herself "perfect" -- if this story line had been developed and expanded upon, and some other threads dropped, we might have had a movie. Wenner, on the other hand, was clearly not meant to be in front of the camera.

PERFECT suffers from the same problems as many other films that attempt to find the "next big thing" to exploit -- the creators are obviously close enough to the subject that they know something, but far enough away from it that everything rings false. Again, I don't know, this movie could be spot-on -- for all I know, this could be exactly what the aerobics scene was in L.A. in the mid-80s. Even if that's the case, it still rings false. It's just like all those stories I read by other students when I was in college that seemed fake. "But it really happened!" they'd always protest. So, make it seem real.

I guess the problem may stem from the misguided instinct to make everything seem important. It's as if the writers don't think it's enough to have this be a slice of life among gym junkies. They have to approach it as if the gym junkies, the audience watching the film, and the writers themselves, honestly think all this is the most important stuff ever. So, of course, the audience leaves thinking, "What's the big deal?"

What's worse is the fact that this movie has two plots that seem to undermine each other -- the government drug cover up and the aerobics scene. Of course on an objective scale you'd have to admit the government drug cover up is actually the more important of the two stories. Travolta's choices involving journalistic ethics and personal integrity could lead to great personal sacrifices, including jail time or even endangering his own life. But, the movie wants us to believe all of this is just as important as Travolta's influence on a small circle of friends and acquaintances at a gym.

Now, I guess you could argue on an individual scale, a person's close relationships are just as important to him or her as his relationship with the world at large. Still, in a (basically) fictional film, it doesn't make for great drama to compare and contrast one more dramatic story with one less dramatic story and expect the audience to give both stories the same weight. In fact, based on the way the movie is put together, it's almost as if the movie wants you to think the aerobics story is more important than the government cover up one.

There is possibly a fun little snapshot of a place and time in this movie, waiting to get out. Travolta and Curtis are likable, even though their characters aren't, particularly, and some of the stuff about the societal implications of what the fitness craze stands for is thought provoking and emotionally involving. But this is all so buried within the needlessly over-written screenplay that it becomes a chore to watch.

In a final "Fuck you!" to the viewer, after sitting through two hours of this, the ineptitude of the filmmakers reaches its climax when we're deprived any real emotional denouement between the characters we've been asked to care about the whole time. Oh, the denouement happens. It's just offscreen. Like all the other potentially interesting stuff in this flick.

Sadie Says:

For those of you who have known me a while, you know that I have a weird obsession with PERFECT. Paul picked up on it right off the bat. The dance scene alone is worth a watch, along with the snapshot of a time and a place. To be noted, are the many leotards and 80s outfits that make their way into this film. What happened to the high rise leotard? The male sweat short short?

The plot is ridiculous, the story is completely unsatisfying, and it really makes no sense. What DOES make sense is the dancing, the sheer absurdity of it all, and the fact that you can appreciate these stars trying to make it in show biz.

This is the part of my response where I get to say how wonderful Paul is for giving this movie a serious critique. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever been able to take the time to analyze this novelty film and get someone as awesome as Paul to take the time to do it. I love Paul for so many reasons, and one of them is letting PERFECT make it into Romancefest.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Now here's one I bet you haven't heard of.

1941's HERE COMES MR. JORDAN stars Robert Montgomery as a dim-witted but good-hearted boxer on the verge of becoming a champ who ends up dying in a plane crash. Due to a mistake on the part of the "messenger" sent to take Montgomery to heaven (Edward Everett Horton), the boss of the celestial messengers, the titular Mr. Jodan (Claude Rains), agrees to furnish Montgomery with a new body to complete his unfinished Earthly business.

Montgomery finds himself in the body of a crooked millionaire, in the position to help out a cute girl (Evelyn Keyes) whose father is in trouble with the law. Unfortunately, the reason Montgomery is able to inhabit the body is because it was recently murdered in a conspiracy between its wife (Rita Johnson) and assistant (John Emery). Both are stupefied to find the millionaire apparently alive and well, as Montgomery takes over his life. The heavenly messengers, Rains and Horton, remain on hand to help Montgomery out. Throughout all of this, Montgomery is bent on continuing his boxing career, and eventually enlists his bewildered manager (James Gleason) for help.

Describing the plot any further would give away a couple neat little developments, but let's just say Montgomery's attempts to romance the girl, keep his would-be killers at bay and continue his boxing career find some unexpected hitches.

For a movie about life, death, reincarnation and destiny, HERE COMES MR. JORDAN keeps things relatively light and surface level, but I think that is to the movie's credit. It moves along at a brisk pace, and although Montgomery often questions the other-worldly machinations at work, the film itself seems to take things rather matter of factly, with a minimal amount of special effects and not much focus on the "importance" of the whole thing.

The cast, as always, makes the picture. Montgomery is totally believable and avoids being boring as the nice guy. Rains brings a touch of friendly and wise class to the affair. James Gleason has some great moments as the increasingly befuddled manager.

The heart of the whole film can be found in the last touching scene in which Montgomery and Keyes finally come together. The way they approach each other, cautiously, as if drawn together by fate, is touching in its simplicity and elevates the movie from a nice afternoon diversion to the realm of a real (if overlooked) classic. And, the way Claude Rains looks on with a big warm-hearted smile on his face seals the deal: this is the definition of a feel good movie.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Four Weddings and a Funeral

Blah, blah, "You've never seen FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL?!" blah, blah. Broken record.

Anyway, I'm here to tell you FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL is as good as everyone has always said it was. No surprise there.

The story famously follows affable and scattered commitment-phobe Hugh Grant and his group of buddies through -- you guessed it -- four weddings and a funeral. At first, we're overwhelmed with the large group of friends and their various familial and other connections, until, social event after social event, we start to recognize them and grow closer to them until we feel like we're part of the gang.

Prominent among the guests is Simon Callow, older, wiser, and more drunk than the rest; his close friend -- and lover? (John Hannah); Grant's deaf brother (David Bower); Grant's punky roommate (Charlotte Coleman) and Kristin Scott Thomas as an old (and possibly future) flame of Grant's.

Over the course of the celebrations, Grant finds himself falling in love with an alluring, fresh-faced American (Andie MacDowell) who turns out to be engaged to another man. Grant is able to seal the deal with MacDowell in the sack, and they clearly have chemistry, but for whatever reason, whether ego or lack of communication, they're unable to confess their love for each other until it is seemingly too late.

The film wisely allows all of this to develop sneakily on the sidelines as small comedic bits take up the forefront. The weddings are far from perfect, including an unexpected death, a mix up with the wedding rings, a groom with cold feet and a vicar who gets stage fright (Rowan Atkinson in a memorable, scene stealing performance). Thanks to this structure, the machinations of the typical romantic comedy plot don't seem quite as contrived or obtrusive. They're relegated to the background as the personalities and quirks of the characters are given the spotlight.

Aside from avoiding cliche, this device also allows the film to develop some real poignancy. After all, you care more about weddings and funerals when you know and love the people involved, and FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL allows the audience to know and love the characters in a way most paint by numbers romantic comedies do not.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Wings of Desire

Although there is a romance between a man and a woman central to WINGS OF DESIRE, it is really a romance between God and his creation, or more specifically, one angel and mankind. This famous Wim Wenders film is the tale of a world in which unseen angels observe humanity, only occasionally intervening, but watching and listening.

Bruno Ganz stars as an angel observing Berlin in the then-contemporary mid-80s, when the wall still divided the city. Otto Sander is another angel, and together, the two silently float above the city, perch on building tops and statues, descend to the streets below, into libraries and night clubs, and listen to the pensive, frightened, optimistic, pessimistic, soul-searching and sometimes oblivious thoughts of the humans around them.

A plot slowly begins to develop as Ganz finds himself yearning to become human, moved to experience all he observes, and, most specifically, to meet a circus acrobat (Solveig Dommartin) he has fallen in love with. This plot is never forced onto the movie, however, and its developments come late in the running time and almost as an afterthought. The majority of the film is spent in a quiet, reverent, meditative, and elegiac state, simply observing little moments in the lives of humans, and how they add up to more than the sum of their parts.

Otto Sander is also on hand as another angel, and together, with Ganz, a wide variety of subjects are followed and observed, including an old poet (Curt Bois) who ruminates on his own war-torn past, the state of his divided city, cut in two both geographically and by the passage of time, and the nature of peace and violence in the big picture.

The angels also meet Peter Falk, playing himself, who is in town to shoot a movie, and seems to be more wise to the presence of the angels than anyone else in town. Except the children, of course. But then, Falk always had a child-like glimmer in his eye.

The film is shot mostly in beautiful, dreamy black and white with the exception of a few key scenes in full color. One scene, in particular, sticks out in my mind, in which we observe a seemingly gray and drab laundromat in black and white only to find out it is shockingly painted in bright, happy tones when we switch to color.

Similar to masters like Malick and Kubrick, Wenders is able to transcend the mundane and ordinary to reach sublimely spiritual heights with WINGS OF DESIRE by counter-intuitively focusing on the very specific, tiny details of life. That's when you know a movie is truly great -- when it says a lot with very little.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Designing Woman

Here comes another “battle of the sexes” style romantic comedy in the tradition of the Hepburn/Tracy vehicles – DESIGNING WOMAN. Only, in this one, Lauren Bacall plays Hepburn and Gregory Peck plays Tracy.

Bacall and Peck meet one drunken evening on separate business trips in Beverly Hills and quickly fall in love and get married. It isn’t until they return to New York that they realize they come from two different worlds. Bacall is a glamorous, successful fashion designer – a designing woman, if you will -- with a bunch of artsy fartsy friends, a big extravagant apartment, and nine wardrobe changes per day. Peck, on the other hand, is a messy, alcoholic sportswriter who hangs out at poker games and boxing matches and has run afoul of the local criminal element by constantly writing about a crooked boxing promoter (Martin Daylor).

Some the film involves Bacall and Peck alternatively annoying each other with their groups of friends and favorite pass-times, but most of it is sidetracked with Peck’s two big cover-ups – he’s hiding his trouble with the gangsters from Bacall as well as his previous relationship with a song and dance girl (Dolores Gray) who is featured in the production Bacall is currently designing costumes for.

The ex-girlfriend investigation on Bacall’s part and lying on Peck’s part is the tired old stuff that still gets trotted out for romantic comedies today. The gangster subplot is supposed to be comical, but it’s a little alarming that these characters’ lives are really on the line in such an otherwise lighthearted comedy. I mean, honestly, what in hell does a gangster vendetta have anything to do with an odd couple marriage comedy? The odd couple marriage premise didn’t have enough juice to fuel the plot, so they had to bring in gangsters? Come on.

Bacall and Peck are good, as usual, and there are some funny supporting actors as well including Mickey Shaughnessy as a punch-drunk ex-boxer and Jack Cole as an effete choreographer who, in the best pay off in the film, can kick ass when he needs to.

I suppose the film is best remembered today for two things – the featured fashions by costume designer Helen Rose and the Oscar-winning screenplay by George Wells. Unfortunately both aspects leave a little to be desired – I’m not fashion expert, but I felt like the film gave short shrift to the fashion world, especially considering the movie is called DESIGNING WOMAN. As an example, the film FUNNY FACE, from the same year, much more fully exploited the premise of a story taking place in the fashion world.

The screenplay is clever, at times, but must have seemed a lot more fresh and unique back in 1957 than it does today. Gimmicks like characters talking directly to the camera, as if being interviewed, multiple narrators giving multiple takes on the action, and gags based on character perception, like Peck’s audible and visible hangover, are all more modern than you’d normally see in a flick from this era. I assume in 1957 it was enough that these tricks were employed at all – these days, it’d be nice if they worked like clockwork instead of being a little clunky and over-written.

I feel like I’m shitting on the movie more than it deserves though. It’s not as if it is terrible, it’s just not great. It seems a little flat and bland, especially watching it the day after A FISH CALLED WANDA -- a film that is almost 25 years old and still feels more fresh and alive than many films made today.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - A Fish Called Wanda

A FISH CALLED WANDA is yet another entry in my on-going list of movies everyone else has seen that I hadn’t seen for the longest time. To be fair, I’ve seen parts of WANDA over the years, and remember it being around when I was a kid, but I never actually sat down to watch it from beginning to end. Now that I’ve seen it, I can scratch it off the short list of movies that cause people to remark in shock and disbelief, “You haven’t seen that?”

Anyway, it’ll come as no surprise to anyone reading this that of course I found A FISH CALLED WANDA to be as funny and charming as everyone else in the universe. I feel a little dumb sitting here writing about how good a movie is that everyone already loves. What more can I say that hasn’t already been said?

In case there is someone else out there who still hasn’t seen it, I should say A FISH CALLED WANDA is a farce about a British lawyer (John Cleese, who also wrote the screenplay) who finds himself entangled in the schemes of an American thief and con-woman (Jamie Lee Curtis) after a London jewel heist goes wrong. The mastermind of the heist (Tom Georgeson) is betrayed and arrested, to be represented in court by Cleese, and his accomplices fumble and plot in various attempts to get their hands on the missing loot.

The remaining thieves include Kevin Kline as an American pseudo-intellectual tough guy with a jealous streak and an inferiority complex and Michael Palin as a stuttering animal lover who particularly loves his aquarium full of fish and finds himself tasked with the murder of a little old lady (Patricia Hayes) who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You might wonder what any of this has to do with romance, so I’ll tell you. Curtis’ character is willing to do anything and anyone in order to get her hands on the jewels, so most of her time is spent hopping in and out of beds and cheap costumes in an effort to control the men in her life. Luckily for Curtis this is almost easier done than said, since she is the strongest character in the movie and all of the men she finds herself going up against are dimwits. Eventually she finds herself seducing Cleese’s lawyer character, and although he has his fair share of moments of buffoonery, he is the only one who is even close to a match for her.

The romance between the two, while based on lies and manipulations, does manage to play off as sweet and believable. Although Curtis is double crossing criminal, she earns the audience’s sympathy as we see she’s easily too good for the situation she has found herself in. Similarly, though Cleese is stuffy and repressed, we sympathize with him because we see how he’s put-upon and taken for granted by his monstrous wife (Maria Aitken) and daughter (Cynthia Cleese, real life daughter of John).

Of course Kline and Palin are also memorable. Kline blusters and hams his way through comic scene after comic scene, always managing to completely destroy Curtis’ attempts at delicate plotting, either with his lack of intellect or his misplaced jealousy. Palin is more subtle, despite the exaggerated stutter, as the more “quiet” member of the den of thieves, simmering with indignation while going about his sordid affairs. When characters like these butt heads, you get famous scenes, like the one in which Kline threatens the beloved inhabitants of Palin’s aquarium.

So, now I’ve seen A FISH CALLED WANDA. I don’t know what took me so long, but I’m glad I do stuff like make lists of movies and then force myself to watch them, because if I didn’t the list of things I haven’t seen would never shrink.

Sadie Says:

A FISH CALLED WANDA is one of those movies I never tire of. I remember being terribly homesick when living abroad in the Czech Republic, so periodically I'd pop this sucker in, chocolate Milka bar and Pilsner in hand, and revel in the english language. It's one that I can't think of anything I would do to change it and holds up over time. Serious entertainment. Unfortunately, the sequel FIERCE CREATURES doesn't do any justice to the original. If you like Monty Python anything, you'll appreciate this movie in all of its glory.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Hello, Dolly!

One of the perks of the first Romancefest was learning to love Barbra Streisand after watching 3 of her flicks in one month. Sadly, last year's Romancefest suffered from a distinct lack of Babs. Now, Babs makes her triumphant return to Romancefest in HELLO, DOLLY!

Taking place in 1890s New York, HELLO, DOLLY! follows the title character, a widowed matchmaker played by Streisand, as she decides it's time for her to come out of mourning and get back into life, specifically by snagging herself a husband. She has her heart set on a rich grocer (Walter Matthau) from small-town Yonkers, but he's on his way to New York City in the hopes of securing a dutiful wife in the form of a hat shop proprietress (Marianne McAndrew).

This is a farce of epic proportions, so the amount of romantic entanglements and ancilliary characters gets a little ridiculous, but in an effort to keep it short I'll just say that Streisand and Matthau's other worries include Matthau's niece (Joyce Ames) who wants to marry an artist (Tommy Tune) and the two clerks from Matthau's store (Michael Crawford and Danny Lockin) who decide to take advantage of their boss's absence to have a little fun of their own in the big city.

As the movie unfolded I was reminded of the Tom Stoppard play I was in back in high school, ON THE RAZZLE, in which I played a horny coachman. Turns out that play is an adaptation of a Viennese play by Johann Noestroy which was previously adapted by Thornton Wilder, and eventually transformed into its most popular version, the Broadway musical HELLO, DOLLY! Go figure, you learn something new every day. Sadly the horny coachman did not make it into this version. I assume it's because if he had he would have stolen the entire show from Dolly herself, but I'm just making a wild guess based on my own exquisite performance.

It is interesting to note that DOLLY! was directed by Gene Kelly, who starred in the good but claustrophobic-feeling BRIGADOON. DOLLY! is the opposite of BRIGADOON, filmed in many wide open outdoor locations and giant sets where the song and dance sequences can be staged without worrying about the extras spinning right into the soundstage walls.

As usual, Streisand is great, belting out the songs with equal parts authority and vulnerability one second and delivering rapid fire jokes the next. In fact, it's this combination of authority and vulnerability that lends the movie any authentic poignancy at all amid the chaos, and this is a similar trait to many of Streisand's most memorable characters. She's able to rule the stage and screen while also engaging an audience's sympathy, which is no easy trick.

Matthau is also awesome, though after the first few scenes he unfortunately fades to the background. More time is spent on the side characters than really needs to be, though they're charming at first, particularly Crawford who went on to fame (or infamy?) as Broadway's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Still, DOLLY! does not suffer from its bloated running time as much as GUYS AND DOLLS does, perhaps due to the variety of wacky stuff that's constantly going on.

Oh, and Louis Armstrong pops up for a few seconds, so that's enough to bump any movie up a couple notches.

Sadie Says:

Over the last couple Romancefests, Paul got super into Streisand. He kinda loves her secretly and not so secretly, can get down with Yentyl, and can comment on the evolution of her acting when asked. He also loves him some Matthau. With that in mind, HELLO DOLLY seemed like an appropriate suggestion for all intents and purposes.

The role on Broadway was originally meant for Ethel Merman who turned it down and was immediately made famous by Carol Channing. Many a famous actress (including Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, and Pearl Bailey) had a stab at Dolly Levi on Broadway, but Streisand's performance for the screen is her own.

Paul's review is a great one and captures Streisand being Streisand. She kinda has playing Streisand down, no? Matthau gets to play cranky, a role he's perfected as well, and Louis gets to play Louis. Gene Kelly does a great job in his directorial debut and it's no surprise he was excellent at capturing musical theater given his background.

In the remake of HELLO DOLLY adapted by Paul and Sadie,
the horny coachman makes it in, has a near perfect singing performance with Outkast, and keeps the champagne flowing while doing the hora. Oy.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Shall We Dance?

Next, we travel to Japan for SHALL WE DANCE?, a sweet romantic comedy about the unique power of dance to lift the weight of inhibition from a repressed soul. At least, I assume dance has that power. You won't catch me dancing. Unless C&C Music Factory comes on when I'm shopping at the QFC. Then I suddenly become the Fred Astaire of the baking aisle.

SHALL WE DANCE? is the story of an accountant (Koji Yakusho) who has acquired a wife, a daughter, and the house of his dreams, and now feels bored and empty and unable to enjoy these things. The only glimmer of light in his life is his glimpses of a beautiful woman gazing out the window of a dance school visible from his commuter train. One day, Yakusho finally steps off the train and into the dance school, and begins taking ballroom dancing lessons in secret. His teacher (Reiko Kusamura) is wise and kind, but as he learns, he keeps one eye on the beautiful woman in the window who turns out to be another teacher at the school -- an ex-professional ballroom dancer (Tamiyo Kusakari).

The poignancy of this story comes from the reserved nature of the Japanese culture. I'm no expert, but as the film explains it, married couples in Japan rarely display affection in public, let alone dance, so a serious family man taking dance classes is an embarrassing scandal to be viewed with suspicion. Against this backdrop, it is very touching to see the way Yakusho begins to open up as he becomes more and more comfortable with his instructors and his fellow students, including a co-worker by day who is a flamboyant sex God on the dance floor by night (Naoto Takenaka).

As the plot develops, a competition inevitably becomes involved, and Yakusho is eventually in training to partner up with another instructor at the school (Eriko Watanabe), a proud and stubborn outspoken woman. Still, all the while, his eyes are on the alluring and mysterious woman in the window, Kusakari.

But this is all just fluff -- the real meat of the film is in the relationships between the characters, all shy in their own ways and all waiting for the right opportunity to bloom. It's always nice in movies when people really help each other, even if it's in small ways, and that's what this movie is about -- getting outside oneself, becoming involved with other people, and finding help in friendship.

Yakusho is an easy protagonist for me to relate to. Although the film explains his reservations as being uniquely Japanese, I find that I have many of the same problems, and often resort to gazing dreamily out of windows in search of answers.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - A Room with a View

Time for another Merchant/Ivory film, this time A ROOM WITH A VIEW. Much funnier and more lighthearted than THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, but no less beautiful, this love story centers on the coming of age of an upper class, Victorian English country girl played by Helena Bonham Carter.

As the story begins, Bonham-Carter and her older chaperone (Maggie Smith) are on vacation in Florence, Italy. Against this backdrop, they meet a variety of eccentric characters, including a free-thinking father (Denholm Elliott) and son (Julian Sands) who are staying in the same hotel. It isn't long before Bonham-Carter and Sands are exchanging furtive glances, and before you know it they've had their first romantic kiss. This is more than a little scandalous as Sands does not seem to share the Victorian ideals of the day.

Back in England, Bonham-Carter becomes engaged to marry a perfect example of these Victorian ideals -- a stuffy and pretentious gentleman played with hilarious flair by Daniel Day-Lewis. Her brief and innocent romance in Florence eventually comes back to haunt her, and Bonham-Carter must eventually decide whether or not to stick with the traditionally safe but boring Day-Lewis, or embrace the free spirit and adventure of Sands.

This is a simple story, so most of the pleasure comes from the way it is told. This is a movie about moods, feelings and tones, not about plot. Sure, there's plenty of plot, most of it in the mind of Bonham-Carter, with her mostly needless machinations and secrets, but where the movie succeeds, it does so by making the viewer feel the warmth of a perfect summer day in the country by seemingly effortless combinations of beautiful photography, nice scenery, pretty music and quirky performances.

It was fun to see all these great dramatic actors turning in some lighter performances than they get to now that they're older. I'm sure they could all still turn in great comedic performances, but it seems like the more respect you get the less chance you get to have any fun. I guess that's the best part about this movie, which might seem surprising given Merchant/Ivory's somewhat stuffy image -- you can tell everyone in it is having fun.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Children of Paradise

Time for the first foreign language film of Romancefest 3 -- CHILDREN OF PARADISE. This 1945 production is considered by many to be the greatest French film of all time, and by some to be the single greatest film ever made. The story behind the production is as dramatic -- or perhaps moreso -- than the film itself, as it was produced at the height of World War II in Nazi-occupied France. This would be no small feat for a little independent picture, but CHILDREN OF PARADISE is about as big and sweeping as you can get, so it's miraculous that it was ever made.

Of course, none of this would be remembered if the film itself wasn't any good, and it is. The story involves bohemian artists living in Paris in the mid 1800s and their romantic entanglements, all revolving around the theater and all involving a beautiful actress (Arletty). Her many suitors include a flamboyant actor (Pierre Brasseur), a tortured genius mime (Jean-Louis Barrault), a writer by day, criminal by night (Marcel Herrand) and a rich but boring count (Louis Salo).

The epic film is divided into two parts, the first during which the men vie for Arletty's affection while struggling for artistic success, and the second during which Arletty has settled for the boring count and her other suitors have all found success, in one way or another, while still pining after her.

This brief description makes the movie sound like nothing more than a soap opera, but thanks to the lavish production and multi-layered screenplay by Jacques Prevert, CHILDREN OF PARADISE transcends its melodramatic genre. The movie is as much about love, loss and regret as it is about the creative impulse, the mystery of the muse, and the way life imitates art and art imitates life. The dialogue, even in its English translation, is musical enough to do Shakespeare proud, so it's fitting that there is much talk of Shakespeare (specifically OTHELLO) among the characters.

There is a certain pleasure in watching a well-crafted story unfold, and I felt that while watching CHILDREN OF PARADISE. At first I wasn't sure where the movie was going, then the movie's romantic entanglements distracted me, and before I knew it I could see that the film was one step ahead of me the whole time. By the time I saw the screenplay ushering characters into their places and setting things up for unavoidable tragedy, I wasn't distracted by the thought that I could see where things were going so much as wowed by the way the movie made the plot developments seem more like the hands of fate than a writers' contrivances.

CHILDREN OF PARADISE is big, overblown, romantic, and yes, important. But it is also funny, heartbreaking and suspenseful. It seems appropriate that a film about artists and entertainers should be the perfect example of art and entertainment effortlessly fitting together.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - The Remains of the Day

It's hard not to identify with the butler played by Anthony Hopkins in THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, a tragic love story about a man who spends most of his life being wrong and only begins to fully understand his mistake when it is far too late. Some people must live with more regrets than others, but I imagine even the happiest, most well adjusted person sometimes wonders what might have been if only things had worked out a little differently. The fact that this story exists is proof that I'm not alone with these thoughts, but I wonder how many people are truthful enough with their own feelings to even consider how wrong they might have been.

Hopkins stars as the head butler at an estate in England. As the story begins, a new lord has taken over the manor, a retired American politician played by Christopher Reeve. Hopkins has asked for a leave of absence to visit the manor's old head of housekeeping, Emma Thompson, who he hasn't seen in 20 years. As Hopkins begins his journey across the country, he reminisces on his days of service with Thompson in the years between the World Wars, when the lord of the manor was a Nazi sympathizer (James Fox).

The thrust of the story involves Hopkins' character's own views on his position in life. As far as he's concerned, he's dedicated and loyal to his lord. It is not his job to have an opinion, or show emotion, or get involved in anything other than the day to day tasks of making sure the house runs smoothly. He takes this position so seriously that it eventually interferes with his personal relationships with his father (Peter Vaughan) who comes to the house to work in his old age, and with Thompson, who he is clearly in love with, and who returns his affections, but who he can never be truthful with.

Hopkins also struggles to understand the place of morals and ethics in the small corner of the world that he has devoted himself to. It is one thing to blindly serve in a vacuum, but the world is not a vacuum, and Hopkins' employer is knee deep in trying to influence the important heads of state and nobility of England to roll over for Hitler. In the days leading up to the second World War, world affairs intrude into the household more and more until it gets to the point that following a simple order may turn out to be a question of morality. Take, for instance, the crucial scene in which Fox orders Hopkins to fire two Jewish refugees who have escaped Germany and come to work at the house.

Hopkins doesn't say anything to betray his stance on the issue, but we can clearly see on his face that he questions the wisdom and meaning of such an order. He goes through with it, but not until after an argument with Thompson, who is just as professional as he is, but who is not afraid to say that it is wrong and that if the Jewish girls go, she goes, too.

Of course, she does not go. She has nowhere to go, and she's afraid of being alone. The difference between Thompson and Hopkins is that Thompson freely admits this. She speaks her moral stance, then owns up to her own weaknesses. Hopkins tries his best not to betray any hint of his own personal feelings, to the extent that Thompson believes he either doesn't care or agrees with their employer. When Hopkins finally says otherwise, in casual conversation, Thompson is exasperated -- why didn't he just say that in the first place? Why can't he ever say what he means?

I think a lot of people can probably relate to this conundrum. Everyone wants to be understood, but sometimes people are afraid to communicate. I've had many instances where I wanted to say or do something, and I didn't, and I could tell I was doing the wrong thing even as it was happening. The more it happens, the more it becomes almost an out of body experience, as if you're watching yourself say or do the wrong things, or betray your own feelings, but you can't do anything to stop yourself. You think, "Here I go again," but that doesn't help. It seems so simple -- saying what you mean. But it's not.

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY is beautifully shot and impeccably acted. This quietly complex story is approached with all of the attention to detail and restraint that it needs and deserves. Still, the drama explored here is so universal and so touching, all of this beauty seems to stand at a starkly poignant counterpoint to the sad, regretful, quiet man at its center.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Guys and Dolls

GUYS AND DOLLS is one of those musicals I always heard about but never really saw. I couldn’t have even told you which famous songs come from this musical, but now I know the only one I really recognized was “Luck Be a Lady.” And guess what? Sinatra doesn’t even sing it! As unlikely as it might seem, Marlon Brando gets to belt out this gem.

The film stars Brando and Sinatra as a couple of gamblers hanging out in Times Square. Sinatra’s secretly running a “floating” craps game, hiding it from both his long-time showgirl fiancé (Vivian Blaine) and his cop arch nemesis (Robert Keith). The story starts with Sinatra desperate to raise some money to fund the game, and he sees Brando as his mark. Unfortunately, Brando is a slightly more successful gambler than Sinatra, and is always one step ahead, until Sinatra plays on his weakness – women.

Soon, the two have a bet: Sinatra bets Brando can’t take just any woman on his upcoming trip to Havana. Brand bets he can. The catch: Sinatra gets to pick the woman, and she turns out to be the morally self-righteous head missionary of the local mission (Jean Simmons). She’s cute enough, but not at all interested in gambling, drinking, or going to Havana with a strange man.

Since we’ve all seen this basic plot many times since GUYS AND DOLLS (and probably before it, too) it will come as no surprise that Brando successfully dupes and then falls in love with Simmons. Meanwhile, it will also come as no surprise that Sinatra overcomes his fear of commitment and marries the long suffering Blaine. So, really, the only thing left to interest the audience is the movie’s style.

Thankfully, the movie has plenty of style to go around, from the impressionistic Times Square and Havana sets to the wild costume design – a fusion of depression era gangsters and molls and then-contemporary cutting edge fashion. We’ve also got two leads with plenty of flair, Sinatra and Brando, one better suited for a musical than the other but both well suited for their con-man roles. Brando is fascinating to watch as he seduces Simmons and Sinatra is plenty funny and sympathetic as the put-upon gambler. The leading ladies are also well cast, with Blaine coming straight from Broadway with a comedic performance that seems to predict the likes of Madeline Kahn, and Simmons making the most of a somewhat thankless role, especially in the Havana scenes when she can really open up.

The main problem with GUYS AND DOLLS is that it gets bogged down in its own paint by numbers plot. The movie runs long at 2 hours and 30 minutes. This isn’t so bad when it’s exploring the relationships between the characters or indulging in musical numbers, but gets a little annoying when we’re forced to sit through obligatory ups and downs that are still happening 2 hours into the flick. I guess this was at the height of the cinema’s attempts to avoid being destroyed by television, so long-form entertainment was deemed appropriate not only for stories with an epic scope but also for more lightweight fare like romantic musical comedies.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Heaven Can Wait

HEAVEN CAN WAIT starts with an interesting premise – a recently deceased rich playboy (Don Ameche) assumes he’s destined to go to hell, so he voluntarily shows up to surrender himself to the devil (Laird Cregar). The devil, however, has different plans, as he asks Ameche to elaborate on exactly why automatically assumes he’s sentenced to eternal damnation by telling him his life story.

Turns out Ameche’s biggest crimes were that he was a spoiled only child of privilege, and that he had an insatiable appetite for women, which eventually made his 25 year marriage to the great love of his life (Gene Tierney) more difficult than it otherwise had to be.

To the movie’s credit, it fully exploits this premise, carefully going over the facts of the case of Ameche’s life from birth until death, not unlike more modern pictures like ANNIE HALL – this film is uniquely introspective for a movie from the early 40s. Perhaps this is because the director, Ernst Lubitsch, who was going through a divorce at the time of the film’s production, saw something personal in it.

Lubitsch, like Preston Sturges, is a director I’ve been meaning to bone up on for years but have been lazy about, for whatever reason. Even since I saw TO BE OR NOT TO BE years ago, I’ve thought, I need to check this guy out. So, I’m glad I finally have another Lubitsch under my belt.

Ameche and Tierney are great as the central married couple, and their relationship is believable and probably not quite as dated as most people would like to believe. Ameche resists the temptation to lay it on too thick as the playboy type, and mostly just acts like a decent (if impulsive) guy. Tierney’s beauty and grace makes it easily clear why Ameche would be fall so easily and deeply in love with her, and both actors do a credible job of playing their characters over several decades of life, in sickness and in health.

Like most films of the classic Hollywood era, HEAVEN CAN WAIT benefits from a stellar supporting cast including Charles Coburn as Ameche’s sympathetic and conspiratorial grandfather and Marjorie Main and Eugene Pallette as Tierney’s unhappily married parents who love to hate each other. Laird Cregar, who I mentioned earlier, also turns in a memorable performance as an uncharacteristically sympathetic lord of the underworld.

I have to admit, I’m not 100% sure I understand the point this movie is trying to make, if any. After all, if you take the events of the movie literally and look at them objectively, Ameche was a guy who did commit a few sins, at the expense of some people he purported to love. But, I guess maybe that gets to the point of the film, which is that you can’t really look at anyone literally and objectively because you’ll always have your own filter, or their filter, or someone else’s filter, obscuring the so-called truth, whatever that is.

I guess, if anything, it’s a comforting notion that even if you damn yourself to hell with your own guilty conscience, Satan himself might take pity on you.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Brigadoon

BRIGADOON is a movie that has strengths and weaknesses that stem from the same elements. Here is a movie that takes place in Scottish highlands, but was shot entirely on soundstages. A modern movie like this, and even some movies contemporary to this one, would have taken full advantage of location shooting, with lots of scenic cinematography and local color.

So, on one hand, BRIGADOON seems like a missed opportunity. On the other hand, the sets for this film are magnificent and the matte backgrounds are amazing examples of a lost art, and they do provide breath taking scenery. No matter where it was shot, the movie is beautiful to look at.

The studio sets do help to provide the fairy tale atmosphere, however, which is appropriate for the magical tale of BRIGADOON, a small Scottish village that only appears once every 100 hears for 1 day. Gene Kelly and Van Johnson star as two American hunters on vacation in Scotland who stumble upon the village and become involved with the locals as they prepare for a big wedding.

It isn’t long before Kelly is in love with the sister of the bride, Cyd Charisse, and the two of them dance around the countryside collecting heather before Kelly even fully understands what’s going on. Of course, when he learns that the village is due to disappear and that he’ll need to decide whether he wants to stay or not, he realizes the gravity of the problem.

BRIGADOON as a vehicle for Kelly is an interesting choice. The dance numbers aren’t particularly spectacular, though they’re nice enough, and Kelly seems a little too savvy to buy into this fantasy world. Johnson fares better, however, getting all the best lines as a cynic who finds himself face to face with magic. There’s a great scene in which he sets up three lit cigarettes in three ash trays at the bar, just to keep people from sitting next to him.

Despite the fact that BRIGADOON is a fairly lighthearted fairy tale romance, the magical village has kind of a dark undercurrent to it. If any villager leaves the boundary of the village, all the other villagers and the village itself ceases to exist. Meanwhile, every 100 years, the villagers age only 1 day, the rest of the world changing around them. Most of the villagers view this as a blessing -- they’ve been saved from the ravages of the modern world by this miracle. But, it could also be viewed as a curse, as the villagers are doomed to never leave their small town and stand apart from the rest of the world for all eternity.

This magical device does work as a nice metaphor for the problems of time and place that interrupt relationships in the real world. As usual, a fantastical device actually works better at illustrating mundane everyday problems than a more literal approach might, and Kelly’s ultimate decision at the end of the movie is that much more touching because of it.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Love in the Afternoon

I was looking forward to LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON going into it, because I already love Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper and Maurice Chevalier, and already love writer/director Billy Wilder, who is responsible for not only several classics, but also a few that happen to be among my favorites.

Hepburn, beautiful as always, stars as a naive young cellist living in Paris with her father (Maurice Chevalier), a detective specializing in adultery cases. Hepburn can't help but be turned on by the sordid affairs Chevalier deals with, much to Chevalier's dismay. The story starts with Hepburn preventing a cuckolded husband (John McGiver) from murdering his romantic rival, Gary Cooper as a business tycoon playboy.

Hepburn and Cooper fall for each other and begin an anonymous romance, meeting each other in the afternoons. Hepburn knows all about Cooper, thanks to her fathers' sizable file on the serial philanderer, but Cooper knows nothing about her. This is Hepburn's first romance, and she's head over heels, but she protects herself by presenting it as one in a long string of romances, creating elaborate stories of her imaginary ex-lovers in order to impress Cooper.

For the first half hour, or so, the movie kept its momentum. Then it settled into the series of afternoons between Hepburn and Cooper and lost some steam. The final half hour and romantic climax proved to be great, but the whole movie sagged in the middle. This romantic comedy runs about 2 hours and 10 minutes, but it only has enough story for about 90 minutes.

That's not to say it wasn't basically enjoyable -- it's not one of Wilder's best, but a mediocre Billy Wilder film is better than most average films, anyway. It's still cute and funny and romantic, and Wilder gets a lot of mileage out of "The Gypsies" -- a musical quartet hired by Cooper at first to come to his hotel room and provide atmosphere for his romantic conquests, and later as loyal sidekicks who follow him all over Paris. Also, the relationship between Chevalier and Hepburn as father and daughter is poignant and even more effective than the romantic relationship here.

The heart and soul of the movie lies with Chevalier. Whether he's playing a gentle, loving father or a dirty old man, he always seems to have more inherent wisdom about the ways of love and sex than any other character in a given movie. He's one of those screen presences who simply radiates warmth just by showing up.

Sadie Says:

One of the things I love about Billy Wilder movies, is the introduction to many of his films. Like IRMA LA DOUCE, LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON starts out with a fine introduction with beautiful shots of Paris, a narrator (in this case Chevalier), a meeting with the characters, and a quick change in on what Billy Wilder does best--A love story.

LITA is not a love story of convention, but one filled with intimacy behind closed doors. It's not one that makes a whole lot of sense at first watch, but one that is left to the imagination, time, and distance. Close up shots make this movie. Often these films are hard to swallow and LITA is no exception, however the dynamic acting, cinematography, and the music of the Gypsies keep LITA high on my list as a not to be missed Wilder film.

What is also interesting to note about LITA, is that this is the first of twelve films written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond on the famous grounds of "The Lot" in Hollywood, CA. The Lot was a haven for Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges etc. They went on to write many flicks including SOME LIKE IT HOT, IRMA LA DOUCE, THE APARTMENT, FORTUNE COOKIE and so on and so forth.

I love the idea of "THE LOT." A home away from home, solely for writers, famous ones and non-famous alike, to congregate, eat lunch, work, and bounce ideas off one another for days. In the era of classic Hollywood movies, writers were hired as is, to write great screenplays and nothing more. It seems like there actually might be value to this model of writing, as some of the greatest movies of all time have come out of this all-star writers think tank. LITA is no exception.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Bull Durham

One of the worst things about being a guy who likes movies is that no matter how many movies you watch, there's always something you have wanted to see that you haven't gotten around to yet. This is most apparent when there's something I haven't seen that everyone else has seen, especially if they know I'm supposedly a movie guy. Everyone gets the old, "You haven't seen that?" thing, but I suspect I get it more than most.

Anyway, there are a few usual suspects that come up more often than others, and BULL DURHAM must be in the top 5. I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years, just never the whole thing. I've always known it was well liked, and always figured I'd like it. I just never got around to it. Until now. Now that I've seen it, I can stop saying I haven't seen it and you can stop saying, "You haven't seen it?"

One of the reasons I always figured I'd like it, aside from the universal praise for it, was the fact that I tend to like baseball movies. And, within the first few seconds of the movie, the baseball mythos gave me chills twice. The first time was the shot of Susan Sarandon approaching the minor league field at dusk, the lights illuminating the stadium from a distance. The second time was a few moments later, as the camera followed Sarandon through the dark tunnel and out into the bright ballpark, the field unfolding in front of her.

I think this was partly just because baseball is so ingrained in the cultural subconscious that it's tough not to react with nostalgia to shots like that, but also because it seemed to so accurately reflect my own experiences attending minor league games. I clearly remember the sights, sounds and smells approaching the ballpark on game night as a kid, and heading through that tunnel to see the field suddenly appear in front of me. The film lets you smell the grass, the beer, the hot dogs. And this is all before it even really starts.

Sarandon stars as a baseball groupie who delights in choosing one minor leaguer each year, blessing him with her sexual attentions, and improving his season before he moves on to the majors. I guess calling her a groupie is a little patronizing -- she's a three dimensional character who knows what she's doing and why she's doing it. She is not struck dumb by fandom and is not a tool for the players to use as much as the players are there for her to enjoy. She has a million philosophies about baseball and life, considers them to basically intertwine, and pulls from many literary and spiritual influences. Yes, she's kind of full of shit, but she kind of knows it. If you have to be full of shit, that's the way to do it.

Thing is, Costner is more of an intellectual match for Sarandon than Robbins is, and has something in common with her, spiritually, since both of them worship baseball as something more important than just a means to a material end.

BULL DURHAM is a perfect romantic comedy. Like the best romantic comedies, it doesn't dwell on the relationships at hand, specifically. Instead, it gives us a red herring, in this case baseball, and lets that stand in as a metaphor for what's really going on. To BULL DURHAM's credit, it knows way more about its red herring of choice than most movies like this tend to, so it never feels contrived. Because of this, no one would ever refer to it as that most dreaded, sexist term -- a chick-flick. Here's a Hollywood romantic comedy that doesn't feel contrived, doesn't feel sexist, and treats the sex lives of adults realistically as opposed to either shameful or magical. And, it's funny!

So, there's no wonder everyone loves BULL DURHAM. I do, too.

Sadie Says:

As Paul mentioned, when I recommended BULL DURHAM, I expected him to say, "Duh, I've seen it a million times." Much to my surprise and delight, Paul had never seen the film in its entirety, nor had he witnessed what I believe to be one the greatest romance and baseball movies of all time.

Fact: Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins met on this movie and fell in love. Goddamn I'm a sucker for offscreen romance. It still pains me personally that they "aimicably" decided to end their relationship several years ago and go their separate ways. However, in the case of BD, secretly, I always wished that behind the scenes Ms. Sarandon and Mr. Kostner got it on and were in fact the characters they embody so well.

Bring in a whole cast of misfit characters, a genius screenplay, and what was considered to be a "hot" bath scene and we got ourselves a classic movie. In many ways, this strong female lead in Sarandon (and so many others in Romancefest Sadiefest) are called on some of their shit. It doesn't in any way take away the intelligence, independence, or what I believe to be "cool factor" of these outspoken women, but in many ways these strong male leads bring them back to their most human and vulnerable state. This quality in film translates and is played out perfectly on the screen in Bull Durham in the style of many a Hepburn flick (see Philadelphia Story).

Never to be skipped on cable, Bull Durham holds up just fine on any day, even if it's supposed to be a rained out.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Royal Wedding

Fred Astaire, Romancefest alum from such greats as TOP HAT and SWING TIME returns in ROYAL WEDDING. As usual, Astaire plays a song and dance man, this time teamed up in a brother and sister act with his guy crazy sister (Jane Powell). The two entertainers are married to their career, so Powell only has time to date guys for a couple days at a time, but she has a big enough appetite to keep the guys stacked up. Astaire, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have time for any romance at all, and neither performer cares to ever get married.

That is, until they're summoned to England during the weeks leading up to titular wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in order to perform their successful stage show in London. Brother and sister find unlikely romances in the likes of a dancer in their upcoming show (Sarah Churchill) and a Lord who has as healthy an appetite for women as Powell has for men (Peter Lawford). Unfortunately, Churchill is in the middle of a long distance relationship with an incommunicative fiance and Powell is having second thoughts about committing the rest of her life to Lawford and giving up her career.

Of course, as with most Astaire films, ROYAL WEDDING has a plot that is a mere clothesline to hang the show stopping song and dance numbers on, and this movie has a couple of Astaire's most famous, including one number in which Astaire transforms an inanimate hat rack into a lively dance partner and another in which Astaire seems to defy gravity as he dances on the ceiling and walls of his hotel room. There's also a funny scene in which Astaire and Powell attempt to perform on the tilting stage of an ocean liner, slipping and sliding and watching props fly by.

Watching the movie is worth it for these scenes alone, though the non-dancing climax is also memorable as Astaire and the rest of the cast are intercut with what appears to be actual footage of the famous royal wedding as they chase each other to the alter.

There's also a memorable supporting cast including Keenan Wynn in a dual role as both an American and British theater agent, playing against himself in a couple comedic scenes. My favorite supporting player, however, was Albert Sharpe as Churchill's father, who owns a pub in London and laments his separation from his wife. This is just a subplot, but Sharpe is so great in his little bits of screen time, I fell in love with him. The way Astaire and Sharpe form a supportive little friendship was genuinely touching, even more touching than the central romantic relationships.

The films of Fred Astaire look and feel deceptively like shallow fluff, but they're more than that. The expression of character, story and emotion through these insanely complicated dance numbers is something that is uniquely cinematic, and like the best art, it is able to articulate the intangible stuff of humanity more exactly in an abstract way than it could ever be expressed in a literal way.

One note for AVphiles -- apparently MGM let ROYAL WEDDING slide into the public domain, so it is widely available in lots of different bargain basement releases. Because of this, the source material for these releases isn't always the best. I watched it on the "watch instantly" feature on Netflix, and it was a shitty print, so I'm assuming this must be from one of these small-time releases. It's my understanding there is a good release available from Warner, so if you want to watch the movie, I recommend seeking this out.

Sadie Says:

Since the last Romancefest, there has indeed been a royal wedding in England, so it only seemed appropriate to watch ROYAL WEDDING! I originally discovered and purchased my copy of this movie for around 99 cents at a Rite Aid somewhere in Los Angeles (thank you public domain). It was probably after 2:00 in the morning, I probably also got some sour patch kids, and I can only assume some cheap wet & wild nail polish. I remember being really surprised to find that this classic gem contained the famous Astaire dancing on the walls and ceiling number "You're All The World To Me."

The number is still amazing and really does make you wonder how they did that? After looking it up a few years ago, I found out that MGM built the set inside a revolving steel barrel and mounted the camera and operator to the floor so they would rotate along with the room. It's a technique that has since been repeated and still used to today in film, music video, TV, you name it.

The other numbers aren't half bad either. Lots of singing, lots of dancing, a trip to Haiti, some brother/sister dynamic duo action (a story that echoes Astaire's ascent into show business), and lots of real footage of Queen Elizabeth's Royal Wedding. Clearly this fascination with Royal Weddings has been around for a lot longer than Wills and Kate, and ROYAL WEDDING is the perfect place to see the mayhem first hand.

Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Xanadu

If you ever wanted to see a movie about a frustrated artist who fulfills his dreams by creating the greatest roller disco the world has ever seen, then XANADU is the movie for you.

If not, you better skip it.

XANADU is one of those movies where I’m tempted to say you have to see it in order to believe it. But, I don’t want to mistakenly recommend actually watching it. So, maybe it’s okay for you to go through life not quite believing XANADU exists?

The afore-mentioned frustrated artist (Michael Beck) works for a record company, duplicating album covers, when he comes across a cover featuring a girl he recently ran into who kissed him and then disappeared in a flash of light, like the Enterprise when it goes into warp speed. Beck decides he must find this woman.

This is Olivia Newton-John. Thanks to an early scene in which a mural on a brick wall comes to life, with more flashes of sci-fi light, we know Newton-John is a supernatural being. Turns out she’s a muse, sent from above to help Beck achieve his disco dreams.

Also on hand to help is Gene Kelly in his last screen performance as an old man who sits on the beach playing the clarinet. Turns out he once ran a sweet club and wants to run one again. So, Beck, Kelly and Newton-John team up to transform a gloriously art-deco (but broken down) auditorium into Xanadu, the roller disco to end all roller discos.

The movie has at least one good moment, a dance scene between Kelly and Newton-John. It also has some good music performed by Electric Light Orchestra. And, Newton-John carries over her same enthusiastic and sweet screen presence from GREASE.

But, that’s about all XANADU has to offer. Almost everything else is a mess. You could argue the movie is hopelessly dated and that you kind of have to view it on its own terms in order to enjoy it, but I’ve seen plenty of other films from the late 70s and early 80s that do not suffer from this problem, and plenty of others that do have this problem, but overcome it anyway.

The problem begins with Beck as the leading man but continues into the thrust of the story. He’s pretty bland and forgettable in his performance, but he also has basically nothing to work with. All he really has to do is to stare into Newton-John’s big, beautiful eyes like a loyal puppy dog and even that seems to be a problem. Even the great Gene Kelly seems wasted here – on one hand, he provides the film’s only moment of genius, and on the other it’s frustrating and a little embarrassing that he’s in this mess in the first place.

Just as a quick example – FOOTLIGHT PARADE was similarly built on a flimsy premise that was just an excuse for a bunch of dance numbers. The difference is, PARADE crackled with intensity and moved at a rapid fire pace. XANADU, on the other hand, lazily wallows in decadence. PARADE’s song and dance sequences were mind blowing enough to stop the show and get away with it. XANADU’s are poorly executed and confusing. They stop the show, all right.

Sadie Says:

This movie is ridiculous. I can't figure out how this film got made in the first place, but once a decade, I'm really happy that somebody owed somebody a favor. I'm pretty into the roller disco scene, so there you go. In addition, the Electric Light Orchestra score is hard to ignore. If you're into ELO, then this should not be missed. Full Discloure: This film is probably best watched under the influence of something...anything....really....I'm serious...

The Fred Astaire counterpart to this film is FINIAN'S RAINBOW, a film that has a much more traditional musical score, but is equally out there in plot. The flick involves a leprechaun and a whole lot of shenanigans. As i'm thinking about it all, my best guess is that for someone who is a fan of old films, I've always been interested to see how these magnificent men of the of musical make even the worst of films watchable ones. Gene Kelly can make even the most ridiculously plotted film (considered by many a critic), a masterpiece.