The 10 SADDEST old movies (I've watched)

NOTE: This entry was reposted over MovieFanFare, becoming one of their most popular articles with nearly 1,000 comments :)

Well, you know them. You're watching them and you're thinking:

"Mother of god, life can be awful. Why people have to suffer so much! I'm not gonna cry, I'm not gonna cry. Think of something positive. Or something that makes you angry. Oh no, a tear is coming. I'm gonna cough to try to pass this heavy lump in my throat. Oh, what did she or he have to say that line? That's the saddest thing..."

Credits

Anyway, I sacrificed myself for you, and re-watched some of these films. I included movies in which the predominant feeling is sadness or those whose endings are very dramatic.

So, grab your tissues, here we go (warning: spoilers ahead):


10.- Les parapluies de Cherbourg (1964)
Plot: A girl and a boy fall in love and have a child but can't be together (review).
You can't hold your tears when...they say goodbye at the train station (watch).

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9.- Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Plot: Vivien Leigh thinks her boyfriend Robert Taylor is dead so she finds a socially rejected way to survive (mentioned in 5 movies in which tragedy was caused by chance).
You can't hold your tears when...the camera focus a little special object after some tragic event and then Robert remembers Vivien in the bridge (watch the ending).

8.- The Wedding Night (1935)
Plot: A writer (Gary Cooper) falls in love with a girl (Anna Stern) from a strict Pole family of farmers (review).
You can't hold your tears when...at the end, Gary looks out the window and "sees" the love of his life disappearing (watch a clip from the movie).

Credits

7.- This Land Is Mine (1943)
Plot: Awesome Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara respectively play a coward teacher and his love interest in this World War II film (review).
You can't hold your tears when...Charles sees how a teacher he admired and respected is killed. But the worst part is the ending, one of the best fictional uses of the Declaration of Human Rights (watch).

6.- Camille (1936)
Plot: An impossible love between a courtesan (Greta Garbo) and Robert Taylor (listed in Favorite Movies).
You can't hold your tears when...Camille faces Lionel Barrymore and when Robert visits a "very weak" Camille in the last scene (watch the trailer).

5.- A star is born (1937)
Plot: After two actors marry, the success of their careers enter in a inversely proportional relationship (review and haiku).
You can't hold your tears when...the granny takes her granddaughter to the station. And when Fredric March embraces Janet Gaynor knowing it would be the last time and then he says "do you mind if I take just one more look?" (watch the second moment).

4.- Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
Plot: An old couple (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) realize they have the worst children in the history of cinema (mention).
You can't hold your tears when...these people are humiliated and separated, which is practically the whole film (watch an example).

Credits

3.- Three Comrades (1938)
Plot: After World War I, three German friends (Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, Robert Young)  meet Margaret Sullavan and their lives change forever. Adapted by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
You can't hold your tears when...you watch the final scenes. Really. (here are some of them edited).

2.- The small one (1978)
Plot: A poor family have to get rid of their old donkey, a task that is entrusted to the kid (mention).
You can't hold your tears when...the last time I saw this one I cried my eyes out like the whole film, especially when the kid tries to cheer up his little animal and the ending (watch the whole film).

1.- Ever in my heart (1933)
Plot: Barbara Stanwyck marries a German before World War I (review).
You can't hold your tears when...the family faces tragic situations (I mean TRAGIC) and the ending (trailer).

Honorable mentions: Letter from an Unknown Woman (mini review), I Remember Mama (mention), Penny Serenade and Doctor Zhivago.

What do you think?

The 20 coolest on-screen couples from classic movies

'Cool' definition from Wordreference: fashionably attractive or impressive.

Here's my list of 20 couples that looked terrific together on screen, that complemented each other and had fun together all the movie (or until the script spoiled it all for them) or overcame difficult situations to be together and hopefully lived happily ever after.

In no particular order: 

Harry Morgan & 'Slim' Browning from To have and have not

Gilbert & Iris Henderson from The lady vanishes

Paul & Corie Bratter from Barefoot in the Park

Nicky Ferrante & Terry McKay from An Affair to Remember

Nick & Nora Charles from The Thin Man

Robin & Marian from The Adventures of Robin Hood

Sean Thorton & Mary Kate Danaher from The Quiet Man

Ben Quick & Clara Varner from The Long, Hot Summer

Capt. Daniel Craig & Lucy Muir from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Juan Herrera & Vance Jeffords from The Furies

C.C. Baxter & Fran Kubelik from The apartment

Joe Bradley & Princess Ann from Roman Holiday

Noah Praetorious and Deborah Higgins from People Will Talk

Leon and Ninotchka from Ninotchka

Longfellow Deeds & Babe Bennett from Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Jane & Tarzan from the Tarzan movies with Johnny & Maureen.

Peter Joshua (or whatever his name is) and Reggie Lampert from Charade

Brian Hawke & 'Spitfire' Stevens from Against All Flags

Armand Duvall & Marguerite Gautier from Camille

Johny Case & Linda Seton from Holiday

What do you think?

CMBA Movies of 1939 Blogathon: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

(...)

Lost in a crowd of greats.

Not a single Oscar. 

That's showbiz"

Maureen O'Hara, 'Tis Herself.

If there's a period in Human History I would NOT have liked to be born in, that would be Medieval Europe. Think about it: invasions, lack of education for common people, diseases, abuses, wars, dirtiness...and even when it's fiction, if there's a character I would not like to be, that's Esmeralda, the gypsy. I mean you have to add to the whole terrible scenario, the fact of being persecuted because of your race, the fact that a creepy archdeacon wants to kill/torture you because he desires you, oh, that in a creepy night, after being chased by an ugly-looking hunchback, you get married with a stranger because a gang of thieves wanted to kill him.

I never liked this novel by Victor Hugo because it give me the creeps. I didn't even see the Disney version. I found the whole thing disgusting.

Then one day I saw the 1939 version (William Dieterle) with my mom on TCM. Yes, all the creepy and disgusting elements were there. And under Dieterle's direction, they were even maximized. An aggresive and vulgar multitude gathers to see people being punished or executed. They're shown laughing at others' disgraces. They become one character, an obscure, noisy character under dark lighting, in a setting that makes you feel the dirtiness of the city, mud, puddles; Paris never looked less charming.

But Charles Laughton was also there.

And he was giving his poor character a soul, some kind of dignity amid such disgrace and terrible times. The hunchback says that he's not human, not a beast. And Charles plays him like a bit of both. Sometimes he behaves like a happy child playing with a new toy, the next like a cornered animal. With his one real eye visible, Charles stares Esmeralda like a sad puppy looking for affection and then like a young man --the character was 24 years old-- hopelessly in love.

Charles is one of the reason why this film is so memorable. What a terrific performer he was. He acted putting together the main powerful core of his characters and rich details, everything in a perfect combination, the kind of combination that makes you think that that's it, there's not other way to play it.

And when you add to his performance the great work from Perc Westmore, at the time the number one makeup man in the picture business, well it just can't get any better.

Maureen O'Hara remembers in her entertaining autobiography (review), how Charles became the hunchback:

When I saw Laughton for the first time as Quasimodo, I almost fell over. I took one look at him and gasped,  "Good God, Charles. Is that really you?" He answered me with a wink and then limped off. The transformation was unbelievable, and was accomplished without any of the advance technology used today (...)

Laughton wanted the hunchback's face to look lopsided, and so the mask had to pull the right side of his face up and the left down. A false eye was placed on the left cheek and Laughton wore colored contact lens in his right eye to give it a cloudy look. The hump itself weighed four pounds and consisted of an aluminium scaffold filled with foam rubber and then covered with a thin layer of elastic. Laughton wanted it heavy so he cold feel the physical pain of walking with it. He also had an inch added to the stole of his left shoe so that one leg would be shorter than the other, creating a natural limp.

When I entered this blogathon, I thought hell yeah, what a great year was 1939...for films. Because that year was a terrible time for humanity. While they were filming, the World War II began. Maureen remembers two related memorable moments: the first, when Hitler invaded Poland.The cast and crew arrived fearful to the set. Everyone started trying to comfort each other. Charles, dressed as Quasimodo, was sitting on his chair, absent minded and silent. But then he stood and started recitig the Gettysburg Address. Like a prayer. Everyone listened to him, moved. Maureen says it was the greatest single piece of acting she has ever seen.

The second occurred when England and France declared war on Germany. They had to shoot the scene when Quasimodo rings the bells for Esmeralda:

It was supposed to be an expression of the hunchback's love for her. But Laughton was so overcome with pain that the emotion of the scene swept him away. He began ringing the bells and then it grew into something that trascended the film. He rang them with a ferocity that I had never seen in him before. The sound was almost deafening. Everybody, including Dieterly, was so overcome we all forgot we were shooting a scene. Dieterle forgot to call  "Cut'' when the scene ended, and Laughton kept ringing the bells until he collapsed from exhaustion.

Afterward. I went to see him in his tent. "Charles, are you all right?" I asked. "It just took me over, Maureen" he replied. "I couldn't even think of Esmeralda up there at all. I could only think of the poor people out there going to fight that bloody, bloody war. To arouse the world, to stop that terrible blutchery! Awake! Awake! That's all I could feel!

In many ways, the war helped Laughton's performance. It became his nexus. It was the voice which he could express the world's pain and suffering "

And Maureen O'Hara --Charles' protégée (he even wanted to adopt her)-- as Esmeralda brings a special light to the film. Dieterle's cameras captured forever this fresh new face, an eigtheen year old Irish girl making her first film in the States. I especially like the scenes in which she talks to Virgin Mary, when she gives water to Quasimodo and when she claims her innocence before the guilty monk. And after re-watching this I thought how great is that Maureen is still with us.

There are some parts in the story that I don't get though. At the end Quasimodo wants to save Esmeralda, the thieves want to save Esmeralda, her husband wants to save her, the Church wants to save her, the King wants to save her...but somehow they all end up confronting each other, instead of uniting against the noble men that want to execute her. As The Captain & Cool Hand Luke would say, what we have here is a failure to communicate :)

But there are more things to like about this film, like Harry Davenport as the The King, who was kind but still mixed goverment, religion and justice. Or Cedric Hardwicke as Frollo, the bad archdeacon (aka the guy with terrible hair cut), who makes his character detestable by working with his eyes when he is near Esmeralda, making you know all about his obscure thoughts. Just check the still. We could name it "My eyes are up here".

I'd like to end this post with a point that talks about human nature. When the people is jollilly watching the Hunchback being crowned king of fools, The King says: 

One shrinks from the ugly, yet wants to look at it. There's a devilish fascination in it. We extract pleasure from horror. 

And I think that's part of us. What makes show business and TV channels and newspapers covering stories of 'celebrities' and people that voluntarily expose themselves so succesful. What makes news channels give the most shocking news first. Maybe we're still a crowd laughing at a human being, finding some kind of wicked entertainment in others' misfortunes and lack of judgement.

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• This entry is part of the CMBA Movies of 1939 Blogathon, hosted by Page and Becky. Check wonderful reviews of the other many great movies released that year, here.
• This film is available on Amazon ($5.49)
  
• You can check my review of Maureen O'Hara's autobiography here. I've also reviewed a bunch of her films including the great This Land is Mine also with Charles Laughton;  The Parent Trap, The Black Swan & Only the lonely. I also included her in my list of performers that should have won an Oscar.
• Remember that you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook :)

ClassicMovieRIMF #3: Only the lonely (1991)

Yesterday I saw this film because Maureen O'Hara mentioned that she found it had a great script and she loved working with John Candy, Anthony Quinn and director Chris Columbus (yes, the one from Home Alone and Harry Potter).

It was a minor comedy, with some flaws, but I enjoyed it and laugh out loud many times. Maureen plays the crazy and overprotective old (Irish) mother of a cop who wants to marry an introverted Sicilian girl (I really don't know anything about these kind of enmities between races, but it seems that Irish and Italians dislike each other). Maureen's role is a bit like the one Jane Fonda played more recently in (the mediocre) Monster-in-Law, a mother that's so possessive and so mean that is funny.

You know that to me is still very difficult to see Classic Actors in "recent" movies (Only the lonely is 20 years old already). Because the actor or actress is still there, but different, older. And then, in some second, they blink in a certain way, or smile, or whatever, and make you remember their younger self, and it's kind of sad. 

Life.

Well, too much blah blah, the Classic Movie Reference in this film is....The Call of the Wild (1935), starring Clark Gable and Loretta Young (I guess you know that they had a daughter but kept it secret). 

Watch the whole scene, it's cute. Oh, the Sicilian girl worked in a funerary:

Is it me or Clark Gable steals the scene even as a still frame?? 

 More ClassicMoviesRIMF :

• Mata Hari (1931) in Harriet The Spy (1996)
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and several classic actresses in S1mone (2002)

Book Review: "'Tis Herself" by Maureen O'Hara (and John Nicoletti)

Once my mom told me that she was impressed of Maureen's reaction in the documentary Directed by John Ford. She said that when Maureen was asked about the famous director, she cried, but she noticed that not only out of sadness but out of anger too. 

I had seen that documentary, and yes, her reaction wasn't normal. Now I know why. She cried out of a mixture of sadness and anger and nostalgia and powerlessness. Because John Ford was a man that was beyond the word complex. He was COMPLEX with capital letters, underlined and italic. His picture should illustrate the 'complex' entry in the dictionary. I know this because I finished 'Tis herself, the incredibly engaging autobiography by Maureen (FitzSimons) O'Hara, the great Irish actress with the read hair.

She and John Nicoletti managed to write a book that surprises you. Surprises you not only because the episodes they chose to include are were very well picked, but because you get to know Maureen herself. If you haven't read this book yet and you still picture her only as the fierce woman she played in most of her films, well you'll be shocked.

And you'll be shocked, because even when she doesn't fully admit it, men and life overpassed her. She had one failed marriage (if you can call that way the bond between a boy and a girl that said "yes, I do" and never see each other again), then another marriage that left only one good thing for her: her daughter. At this point, the image of Maureen the untouchable, the one you had seen in movies like Against all flags starts to succumb. And then her vulnerability strikes you.

This book contains one of the most violent episodes ever: her alcoholic second husband, the one that left their home and came back when he wanted, the one that hired prostitutes with her money because he didn't work, the same that decided to change houses every two minutes and pick every time a more expensive one, that same guy, drunk of course, kicks Maureen on her stomach. She was pregnant. Eight months pregnant. And then she continued living with him for years, before assuming that she was freaking scared of what he might do to their daughter.

So, you see, it wasn't very easy to read things like that. It wasn't easy either to read the difficult/marvelous times she lived with John Ford. Pappy, as she called him, allowed her to live some of her greatest moments as a performer, but also feel utterly miserable. According to Miss O'Hara, he was a man that could praise you one moment and the next make fun of you or call you a bitch in front of a crowd. He did the craziest things -- including campaigning against her winning the Oscar-- the kind of things that make you wonder if you're the only normal person living on Earth. But they adored each other. And they hated each other. They suffered.

Scan from the book. It contains many interesting pictures.

AND OF COURSE, there are hundreds of anecdotes and great stories about her life in Ireland with her wonderful family and her life in America, the movies she did and how she did them. You get to know a bit more about how things worked in Hollywood, for example, the way the studio forced her to take stupid roles (well, I knew that). You get to know a bit more about Classic actors and directors (want names? Well, right now come to my mind James Stewart, Natalie Wood, Linda Darnell, Lucille Ball, Errol Flynn, Alfred Hitchcock...). Charles Laughton and John Duke Wayne are the two she most talk of. The first, her mentor, the one who gave her her first film role, the one who wanted to adopt her; the second, of course, her pal and greatest friend. 

The Quiet Man has a full, amazingly interesting chapter (you read the ending the other day); and you also know more about the making of films like The Parent Trap and Miracle on 34th Street. I like the way she openly discusses every topic, from her sicknesses and fears to her suspicion that the love her life --her third husband pilot Charles Blair-- was murdered (I don't want to tell you about this, you need to read this book). I like the way she swears and how she makes fun of herself. I like the way Maureen O'Hara decided not to talk about her child or grandchildren. My only tiny, tiny complain is that at some points I would have a edited a bit more the text, because I felt that they repeated the same words in the same paragraph (yes, I know, I have some nerve...). End of the complain.

So, you see, I said that the image of the strong, untouchable Maureen starts to succumb when you read how much she was hurt by close people during her life. But it doesn't fully succumb. Because she was a brave woman that could face the American government and demand that her Irish heritage was acknowledge; she could face one of the most nasty gossip magazines and make them pay; she could be on a set and do her own dangerous stunts.

'Tis herself doesn't shatter her legendary cinematic image. Just makes this woman, who plans to live till she's 102, more human. And that fact, in Maureen O'Hara's case, is priceless.

 More Book Reviews  

• "Jean Arthur: The actress nobody knew" by John Oller 
• "My Wicked, wicked ways" by Errol Flynn  
• "Chasing Carole" by Barbara Washburn

The Maureen O'Hara Week

I know, it sounds pretty official, but I'm just calling that way the fact that the past week I saw seven movies from the Irish red-head filmography. I usually do that when I'm reading bio/autobiographies of actors or actresses. Here are some brief thoughts about them:

• "Against all flags" (George Sherman; 1952): Awesome pirate film! Errol Flynn and Maureen look great together and they ooze energy and chemistry. Combines humor, romance and action and it was filmed in Technicolor. Loved the costumes. My favorite scene:

• Re-watched "The quiet man" (John Ford; 1952): What can I say? "Impetuous! Homeric!". I know you all love it, so I won't say much about it. Instead, I'm going to tell you a story. The other day I said to myself "If the first cover I see in the next DVD store's showcase is The Quiet Man, I'll buy it". Well, I bought it :)

• "Sitting Pretty" (Walter Lang; 1948): I loved, loved this movie. It's a funny little film, starring Clifton Webb and Robert Young. Maureen and Robert decide that they just can't cope with her children anymore, so they hire a nanny. The problem is that the new nanny is a strict man with mysterious hobbies. The only thing I didn't like is that Robert's character, the dad, was kind of annoying: because he's jealous of Mr. Beldevere, he prefers to send Maureen to sleep in another house, leaving his little children alone with a "stranger". Oh, discovered over Sarah's blog that there's a series about the same character. 

The parent trap (1961): what a charming film!!

Sorry I haven't written lately. On the life part of the blog, uhm, I finished watching the first two seasons of a really funny (modern) series, Parks and Recreation, starring Amy Poehler. It's hilarious! Also, I've been enjoying lots of great Australian Open tennis matches (my favorite sport by far, any other fan out there?). Oh, I bought an ukulele because I though it would be easier to play than a guitar, and it wasn't. I've been listening to genius Glenn Miller and even saw his biopic, The Glenn Miller Story, starring James Stewart and June Allyson. Went to see a play and it was kind of funny, but very basic. Also, I reached page 274 in Errol Flynn's entertaining autobiography, My Wicked Wicked Ways; I'll review it soon. End of the report--

Also, on Saturday I watched for the first time the original The Parent Trap with Hayley Mills and Maureen O'Hara. OMG, I loved it! I had seen the one with Lindsay Lohan and Natasha Richardson several times and liked it. But the old one is way better, so entertaining and charming. Hayley, just as in The Trouble with Angels, is super awesome as the twin sisters that want to bring together their divorced parents.

I'm trying to figure out what makes Hayley be so effective in these kind of movies, what made her a super Disney star. Cool British accent, looked innocent but seemed always be thinking in her next prank, the screenwriters gave her witty lines in most of her films so you wish you could behave and talk like her, and most of all, she always seemed to be having a great, summery, colorful, time.

Maureen O'Hara is really funny as her mom and looks beautiful. Starts being all serious, but then she loosens up and the real fun begins: clever remarks against her ex husband's fiancée, punches in the eye with Irish wilderness, being cute with a priest to have him on her side, wearing her ex's robe, etc.

I hadn't seen Brian Keith before, but my mom said she knew him from some series, I don't know which one. He's great as the dad too and he had great chemistry with Maureen. My favorite part is when one of the Hayley Mills wants to tell him the truth about the twins mix up, but he thinks that she wants to talk about sex, which becomes a really awkward and terribly funny scene (click to watch it). LOL.

Another thing that stand out is that Una Merkel is on it! I don't care if she has like 5 lines as Verbena, the housekeeper, but it was great to see her again. Oh, the dad's girlfriend from this movie had really bad hairdo so you kind felt sorry for her. The actress that played the part, Joanna Barnes, also appears in the new version as the mom of her former character. 

So, I had a blast watching this film, really. It has entertaining summer camp scenes (they are always funny), awesome-non-distracting effects to show Hayley + Hayley, a lovely house near a lake that I wish I had, appealing performances and a great script. Plus a super catchy song, Let's get together, with which I leave you.

 Youtube Alert : This film is available to watch online.