Friday, January 30, 2015

My 150 Favorite Movies - #43

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Irene Dunne stars as a small-town librarian/Sunday School teacher living with her maiden aunts in New England who is also the pseudonymous author of a racy best-selling novel. Melvyn Douglas is her book's big city illustrator. Complications ensue when he follows her home. Released just two years after the Hays Code, this screwball comedy is much more progressive than what was generally viewed of as wholesome fare at that time. Dunne's first comedy, of many, she earned herself an Academy Award nomination, and entered a new phase of her career.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

My 150 Favorite Movies - #44

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Two of my favorite actors, Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney, star in this romantic turn-of-the-last-century tale of a widow and a sea-captain's ghost, learning to live and/or haunt, as the case may be, peacably together in a seaside cottage off the English coast. Remade later as a television series starring Hope Lange, this much loved film (7.9 stars on IMDB!), remains a black-and-white classic. Also starring a very young Natalie Wood, and George Sanders, in another of a series of roles he did as a debonair heel. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Monday, January 05, 2015

My 150 Favorite Movies - #45

Mary Poppins (1964)

This was the movie that rocketed Julie Andrews to international stardom after having been cruelly overlooked for the part of Eliza Doolittle in the film version of  My Fair Lady.  Based on one of my all-time favorite children's books, by P.L. Travers,  Mary Poppins tells the story of a magical nanny who basically rescues single-handedly a London family around the turn of the last century. An eminently hummable score and a wonderful supporting cast, including Dick Van Dyke and Glynis Johns puts this movie into the must-see Classic category.