This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. We're in February, and since Valentine's Day is this coming Monday, it's unsurprising that February sees a series of romance-themed Thursday Movie Picks. This time, the theme is romance involving a famous person and someone who isn't famous. Now, this doesn't specify whether the famous person is a real person (eg. a biopic of someone who married an average person), or whether it only need be somebody who's famous in the context of the movie. I decided to go with the latter, and three movies in which the famous person is running away from something:
It Happened One Night (1934). A famous heiress (Claudette Colbert) runs away from her father (Walter Connolly) in Florida to try to elope with an adventurer. Dad makes it a national news story of finding his daughter, while a reporter (Clark Gable) who wants the story all for himself finds the heiress taking a bus and goes on the journey back to New York. Along the way, they fall in love, and she teaches him something about hitch-hiking. This wasn't the first screwball comedy, but it's the movie that really jump-started the genre.
Roman Holiday (1953). Audrey Hepburn plays a young adult princess on a state visit to Italy. Not liking her state duties, she runs away, but only after having been given a sedative, so she winds up in a drugged state when a reporter (Gregory Peck) finds her. He knows who she is and that he's got the story of his life on his hands, but as he and his photographer friend (Eddie Albert) take her around Rome, he falls in love with her. Eventually, she's going to have to go back to her country's embassy. Will his dishonesty be found out?
Sullivan's Travels (1941). Joel McCrea plays Hollywood director John L. Sullivan, who wants to make socially relevant movies instead of light stuff like "Ants in Your Pants of 1938". He wants to see the real world undercover, but his entourage keeps following him until he's able to escape. He meets The Girl (Veronica Lake) and they fall in love, but get separated and, in a railyard accident where his ID is found in the sole of his shoe, he's presumed dead. Can he convince anybody of who he is and get back to Hollywood and The Girl?
4 comments:
Nice list and good to see Roman Holiday, totally forgot about that one! Really want to check these others out.
I almost chose Roman Holiday! Such a wonderful movie.
Excellent choices. The first 2 came into my head right away but I had chosen them before so I didn't use them again...maybe later. I love that scene with her hitchhiking but I also love the one on the bus. Roman Holiday seemed made for Audrey and thank goodness for Gregory peck to want to share her name with him...above the title. She fits this role perfectly and it is realistic in the end. I love Sullivan's Travels which is a great film and a perfect fit this week.
Roman Holiday is such a wonderful pick, I can't believe I didn't think of it myself!
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