This being Thursday, it's normally time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week the theme is "Meet Cute", which focuses on the circumstances under which a couple first meet, especially if it's something out of the ordinary. The term "cute" implies something light-hearted, so I went in that direction -- at least for two of my selections:
The Major and the Minor (1942). Ginger Rogers plays the "minor", a woman who, in order to travel home on the train, disguises herself as a 12-year-old in order to get the child fare since she doesn't have the money for the adult fare. On the train, the "Major", Ray Milland, meets her. The could fall in love if only Ginger Rogers were an adult....
The Tender Trap (1955). Frank Sinatra plays a New York theatrical agent with a string of girlfriends who meets Debbie Reynolds at an audition. She's obnoxiously pushy and has decided ideas on the arc of her life and even though Ol' Blue Eyes is a confirmed bachelor, he winds up falling in love with Reynolds anyway. I find Reynolds' character too obnoxious, but the sets, especially Frankie's fabulous bachelor pad, are great.
Badlands (1973). Teenaged Sissy Spacek meets adult garbageman Martin Sheen, and it's love at first sight. Except that Dad (Warren Oates) doesn't like him. Sheen for being much older. So Sheen shoots the father dead, burns the house down, and the two lovers run off for a life of crime. OK, maybe that's not so cute. But it's a well-acted movie.
Take a Girl Like You (1970)
5 hours ago
5 comments:
Badlands is such a good film (probably the only one I loved from Malick) and I'm glad someone picked it.
i enjoy watching The major and the Minor. I don't think it could be made nowadays nor could Margie. One day i will watch The tender Trap but I do find Debbie Reynolds too cute at times. I will have to see Badlands one day
The plot of Major and the Minor sounds like....something. lol I haven't seen any of your picks this week.
Good choices.
I love The Major and the Minor and Ginger almost pulls off the 12 year old bit. It works better since they have Pamela's sister (Diana Lynn is great in this) who is actually close to that age be the one who automatically see through her charade while the adults don't.
The Tender Trap is the only one of Debbie Reynolds's films where I find her hard to take. Her character is just so pushy and beyond irritating. It's not that her performance is bad but the woman she's assigned is completely off-putting.
Badlands is very dark to describe their meeting as "cute" but it's a riveting film and both Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek do excellent work.
I chose three by one of the top queens of romantic comedy...Doris Day.
Pillow Talk (1959)-Ultrachic interior designer Jan Morrow (Doris) and wolfish songwriter Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) battle over their shared party line without ever meeting. One night when Jan is enduring a bad unwanted date with a client’s drunken son at a nightclub Brad sees her dancing. Instantly attracted and knowing he’s poison to her if she hears his name he pretends to be Texas rancher Rex Stetson. Laying on the charm and aw shucks naiveté he sweeps Jan off her feet soon falling for her himself but when Jan’s other beau (and friend of Brad’s) Jonathan (Tony Randall) discovers the deception he hurries to let Jan know she’s being taken for a ride. Complications ensue but true love eventually wins the day.
The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)-Jennifer Nelson’s (Doris) father Axel (Arthur Godfrey) runs a tourist boat with a glass bottom off Catalina Island and to help business Jennifer swims underneath dressed as a mermaid complete with tale. One day Bruce Templeton (Rod Taylor) hooks her fin and they bicker until he returns her costume. Later she discovers he’s her new boss at her day job in a research lab, tensions and sparks continue to fly.
Lucky Me (1954)-Candy Williams (Doris) is a member of a cash strapped traveling vaudeville troupe stranded in Miami who are forced to work at a hotel when their leader Hap (Phil Silvers) tries to scam the place out of a lavish meal for them. Staying at the hotel is Broadway producer Dick Carson (Robert Cummings) working on his new show. The superstitious Candy goes for a walk one morning and in trying to avoid a black cat crossing her path jumps to the side causing Dick to smash his car into a wall while she walks on blithely unawares. Dick takes the car to a garage and the mechanic loans him the garage’s jalopy while he works on the car. Heading back to the hotel he again espies Candy now jumping along the sidewalk to avoid cracks and distracted he runs into a fire hydrant. Candy apologizes and takes him for a mechanic, he plays along which eventually leads to complications before love and Broadway success for all wraps things up.
I love Badlands. Sheen and Spacek are awesome in the roles of Kit and Holly. Malick asks some hard questions, without ever trying to answering them, and the film is all the better for it.
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