Monday was Groundhog Day, the quirky winter holiday that’s also synonymous with Bill Murray, timeloops and Sonny and Cher. In honour of Phil Connors’ endlessly repeating day, here are a few films which prove just how much can happen in twenty four hours. On the Town (1949) “There’s just one thing necessary in Manhattan/ When […]
A New York Story: ‘The Clock’ (1945)
Another hundred people just got off of the train And came up through the ground, While another hundred people just got off of the bus And are looking around – ‘Another Hundred People’, Company, Stephen Sondheim The Clock is a New York story, even though the actors never set foot there. Practically everything, from Penn […]
Bread and Circuses: ‘Ben-Hur’ (1925)
No, not that Ben-Hur– the other one. Three decades before MGM’s mighty, Technicolor sword-and-sandal epic starring Charlton Heston, there was MGM’s mighty, black-and-white sword-and-sandal epic starring Ramon Novarro. Both are adaptations of the same novel, Lew Wallace’s 1880 best-seller Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ and, naturally, feature the most magnificent chariot races ever committed […]
Love and Other Drugs: ‘Burton and Taylor’ (2013)
In the final scene of Burton and Taylor, the BBC’s recent television film about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the pair share a mournful tête-a-tête in Taylor’s dressing room. “We’re addicts Elizabeth, you and I,” he says. “Love is not a drug,” she counters, wearily. “Isn’t it? I don’t know,” he replies. Burton and Taylor […]
The Girl with Dark Eyes: ‘Portrait of Jennie’ (1948)
Portrait of Jennie is a dream. Or rather, it seems to spring from that narrow space between sleeping and waking, where the wisps of dreams still cling to you and blend seamlessly with reality. You don’t really watch this film; you drift along with it. Struggling artist Eben Adams (Joseph Cotten) is alone and lonely, […]
Love is for the Very Young: ‘Splendor in the Grass’ (1961)
A gushing waterfall. Teenagers kiss, the torrent of their adolescent passion barely held in check. Abandon all hope of subtlety, all ye who watch this movie. Deanie Loomis (Natalie Wood) and Bud Stamper (Warren Beatty, in his screen debut) are high school sweethearts living in claustrophobic small-town Kansas in the late 1920s. It’s the sort […]
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!: Journalism at the Movies
Late nights, fast talking and even faster typing. To celebrate me making it through my first month of journalism school, here is a fleeting look at the fourth estate on film. His Girl Friday (1940) The gold standard of newspaper comedies. Wily editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) is horrified when his star reporter and ex-wife, […]
All About Charlotte: ‘Now, Voyager’ (1942)
The untold want by life and land ne’er granted, Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find. -Walt Whitman My favourite shot of Bette Davis appears about a third of the way through Now, Voyager, when she steps out onto a ship’s gangway. The camera glides from her sleek heels to chic hat, its […]
The Education of an American: ‘Dodsworth’ (1936)
I’ve been doing things myself for a long time now, and I thought I’d give things a chance to do something to me. Dodsworth is a sensitive, superlative look at love, life and marriage. It’s also a neglected classic about an American abroad. After decades managing his automobile empire Samuel Dodsworth (Walter Huston) retires, setting […]