As part of this year’s Valentines Day celebration, how about screening a few of the great classic romance films?
Since filmmaking began, movie studios and independent filmmakers across the world have been promoting romance!
So many viewers sit at theaters or at home on the sofa watching a movie as part of date night, that it makes sense that love stories are popular entertainment. For the past forty years or more, with home video and streaming, the choices for experiencing onscreen love are almost endless.
Considering my own favorite romance films and those of friends who also love the classics, it’s amazing that among these favorites are a few movies belonging to the broken heart genre. The endings are unhappy, unfulfilled, yet we adore these films because their love stories are deep and heartfelt.
Three of the most popular films with unhappy endings are Brief Encounter, Brokeback Mountain, and even Casablanca.
Brief Encounter is a British drama from 1945, based on the one-act play Still Life by the great Noel Coward, and directed by David Lean. Characters played by Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard meet by chance at a railway station. They are drawn to each other, continue meeting, and become secretly, deeply in love. Both are married and know in their hearts that they will not have a future together. It’s a tragic love. Brief Encounter is so popular and respected that it was named by 150 entertainment professionals the 12th best British film ever made, in the 2017 Time Out poll. My friend, movie maven Fred Guida, who loves the film as much as I do, has pointed out that it has been rereleased theatrically in Britain in a restored version to celebrate its 80th anniversary. Criterion has had it on its home viewing list for ages in the U.S.
Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee’s widely acclaimed film from 2005, deals with a “forbidden love” between two cowboys. They’re played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. The story covers their lives over several decades. Brokeback Mountain was so widely appreciated that it helped to bring queer cinema into the mainstream. If the symbolism of one of their shirts snuggled inside the other’s shirt doesn’t bring tears, well then… well then I don’t know what to say!
Casablanca’ is one of the most acclaimed, appreciated films ever to come from Hollywood. Its ending is well-known. But it is unconventional. The movie star male lead is supposed to walk off, fly off, with the female movie star lead. But not here. And yet Casablanca remains one of the most romantic films ever made. It’s a brilliant script, brilliantly acted by a cast including Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains and German emigres Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt. The 4K HD disc is incredible.
Calamity Jane, a musical film from 1953 starring Doris Day, makes an interesting Valentines Day choice. For years, critics and viewers have been discussing who Calam really loves. For the mainstream audiences of the fifties, the object of her affection clearly is Bill Hickok. Many now see her love as Katie, the woman with whom she resides. Is Calamity Jane a lesbian love story? The Oscar-winning song sung by Calam is kind of clue. She sings, “Once I had a secret love, that lived within the heart of me.” It’s one of the first films I ever saw; it’s still a favorite of mine. It’s a great pick for an upbeat Valentines Day screening.
If you want to see classic romance films with surefire happy endings and lots of laughs along the way, try the screwball genre of the 1930s. Trouble in Paradise, Bringing Up Baby, Design for Living, My Man Godfrey, Theodora Goes Wild, The Lady Eve, or The Philadelphia Story. All provide fun, happy endings, and witty screenplays in an atmosphere steaming with sexual attraction and deep and sincere love.
Happy Valentines Day!
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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