Vive l'amour!

[stoutfellow]

Shakespeare's Sister has a post up on the topic of "favorite romantic comedies". Some of the nominees are unknown to me; some are good, some bad, and some bizarre (Casablanca?). (All IMO, of course.) Inspired by this, I thought I'd use my own private soapbox to expound on the subject. Under the cut, then, are some of my favorites.

• 6. Ball of Fire (1941; Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper). When I was a kid, my family often watched "The Big Valley"; from this, I acquired an image of Barbara Stanwyck as Victoria Barkley, stern matriarch of the Barkley family. Ball of Fire came as a bit of a shock, featuring as it did a decades-younger Ms. Stanwyck. "Matriarch"... is not the word. ("Yowza" comes closer...) In the movie, bad-girl Stanwyck falls in with a team of academics, led by Cooper and engaged in writing an encyclopedia. (How could I resist that?) It's a bit dated, and at its best it's no more than fluff, but it's very entertaining fluff.


• 5. Sabrina (1954; Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart). I adore Audrey Hepburn, and the sight of stuffy businessman Bogie, trying to woo a woman quite a bit younger than he is, is hilarious. Holden is surprisingly good in a lightweight role, and the snobbish chauffeur is fun. Fluff, still, but good fluff.


• 4. Roman Holiday (1953; Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck). This one's just as funny as Sabrina, but meatier; both leads face ethical dilemmas, and handle them in fine style. Hepburn is a runaway princess; Peck, the freelance reporter who finds and hides her. (Yes, there's a resemblance to It Happened One Night, but there are substantive differences, and I honestly prefer this one.)


• 3. His Girl Friday (1940; Rosalind Russell, Cary Grant). This is a partial remake of The Front Page (1931), which is a great movie in its own right, but not a romantic comedy; HGF switches the gender of one of the leads of TFP. Russell and Grant are reporters; she is lured out of a planned retirement by one last (heh) juicy story. Hilarious, but not for the slow of ear.


• 2. The Lion in Winter (1968; Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole). This is a good deal blacker than the others on the list; Hepburn is the aging Eleanor of Aquitaine and O'Toole her estranged husband, Henry II. Kate's great, as always, with a terrifically acid tongue, but O'Toole actually outshines her from the very first scene. Romantic? Well, they're still, obviously, in love, no matter the needs of politics and power that drive them apart. Just a wonderful movie.


• 1. The Philadelphia Story (1940; Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant). This was designed as a vehicle to revive Kate's flagging career, and it succeeded. She wanted Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable to play the male leads - either way would have worked - but had to... settle... for Stewart and Grant. Hepburn plays socialite Tracy Lords, on the eve of her wedding; Grant is her ex-fiancé, and Stewart is (get this) a fast-talking Easterner, a reporter sent to cover the story. This one is my favorite comedy of all time, romantic or no.

So, what are your picks?

Comments

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

You have an -- interesting -- definition of a romantic comedy. I wouldn't include either Lion in Winter or Roman Holiday on a list of romantic comedies.

But then romance novels, which is the angle I'm coming from, by definition need what the industry calls an HEA (happily ever after) to qualify, so that's at least part of what I base it on.

And I like It Happened One Night better than Roman Holiday, any day [g]. Roman Holiday had a depressing ending.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll admit that The Lion in Winter is marginal at best, but I love it so...

I wouldn't call the ending of Roman Holiday depressing. I'm not sure I'd even call it sad. It was right that it end that way; for them to get together long-term would have been a betrayal, on her part if not on his. Even though it had to end, their romance was a good thing, making both of them better and, I think, long-term happier people. To me, that's a happy ending. Of sorts.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

To me it was just sad. She went back to her gilded cage, he lost her...

I like my romances to end with everybody paired off the way I expected them to be [g].