Stream Grown-Up Love Stories – Fantasies
I Married a Witch 1942 Based on The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith. Directed by Rene Clair. Totally nifty. Denounced by a relative, father and daughter witches, Daniel and Jennifer Wooley (Cecil Kellaway and Veronica Lake), are burned at the stake in Old Salem, their ashes sealed into a tree. Jennifer curses all Wooley male descendants to marry the wrong women. Centuries pass and the spell holds fast. In 1942, lightening splits the tree releasing them. Father and daughter discover relative Wallace Wooley (Frederic March), candidate for governor, is about to marry spoiled socialite Estelle Masterson (Susan Hayward) and resolve to make mischief.
They take over bodies and kind of blend in. When Jennifer proves unsuccessful at seducing Wallace, she brews a love potion, but through mishap, ends up drinking it herself. Father and daughter crash the wedding at cross purposes – now she loves the groom. Daniel gets too flamboyantly drunk to work magic (marvelous comic scene) and lands in jail. Estelle discovers her fiancé in a compromising position and cancels the marriage. Wallace has of course fallen for the witch.
A day before the election, Estelle’s father denounces his ex-son-in-law in his chain of newspapers. Jennifer’s conjuring both gets him elected and convinces Wallace she is, in fact, a witch. When Daniel tracks down the happy couple, he strips his daughter of her powers intending to put her back in the tree. Things don’t work out as he plans. March’s pre-production comment that Lake was “a brainless little blonde sexpot, void of any acting ability” didn’t make on the set relations smooth. Rent on Amazon Prime.
A Guy Named Joe 1943 Adapted from a story by Chandler Sprague and David Boehm. Directed by Victor Fleming. Pete Sandridge (Spencer Tracy) is a reckless ace pilot out of England in love with Women’s Airforce Service Pilot Dorinda Durston (Irene Dunne). When his commanding officer proposes reassignment to the U.S. as a flight instructor, Dorinda begs him to go. Pete agrees, but not before one last mission with buddy Al Yackey (Ward Bond). Though his crew and Yackey make it, Pete does not.
A year later, Pete is sent back from Heaven to pass on knowledge to Ted Randall (Van Johnson, in his first major role) whose commanding officer turns out to be Al. The new pilot falls in love with still grieving Dorinda. Despite sensing Pete’s presence, she slowly returns his feelings. Her ex grows jealous. Ted is given an extremely dangerous bombing assignment. Dorinda steals the plane and almost doesn’t make it but for Pete’s help.
Tracy and Fleming made Dunne’s life miserable until Johnson was in an accident and the studio wanted to replace him. In exchange for shutting down during his recovery, they promised to lay off the actress.
Remake: Always 1989 Directed by Steven Spielberg. Aerial fire fighting replaces the original WWII backdrop. With Holly Hunter, Richard Dreyfuss, John Goodman as Al and Audrey Hepburn as Hap, an angel. Engaging. Rent on Amazon Prime.
Stairway to Heaven/A Matter of Life and Death 1946 Directed by Michael Powell, Emerich Pressburger. When the plane of WWII Squadron Leader Peter Carter (David Niven) is badly hit, he orders the crew to bail out aware of his own faulty parachute. Just before jumping to certain death, he deeply connects with June (Kim Hunter) an American radio operator in London. Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) sent to escort Peter to Heaven, can’t find his quarry in the fog. The flyer survives and meets June cycling back from her night shift in tears. They fall in love.
Conductor 71 stops time to explain the situation to Peter who’s not about to go quietly. He’s granted an appeal with three days to prepare and must choose his lawyer from the dead. June’s sympathetic friend Doctor Reeves (Roger Livesey) diagnoses Peter’s visions as a brain issue and sets up an operation. He then dies in an accident. While on the operating table, the pilot chooses Reeves as his lawyer. We see moving stairs through the clouds and an endless amphitheatre representing celestial court. Only when June takes the stand (she’s asleep on earth) do things shift the couple’s way.
Good arguments. Visually imaginative. Extremely romantic. In 1945, the production used 29 sets, and cost an estimated £320,000, equivalent to £13,910,000 in 2019. Rent on Criterion.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir 1947 Based on the novel by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym R.A. Dick. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Utterly charming. Young widow Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney), daughter Anna, and housekeeper Martha (Edna Best) move into a seaside cottage haunted by a ghost. The rakish spirit of Sea Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison) appears to Lucy. It was his plan to turn Gull Cottage into a home for retired seamen and he doesn’t appreciate her presence. The headstrong woman won’t leave. Daniel can’t help but be intrigued and only shows himself to her.
When the widow runs out of money, Daniel suggests he dictate his memoirs to her. A life of great manly adventure, it’s related in salty language. (Harrison excels in the telling.) He and Lucy fall in love. Blood and Swash becomes a bestseller. One day in London, Lucy meets children’s book author Miles Farley (George Saunders) who courts her. To give her a chance at real life, Daniel plants in Lucy the idea that he’s just her imagination. Miles has a fatal flaw and Lucy becomes a recluse until…Wonderfully romantic. Rent on Amazon Prime.
Pandora and The Flying Dutchman 1951 Based on the legend of The Flying Dutchman. Directed by Albert Lewin. The Spanish port of Esperanza is occupied in part by a small circle of expatriates revolving around American nightclub singer Pandora Reynolds (Ava Gardner at her most beautiful). Inspiring love in all men, she feels nothing. One suitor (Marius Goring) commits suicide by drinking poison wine, another (Nigel Patrick) sends his fabulously expensive, prized racing car into the sea at her command. Later, she agrees to marry him for the gesture.
One night, a strange yacht appears anchored not far from shore. Pandora sheds all her clothes and swims out to it. Onboard, owner/captain Hendrick van der Zee (James Mason) is painting a portrait of her as namesake Pandora. She’s drawn to him. Hendrick becomes a separately orbiting part of the group, in particular friends with archeologist Geoffrey Fielding (Harold Warrender) who finds an old Dutch book with the legend of the Dutchman. In order to stop sailing, a woman must love him enough to give up her life and go along. When Pandora figures this out… Rent on Amazon Prime.
The Shape of Water 2017 Directed by Guillermo DelToro. 1962 Baltimore. Elisa Esposito (the incomparable Sally Hawkins) leads an orderly, quiet life. Mute and communicating by sign language, she works as cleaner at a secret government laboratory with occasional translation help by fellow cleaner/friend Zelda Fuller (Octavia Spencer). Elisa’s only other friend is a neighbor – reclusive, struggling illustrator Giles (Richard Jenkins).
An amphibian man (Doug Jones) captured in South America is locked in a tank at the facility. Elisa hears commotion and slips in “meeting” the creature for whom she feels great empathy. They secretly bond over hard boiled eggs and music during her lunch breaks. It hurts the young woman to see him badly mistreated. Violent, single-minded project head Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) wants to dissect him/it while head scientist Robert Hofstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Soviet spy, wants to keep the creature alive to study despite direct orders from Russian command.
Elisa panics and asks Giles for help to free the amphibian. Hofstetler overhears and offers to help. When she comes upon the plan in process, Zelda also takes part. The creature ends up in Elisa’s bathtub with care instructions from the scientist. Both the spy’s handlers and Strickland come after him. Elisa and the amphibian have loving sex, probably her first. She knows she has to release him back into the ocean, however. Strickland gets closer and closer until…
The creature himself is inspired. There are several detailed and poignant character portrayals. This won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. The film was primarily inspired by del Toro’s childhood memories of the film Creature From the Black Lagoon, wanting the Gill-man’s romance to succeed. Rent on Amazon Prime.
Opening Photo: Bigstock
