Movie Bliss: A Hopeless Romantic Seeks Movies to Love. Heidi Rice

a guy who’s always done the right thing for his friends and family. So when he fell in love with the girl next door, he married her and had four kids. When his father died, he took over the family business even though he didn’t really want to…. And when his uncle Billy mislaid thousands of dollars of the bank’s money, it’s George who’s set to take the fall.

      And in amongst all the good things he did, in amongst the happy times and the tough ones, George lost sight of his dreams. And so, when everything starts to collapse around him one Christmas Eve, George decides to take his own life. So far, so not so warm and fuzzy, I’m sure you’re thinking…but bear with me here. For as George is about to take a header into the town’s ice-filled river, up pops Clarence, a trainee angel to jump in first (yes, George is a bit miffed that he only warranted a trainee one, too). George, being George, saves Clarence before thinking about himself—giving Clarence the chance to get to work.

      So what does Clarence do? He comes up with the cunning idea of giving George a glimpse of what good ole Bedford Falls would have been like if he had never lived. Yup, you’ve guessed it, Clarence has basically ripped off his cunning plan from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and given it a clever twentieth-century twist.

      So George discovers that the brother he saved from drowning as a kid then died and never got the chance to grow up and become a war hero—and all the men he, in turn, saved also died. George finds his beloved wife, Mary, is a lonely spinster and doesn’t even recognise him. He runs home to find the derelict house they bought and rehabbed together is still a broken ruin. His kids don’t exist, and miserable old man Potter—the big, greedy, unethical banker who has always hated George and his savings and loan—has taken over the quaint, sweet little town and turned it into a garish, soulless, neon-lit strip mall. Yes, times are terrible in Bedford Falls without George. Everything he knows and loves is gone….

      So then all Clarence has to do is ask George if he really wishes he’d never lived. And the answer is a great big resounding no! Not just from George, but from everyone in the audience. And as George runs down the snowy Main Street and shouts merry Christmas to all those people and places he knows and loves (and who now know him, too), he’s got his mojo back (so to speak) and he, at last, realises that small dreams can actually be better than big dreams, especially if you know how to appreciate them.

      So what’s the moral of the story?

      Maybe it’s that we should all learn to cherish the little things? Maybe it’s that every life has value (even nasty old Mr Potter’s, who hasn’t got a single redeeming feature)? Maybe it’s simply that when the chips are down, you should look at what you’ve got, not what you haven’t? All good advice and all very heart-warming (especially if you’ve just been down a heaving Oxford Street in London’s West End trying to do all that last-minute Christmas shopping you should have done months ago).

      But what I love about this film, what never fails to send that delicious quiver of emotion down my spine, is the way it portrays George and Mary’s marriage, because at the end of the day, that relationship is the bedrock of George’s life. Mary’s a sweet, pretty, no-nonsense, and utterly competent and patient wife and mother. She adores George, but she also knows him, inside and out—his weaknesses as well as his strengths.

      And that makes theirs the perfect partnership.

      That doesn’t mean the kids don’t get on their nerves, or that they don’t get on each other’s nerves, but it does mean that they love each other, and that they’re willing to go that extra mile to make things work. George isn’t the only one who’s made sacrifices, he’s not the only one who’s had to work and struggle and keep things together when it would have been easier to let them slide. Of course, this being George’s story, we don’t see a lot of Mary’s struggles, but they’re there, especially when George loses it with her and the kids and then slams out of the family home—on his way to a date with the icy river and Clarence.

      And Mary’s the one who gets them their Happy Ever After in the end, because she tells all their friends and family of the trouble George is in. George being a bloke, of course, doesn’t think of that one (must be something to do with that old Y chromosome ‘asking for directions’ thingy). And so the whole town chips in to help with a few dollars here, a couple more dollars there—and in the end it really isn’t about the money, it’s about the love behind it. Cue another great big ahh.

      So, is George and Mary’s marriage a romantic fantasy?

      You betcha, but isn’t it one we can all aspire to? And isn’t that the same quality you love to unwrap in your favourite series romance? For me, the fast cars, the luxury homes, the designer wardrobe, even the glistening pecs, the awesome six-pack and the sex-god abilities between the sheets are just the sparkly tissue paper. It’s what’s underneath that counts—the good, strong, steady, dependable heart that’s beating just for you. That’s the real present, the gift you want that will keep on giving….

      All right, I’m getting a little carried away now, but you get my drift. Especially if you watch this film on Christmas Eve in front of your bauble-laden tree and a roaring fire with either friends, family or the love of your life—or even just your favourite series romance—snuggled by your side.

      On the Waterfront (1954): Brando in His Prime Does Bad Boys Proud

      Directed by Elia Kazan

      Starring:

      Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy

      Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle

      Karl Malden as Father Barry

      Lee J. Cobb as Johnny Friendly

      Rod Steiger as Charley Malloy

      A now-little-seen black-and-white social drama, Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg’s tale of labour relations on the New Jersey docks circa 1954 is not a romance, but it has at its centre a love story that is so real and so beautifully evoked in only a few scenes it‚s bound to tear at your heart. Plus it’s performed by surely the greatest film actor of all time in his prime (long before he became the size of a small semi-detached house) and an actress who is not only luminously lovely but also sadly underrated IMHO. The chemistry between them in this movie is raw and provocative and poignant and so powerful that their love story is as fresh and real now as it was over half a century ago. And those are just a few reasons why it is my favourite film of all time.

      Now, as it happens, it’s the love story in this movie that resonates so beautifully for me, so I’m going to dwell on that and not the rest of the movie—although that’s pretty spectacular, too. Anyone ever heard of Brando’s ‘I coulda been a contenda’ speech? That comes from this multi-Oscar-winner.

      So let’s do a quick plot recap. The setting is the New Jersey docks in the 1950s, where the longshoremen’s union is controlled by corrupt thug Johnny Friendly and his right-hand man, Charlie the Gent. Charlie’s younger brother Terry (a thirty-something has-been ex-boxer) has been inadvertently involved in the killing of Joey, one of the longshoremen who was threatening to ‘squeal’ to the crime commission. Terry feels bad about it, but that’s life on the docks. He’s not about to rat out his brother. Until he meets Joey’s distraught sister Edie….

      The drama that follows is about Terry’s battle with his conscience, and the harsh life of America’s dockworkers…. It’s social realism through and through, with a cast full of brilliant method actors, a wonderfully understated script by Budd Schulberg, and haunting black-and-white photography. But it’s the developing relationship between Edie and Terry that drives the story and is the heart and soul of the whole movie.

      Take their first meeting, when the rough and inarticulate Terry tugs on Edie’s glove and sits on a kids’ swing while chatting to her with offhand bravado about his miserable childhood—Edie responds with quiet class and what Terry sees as a kooky naiveté. But Edie’s attitude isn’t really naiveté at all— it’s the simple belief that if people are loved they can rise above their circumstances….

      Cut