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Random thought about romance

on Feb 11 2009 at 3:45 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized

I was watching a delightful, but surprisingly little known. WWII movie called The More the Merrier, which puts a romantic spin on the housing shortage that plagued Washington, D.C., during the war.  In it, a young woman (Jean Arthur) who has her own apartment, decides to act patriotically and let a room in her apartment.  Before she knows it, she has a meddlesome old man (Charles Coburn) and a handsome young soldier (Joel McCrea) living with her, and the fun begins.

About three quarters of the way through the movie, when she and McCrea have clearly fallen for each other, he gently tries to kiss her.  She equally gently pushes him away, conversing nervously.  In the work place, it would be sexual harassment.  In the context of a romance movie about two people obviously in love, it’s incredibly sexy.

Watching this scene — a scene having the prelude to sex, without the actual sex part — I was struck, as I always am when watching old movies, by the fact that focus on the tentative physical beginnings of romance is very sexy.  And I was reminded, yet again, that the graphic sex scenes in modern movies, rather than being sexy, are so often merely clinical or, worse, embarrassing.

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3 Responses to “Random thought about romance”

  1. on 11 Feb 2009 at 7:52 pm 1rockdalian

    If you have never watched The Best Years of Our Lives, made in 1946, you should .

    Three WWII veterans return home to small-town America to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed

    Directed by William Wyler and produced by Samuel Goldwyn.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036868/

    One of the least known stars, Harold Russell, is the only actor to win two Academy Awards for the same roll. You will have to watch the movie to discover why.

    To tie this in, a subplot has two characters fall in love. One is married. To watch the way the movie characters handle the situation, with clearly defined morals and values, makes me long for the day when characters drove the movie.

  2. on 11 Feb 2009 at 8:15 pm 2rockdalian

    Having come across this after my original post………. if I may be so bold,

    The Class Deficit
    by John Nolte

    Throughout the late thirties and early forties, Bette Davis was one of the biggest stars in the country. She was also one of the most powerful, fighting constantly with Jack Warner for better roles, script approval and control over her own career. No one told Bette Davis what to do.

    Here’s a “commercial” Davis chose to make at the height of her stardom while her country was at war, like we are now:

    http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/02/11/the-class-defecit/#more-48602

    I think class is the difference between Hollywood then and Hollywood as it exists now.

  3. on 18 Feb 2009 at 8:23 am 3Mike Devx

    Rock, you hit the nail on the head. It’s about the difference between loving this country for what it is, versus hating this country for what it is and loving only what it might become.

    (Which come to think of it, is a worthless statement – I could just as easily love Hezbollah for what it, er, *might* become. Or Russia, or its totalitarian dictator Putin. Or… anybody, or any thing! That’s just completely worthless. And facile. And an abdication of taking responsibility; a complete cop-out.)

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