Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday

Paramount

September 2, 1953

Romcom

DVD
C+

The only other time I saw this was almost 40 years ago in a Latin class, where most of the students were bored but I was already a vintage-film fan.  This time, well, it's a bit creepy, and 37-year-old Gregory Peck seems much too old for 24-year-old Audrey Hepburn, because of their different images.  (There's a similar problem in Sabrina from the following year, although Bogie at 54, and a couple years from death, really was too old for her.)  I watched the whole thing but would've give a C if the "happy ending" was the main couple getting together.  Still, Hepburn remains luminous and Rome is Rome, so yeah, it's watchable.  Plus, Eddie Green Acres Albert as a bearded proto-beatnik photographer named Irving is worth something.

Blacklisted Dalton Trumbo wrote under a pseudonym, while William Wyler directed.

Miracle of the White Stallions

Miracle of the White Stallions

Disney

March 29, 1963

Historical Drama

DVD
D+

The horses are pretty but Robert Taylor is wooden, the story not that interesting.  This is based on the book The Dancing White Horses of Vienna by Alois Podhajsky.  Arthur Hiller directed seven years before Love Story, a much more famous adaptation.

Meet Me After the Show

Meet Me After the Show

Twentieth-Century Fox

August 15, 1951

Musical, Comedy, Romance

DVD
B+

This movie is both satisfyingly tropy and full of wacky surprises.  Grable is an utter delight, but everyone else throws themselves into it, even the one-line cop who tells Macdonald Carey (as Grable's jerkface husband) that he'll see him again soon.  The songs and dances are for the most part amazing, especially the proto-feminist "Betting on a Man."  One of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in ages, and surprisingly "modern" for a 70-year-old movie, like something from the later '50s or even '60s or '70s, from the slang ("chick," "dig") to the quasi-beatnik musclehead played by Rory Calhoun.  There's even a number (the one about "Joe") that anticipates Julie Brown's "Big and Stupid."  This is one of the few movies in this project I'd actually buy, although the DVD I watched is woefully lacking in extras.

Richard Sale directed and co-wrote.  And, yes, Gwen Verdon plays a character named Sappho!