I’m dedicating this February to counting down the 100 greatest love stories of all time. I’ll be posting five films every day, Monday through Friday.
Disclaimer: Any film list is fairly subjective, but I think putting together one person’s idea of romances or love stories might be the most subjective list of all. What one person considers powerful, another considers depressing; what someone thinks is sigh-inducingly romantic, someone else thinks is tooth-decayingly sappy. Any interesting list is bound to create comment and controversy and that’s okay. This is my personal list of 100 films. I picked them from a larger list of 300 movies. Once I have completed the top 100, I’ll post the entire list of 300. Perhaps one of your favorites that didn’t make the final cut was there…or maybe not.
15. Out of Africa (1985): This life of Karen Blixen, or as she’s better known Isak Dinesen, taught me to truly value the word “storyteller.” Coming from a culture that has a long oral tradition, I think that to call someone a good storyteller is one of the highest compliments. One of my favorite scenes in this film, therefore, is when Karen spends the night telling Denys Finch-Hatton and Barkeley Cole a story that she made up using a few prompts that Denys threw out. Karen’s writing is wonderful, which is a legacy that I enjoyed after watching and loving this film. The relationship between Karen and Denys is powerful but quite complex. Neither of them were easy people, but with the help of Sydney Pollack’s direction and John Barry’s beautiful score, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford help us to understand Karen and Denys a little and appreciate them even more.
14. Ball of Fire (1942): This film is Billy Wilder’s homage to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Barbara Stanwyck plays Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer who takes refuge with seven isolated professors working on an encyclopedia. Gary Cooper plays Bertram Potts, the youngest of the professors. He is first drawn to Sugarpuss because of her colorful language, but sparks soon fly. This is a sweet, funny romantic comedy. Barbara Stanwyck is glorious as a woman hoist on her own petard. The other professors are played by some of the best character actors in the business and they are expert in stealing scenes. If you’ve only known Stanwyck as a femme fatale, be sure to check her out here and in The Lady Eve. She is wonderful in comedies.
13. Spellbound (1945): Ingrid Bergman seems to have inspired romantic impulses in Alfred Hitchcock because he made two of his most romantic with her: Spellbound and Notorious. Spellbound teams her with Gregory Peck. Peck has lost his memory and may or may not be a murderer. Bergman is a psychiatrist who works with Peck to regain his memory. She famously interprets one of his dreams, a sequence which was designed by Salvador Dali. As is usual in a Hitchcock picture, the score is also quite memorable, with one of Miklos Rosza’s best.
12. The English Patient (1996): Detractors of this film think it long and boring. I find it hypnotic and beautiful. Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott-Thomas are quite good as the doomed lovers at the center of the story, but Juliette Binoche and Naveen Andrews are also charming as the second romantic couple, Hana and Kip. Colin Firth went through a period of playing the other man, but his Geoffrey is the most sympathetic of these. John Seale’s cinematography is lyric – the opening shot of the plane flying over the desert is pure visual poetry. Gabriel Yared’s score is the perfect accompaniment.
11. The Awful Truth (1937): There are certain films that define the screwball comedy: It Happened One Night and Bringing Up Baby certainly come to mind. This is one of those movies as well. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne spark off each other as the wittiest, most urbane of divorced couples. Their banter and their antics are irresistible as they make themselves laugh just as much as they make us.
