Monday, February 01, 2016
Couples that perhaps should not end up together.
This will also function as tomorrow's forgotten movie. I post it today because the film is on TCM at 9:30 am tomorrow (2/2) if anyone wants to see it.
I saw DEAR HEART a few weeks ago and I found it to be an unusual movie in many respects. Made in 1964 it was about romantic hi-jinks at a postmaster's conference in New York. Geraldine Page was a postmaster (mistress) but Glen Ford was staying at the hotel as a greeting card salesman. When was the last time we made movies about people like this? There were many quirky things about the movie. I will leave them for you to discover if you care to watch it.
But (spoiler) when the film ends with Ford and Page getting together, I wanted to yell, "NO!" There is no way these two belong together. He is your standard issue early sixties guy-like the one he played in THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER. But Page is a romantic, a kook, a born spinster or at most, a mistress (and not just a postal one). No way is this going to work out.
Does this ever happen to you at the end of a book or movie. Maybe it was partially miscasting Ford or Page. Or maybe the trouble lay in the author's idea of what would make an interesting couple. But I knew they were headed for divorce court. I'd bet money on it.
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19 comments:
Hugh Grant and Julia ROberts in NOTTING HILL.
Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross at the end of THE GRADUATE. In American literature, Basil Ransom and Verena Tarrant in Henry James's THE BOSTONIANS.
I've no ideas of my own but agree with NOTTING HILL and GRADUATE.
I'm pretty conventional, and Lana is a wild child. so far so good. :)
Almost all of Henry James's work consists of at least one couple who definitely should not be married--and those who perhaps should be married are kept apart by forces beyond their control, usually of a financial nature.
Deb is absolutely correct about couples in Henry James. The best examples are THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, WING OF THE DOVE, and THE GOLDEN BOWL..
Oh, definitely The Golden Bowl.
Knew I would get THE GRADUATE but the rest a surprise. The only James I have read are the short ones. Was James a misogynist or did he spread the blame evenly?
Henry Higgins and Eliza getting together at the end of My Fair Lady goes against Shaw's explicit ending to Pygmalion. The great couple who should come together - but which was only realised years later - were Rick and Captain Renault in Casablanca. David Thomson paired them together in his wonderful book Suspects.
Will have to look for Suspects!
I don't think James was a misogynist. In fact, I think he saw very clearly that the women of his era and class had to live full-time with a cognitive dissonance: they had to act a certain way to attract a man of means but also had to act as if they weren't acting. James saw that these women were underutilized intellectually and in order to maintain their place in life (the only place they knew) they had to marry into wealth. One of the reasons I love Henry James is because of his ability to show how exhausting such a life must be.
Laughing at the last two. Beautiful friendship, indeed. Also laughing at Ford and Page. Page, just from her hairdo and the way she's tilting her head in the photo, tells me she's exactly as you described her, Patti. And Ford--I'll never see him the same again without thinking of Police Chief "Cliffie" in Ed Gorman's Sam McCain series.
Just now read Deb's insightful comment. Made me stop laughing and induced my jaw to drop in admiration.
Yes, taking an impression of a actor into a movie can impede its success. Page was a very well thought of actress but very mannered and Ford was not. She did a lot of Tennessee Williams and ended her career on THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. I remember her most with Paul Newman in SUMMER AND SMOKE ( I think? ) Will go check.
Nope that was Laurence Harvey. Paul Newman was SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH.
I just thought of one. Joe E. Brown and Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT.
"Joe E. Brown and Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT."
Are they mismatches or perfect matches, though?
"Joe E. Brown and Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT."
Are they mismatches or perfect matches, though?
Re: mismatches or perfect match.
Well, I that's a tough call. Would the relationship last or quickly end? Neither one is gay and how long would Lemmon's character want to live in drag?
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