Movie Recommendations

• It Happened One Night, 1934, directed by Frank Capra, starring Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert.  A road picture, buddy flick, and romantic comedy all in one.  This Capra classic is punctuated by Clark Gable's wry grin and Claudette Colbert's amazing cheekbones.  The walls of Jericho never fell so hard.

• The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia deHavilland, Basil Rathbone, & Claude Rains.  This picture set the standard for the action-adventure genre.  Look for its legacy in the James Bond movies, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones.  Errol Flynn is cool enough even to overcome that goofy little moustache of his.

• Sullivan's Travels, 1941, directed by Preston Sturges, starring Joel McCrea & Veronica Lake.  Let this be your introduction to the wonderful films of Preston Sturges, a writer/director who made a dozen truly intelligent and hilarious comedies.  This film has a lot to say about art in general and film in particular, but it never ceases to entertain.  Sturges is Capra with attitude.

• And Then There Were None, 1945, directed by Rene Clair, starring Barry Fitzgerald & Walter Huston.  A spooky house on an isolated island, a group of strangers who arrive in a storm and one by one begin to die off, a haunting theme song which is the main clue to the identity of the murderer--who could ask for more?  This classic mystery with requisite twist ending is based upon Agatha Christie's novel, "Ten Little Indians."  You'll never guess whodunit.

• Adam's Rib, 1949, directed by George Cukor, starring Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn.  This battle of the sexes comedy is one of the smartest satires you'll ever see.  David Wayne almost steals the show with his slimy attempts to woo Hepburn from Tracy in her moment of weakness.  Between Philadelphia Story and Adam's Rib, this one crosses the finish line first--but only by a nose.

• In a Lonely Place, 1950, directed by Nicholas Ray, starring Humphrey Bogart & Gloria Grahame.  An odd little film noir experiment, this moody tragic love story is my favorite Bogart flick.  I never tire of Bogie's performance as the tortured, burned out, cynical screenwriter Dixon Steele who is surprised by love long after he thought it was possible. If you like this, you might also like its twisted cousin, Sunset Boulevard, which was also released in 1950.

• High Noon, 1952, directed by Fred Zinnemann, starring Gary Cooper & Grace Kelly.  For westerns, it was a toss up between this and the Gregory Peck movie, The Gunfighter, another great film about an aging warrior who tries to give up violence.  To those happy few of us who care about such things, for the classical unities of time, place, and action, you can't beat High Noon.  Pop quiz: Why does Coop drop his badge into the dust at the end of the picture?

• Rear Window, 1954, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart & Grace Kelly.  Jimmy Stewart plays an action photographer stuck in his sweltering NY apartment with a broken leg.  Bored, he takes to spying on his neighbors through his telephoto lens.  His nurse, Thelma Ritter, prophetically observes, "We've become a nation of Peeping Tom's."

• On the Waterfront, 1954, directed by Elia Kazan, starring Marlon Brando & Karl Malden.  At the center of this profound examination of mid-20th-century American morality shines one of the most heart-breaking performances by any film actor.  "I coulda been somebody!"  If you can peel your attention away from Marlon Brando, listen carefully to Karl Malden's "sermon on the dock" for a moving cinematic treatment of Martin Luther's theology of the cross.

• Some Like It Hot, 1959, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, & Jack Lemmon.  It's difficult to choose one Billy Wilder movie because they're all so great.  But this one's got self-parodying Chicago gangsters, cross-dressing jazz musicians, and the beautiful Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego as a backdrop--in short, it's got everything!  I've seen this movie almost as many times as I've seen Casablanca.