Thursday Movie Picks-Second Chance Love

 

I have never had a second chance at love with the same person which is what, I think, Wandering Through The Shelves, was thinking about with this week's theme. I have had a second...and 3rd chance at love but with different men and the last is the best. He is my peaches and cream even when I wish I had a cream pie I could throw at him. I know there are, probably, many films out there about people who get a second chance but I had a tough time to come up with them. Anyhoo, here are my 3...+1:))

1. THE LADY EVE-1941

I chose this one last year but it fits for this theme too so, why not. Henry Fonda plays a naive (ha!) man who spent a year in the amazon looking for snakes or something like that. He happens to be rich as well and every woman on the boat is looking at him but only one knows how to steal his heart, good ole Barbara Stanwyck. The problem is that she and her dad, nicely played by Charles Coburn, are grifters wanting to con the poor schmuck out of his money. She ends up falling in love with him but, when he finds out who she truly is, he dumps her like a sack of wet cement. This gal does not take this lightly and sets about screwing with his brain(and that's it, remember it's 1941 and the censors are on big alert) by posing as Lady Eve to make him fall for her all over again. A great screwball comedy directed by the equally great, and often forgotten, Preston Sturges. A film worth seeing. 

2. LYDIA-1941

I really like this unknown gem because it is about love and how the men all come to visit Lydia when they are now old and dried up like prunes..just kidding (am I?). Poor Lydia is a prune herself but we get to learn all about this beautiful lass, played by Merle Oberon, as she meets the main men in her life who are all good men but, although she cares for them deeply, she only ever loved one but did he truly love her. This is quite a good film and more mature given the time. How love can be so fickle.

3. LOVE AMONG THE RUINS-1975

I haven't seen this film in decades, probably since I was 11 yrs old which is when this TV movie came out. This is when the regular TV channels had some great movies. This stars Katherine Hepburn, Lawrence Olivier and it was directed by George Cukor about a famous actress who is being sued by her, very much younger, fiance because she decided not to marry him. She hired one of the best lawyers forgetting that they, too, were once lovers when they were much younger. He has not forgotten but she has. It's a very nice movie that deals with love in a more mature way than what we often see now because most love movies are with people in their 20s. John Barry composed the score to this as well. I mention him because he composed 2 scores I spoke about in my post the day before. 

Bonus...

4. MCLINTOCK-1963

This is an excellent Western comedy starring the great John Wayne as George McLintock anxiously awaiting the train that is bringing his daughter (played by Stephanie Powers) to visit him. What he does not know is that his long-separated wife is also on the train. The whole town is aware of their volatile marriage and her grandiose, snooty way of living and all wish McLintock would bring her down a peg or 2. What they don't know is that he could use it as well and she is the only one to do it. There are many funny scenes especially the one in the mud where many of them took a steep slide down into this very, very cold mud. The stars, both Wayne and O'Hara both did their own stunts including the last big fight scene between them when O'Hara lands in a horse's trough. Today, people will be aghast at the hairbrush to butt sequence but, personally, she deserved it...the character not the actress who did get the brunt of the brush but was all in for the reality. I would never take that for real but, this is a movie and it is not to be taken seriously. I would even say it is like a screwball comedy western. 

Which films can you think up?