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Sarah and David: The Sequel

Waterloo Bridge (1940) [NR] ****

A film review by Derek Winnert.

Director Mervyn LeRoy’s 1940 vintage black and white MGM romance Waterloo Bridge is a sweet, tear-jerking winner, although it cries out for Technicolor when Joseph Ruttenberg shoots it in black and white. Though Vivien Leigh wanted Laurence Olivier and not Robert Taylor as her co-star (It’s a typical piece of miscasting… I am afraid it will be a dreary job), she later stated this was the favorite of her films. So did Taylor.

Universal Pictures had hired James Whale to film the controversial material about a woman forced into prostitution in WWI in 1931 as Waterloo Bridge, starring Mae Clarke and Douglass Montgomery, but were unable to re-release the movie after the US Production Code was enforced in July 1934.

But in 1939 the MGM studio bought the rights to the 1930 Robert E Sherwood play from Universal and a year later, in 1940, MGM remakes the story as a partly updated, topical one, with a carefully smoothed-out plot about a London ballet dancer and the English upper-crust officer who is smitten with her after meeting by chance on Waterloo Bridge during an air raid.

The movie unfolds in an extended flashback narration as the officer revisits Waterloo Bridge in WWII London on his way to fight to France and recalls himself as a young man in WWI and meeting Myra, whom he had planned to marry.

Vivien Leigh (in her follow-up to 1939’s Gone with the Wind) is appealingly sweet and vulnerable as Myra Lester, the young woman who is fired from her corps de ballet job as a ballerina and falls into street-walking prostitution, believing her fiancé to be dead. However, Robert Taylor (unable to conceal his American accent) is less impressive, merely handsome and dashing as the officer, Roy Cronin.

The material is just as soppy and outmoded as before, but the plush, sumptuous MGM production and Leigh are extremely attractive and beguiling. And the piece is sleekly crafted by director LeRoy and producer Sidney Franklin and their team, helping to make it a big hit in its day, taking nearly $3 million (it cost $1,164,000). Today’s audiences may view it more skeptically, but it is still a classic of its kind.

Also in the cast are Lucile Watson, Virginia Field, Maria Ouspenskaya, C Aubrey Smith, Steffi Duna, Janet Shaw, Janet Waldo, Virginia Carroll, Leda Nicova, Florence Baker, Margery Manning, Frances MacInerney, Eleanor Stewart, Jimmy Aubrey.

Waterloo Bridge was Oscar nominated for Best Music and Best Cinematography. It is probably the first Hollywood film to have WWII in its story. The screenplay is by S N Behrman, Hans Rameau and George Froeschel, and the music score is by Herbert Stothart.

A third film version of Sherwood’s play, Gaby, followed in 1956, with Leslie Caron and John Kerr.

Blogger's comment: I found the story a little less appealing knowing Myra had become a prostitute after having lost her position with the corps de ballet, because she had chosen love rather than duty and had missed a ballet performance. Also, she could have reached out to Roy's mother, who had tried to befriend her, but did not. Finally, the British military uniforms were not authentic at all. 

While Waterloo Bridge may have been the first WWII romantic drama, there have been countless others. Two that come to mind, and links to their blog reviews are:

The Very Thought of You (1944) Eleanor Parker, Dennis Morgan

Every Time We Say Goodbye (1986) Tom Hanks, Cristina Marsillach


Labels: drama, romance, WWII, tragedy
IMDb 77/100
MetaScore (critics=73, viewers=72)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=83, viewers=82)
Blu-ray

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As Time Goes By (TV, 1992-2005) [TV-PG] *****

Late in 1952, Lionel Hardcastle (Geoffrey Palmer) a young second lieutenant in training with the Middlesex Regiment meets nineteen-year-old nurse Jean Pargetter (Judi Dench). They spend three months together during which they fall in love, and then Lionel is posted to Korea. He writes to Jean immediately:

1st Battalion
The Middlesex Regiment
BFPO3
February 10th ‘53

My Darling Jean
England seems so far away
and I miss you terribly. This is
the first chance I have had to
send you my address here in
Korea.
Do write back straight away
my darling…

However, Lionel doesn’t receive a reply and he incorrectly assumes Jean wants to forget him. She never receives his letter and incorrectly assumes he wants to forget her. And so he never writes another letter to her and she never tries to find his address in Korea.

Thirty-eight years pass. Jean marries, has a daughter Judith (Moira Brooker), her husband passes away, and she opens a secretarial service Type For You. Lionel meanwhile has gone to Kenya and started a coffee plantation, married and divorced, sold the plantation and moved back to London.

He has written an autobiography about his years in Kenya, titled My Life in Kenya, however his publisher Alistair Deacon (Philip Bretherton) wants him to make some edits, so he contacts Jean’s secretarial service, and Judith, who works for her mother, becomes his secretary. He invites her out for dinner, goes to Jean’s Holland Park row house, where Judith lives with her mother, and meets Jean. They don’t recognize each other immediately but each one suspects who the other one is, and later, when they meet again in the lobby of Lionel’s hotel, it becomes clear, and they realize how young and proud and stupid they were, so long ago, when they each let the other one go.

Their story is a poignant, slightly bittersweet romantic comedy-drama about two former lovers who reunite after thirty-eight years, and try to determine if they can recapture their youthful passion and exuberance, or if it is too late. They understand that they have been given a second chance, but it is a new relationship they must create, based on their nearly forty years of life experience apart, and their bittersweet regrets of the years they missed. Their story echoes the wish many of us have later in life, that we could go back and experience again the passion and possessiveness of those first weeks and months of a love affair.

The cast is uniformly excellent, and the writing has the perfect blend of the comedy that finds itself in a variety of domestic and work-related situations, and the drama that accompanies the search for love, not only for Jean and Lionel, but for her daughter Judith, for his publisher Alistair, and for Sandy (Jenny Funnell) who begins as a young employee at the secretarial service and becomes a live-in member of the Pargetter-Hardcastle family, and, really, a second daughter to Jean and Lionel.

Labels: comedy, drama, romance, rom-com-faves
IMDb 83/100 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=tbd, viewers=tbd) 
DVD 
britbox 

The Last Rifleman (2024) [PG13] ****

A film review by Brian Orndorf for blu-ray.com on Nov. 6, 2024.

The Last Rifleman shares the same story as 2023’s The Great Escaper. In that picture, Michael Caine portrayed an elderly World War II veteran sneaking out of senior home captivity to participate in a ceremony recognizing the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The new film puts Pierce Brosnan in the role, handling old age makeup and general physical stiffness to portray the determined man, who’s bringing plenty of emotional baggage with him on the journey. The tales aren’t completely identical, but there’s enough similarity to inspect, yet The Last Rifleman is the more poignant endeavor, offering less time with travel experiences and more moments of guilt and pain hitting the main character as he embarks on an ambitious quest to reach France on his own.

Artie (Pierce Brosnan) is a 92-year-old man living in a senior care center, trying to remain attentive to his wife, Maggie (Stella McCusker), who’s fighting dementia. When Maggie passes away, Artie faces a host of memories, including time with his wife and Charlie, a dear friend from long ago. Discovering special letters in Maggie’s belongings, Artie decides to participate in an upcoming D-Day memorial service, requiring some quick thinking to get past the staff. Now out in the open world, Artie has to find his way to France, embarking on a series of travel adventures where he meets various people looking to help the military veteran reach his final destination. Juliette (Clemence Poesy) is part of this support chain, as the French mother is also dealing with troubles, responding to the older man’s quest to confront his past.

Artie can’t escape the horrors of war. It invades his dreams, returning to a time of confusion and tremendous fear in the British Army, surrounded by elements of violence as a new soldier. He’s no longer a young man, snapped back to his reality as a senior citizen facing an extensive list of medical needs, including management of his diabetes. Artie tries to be there for Maggie, comforting his wife of 68 years, but she remains in a fog, calling for Charlie when her husband hopes to reach some part of her mind. Maggie’s death inspires Artie’s actions in The Last Rifleman, left on his own to face issues rooted in his past, using the D-Day gathering to confront mistakes that aren’t immediately understood in the screenplay by Kevin Fitzpatrick. In fact, it takes a long time to reach a confrontation, with most of The Last Rifleman devoted to the journey to Normandy.

Travel isn’t easy for Artie, who’s frail but determined to reach his destination. Setbacks are common, as the character manages time on a train, a bus, and a truck, gradually making his way into France. The Last Rifleman details interactions along the way, including a young man who bonds with Artie over a shared love for composer Ennio Morricone. A truck driver is attentive to Artie’s diabetic behavior, and a longer stretch of screen time is devoted to Juliette, a Frenchwoman traveling home with her children. She helps Artie get past an expired passport and enter France, and the pair use their day together for confessional purposes, as the mother is processing medical issues. The Last Rifleman also explores life at the senior care center, where resident Tom (Ian McElhinney) contacts journalist Tony (Desmond Eastwood), informing the writer about Artie’s amazing mission, which soon becomes news across the country.

The Great Escaper was interested in comedic experiences. The Last Rifleman remains a softer, melancholy film, following Artie as he gets closer to the source of his anguish, also meeting an American soldier (the late John Amos, in his final role) who puts their shared service into perspective. There are more encounters to come for Artie, who eventually hitches a ride alongside ex-Nazis also trying to find sense in the war, making the philosophical line, living with ghosts, the dominant mood of the picture. The feature isn’t a tear-jerker, but something deeper when handling the true costs of combat and the stain of horrible mistakes. Brosnan gives a fine performance to help director Terry Loane, playing the strain of aging and the slow leak of communication as Artie starts to discuss his past with others. It’s the best work he’s done in some time, getting The Last Rifleman to a place of mournful reflection befitting an unusual (and partially true) story of closure. [Orndorfer's rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars]


Labels: drama, war, WWII 
IMDb 66/100 
MetaScore (critics=tbd, viewers=tbd) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=62, viewers=86) 
Brian Orndorfer review 

What Happens Later (2023) [R] ***

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Nov. 4, 2023.

What Happens Later represents Meg Ryan’s minimal-fanfare return to the genre that made her a star and that resulted in one of the most fertile female/female writer/actor partnerships in the history of filmmaking. With Nora Ephron providing the words, Ryan made her three classic rom-coms – When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail – during a 10-year period toward the end of the last century. Then, weary of typecasting, she opted for a starring role in the racy In the Cut, effectively ending her reign as America’s Sweetheart. It has been eight years since she last made a movie and double that since she was a regular fixture on the big screen. What Happens Later is an attempt not to reignite the rom-com, which has become a moribund genre trapped on streaming TV, but to argue that Ryan can still be a player some 25 years after she turned her back on it.

Although What Happens Later has fun gently referencing Ryan’s past filmography, it doesn’t overdo it. For example, her age-appropriate co-star (he’s 63, she’s on the cusp of 62 at the time of the movie’s release) is David Duchovny not Tom Hanks or Billy Crystal. Dour Duchovny, the ex-X Files star who spent an awful lot of time wallowing in the debauchery of Californication, is a nice counterpoint to the bubbly Ryan, who remains chipper as she transitions out of middle age. There is some chemistry between them but it comes in fits and starts and doesn’t start giving off any heat until late in the proceedings. There’s a lot of magic realism (notably in the form of an omniscient airport announcer who functions as a Greek Chorus) and Ryan’s character embraces it while Duchovny is skeptical (a flip from The X-Files where he was the believer).

The narrative unspools in the emptiest regional airport in the world during the height of a snowstorm that grounds most of the planes and chases all the passengers away. Past lovers Willa (Ryan) and Bill (Duchovny) haven’t seen each other in 25 years, when he walked out on her, but they are destined not only to reconnect but to work through a lot of ugly stuff as the storm rages outside. Now, they’re going in different directions – he’s a stockbroker headed to Austin and she’s a “wellness practitioner” en route to Boston. For him, it’s a trip. For her, it’s a journey. This is a Before Sunrise sojourn with a Before Midnight tone.

Although Ryan (who directed and co-wrote the screenplay) maintains a superficial rom-com veneer, there are darker issues at play. This isn’t all hearts and flowers, although it ends with one of the former. Most lighthearted romances are forward-looking, with the characters gazing into the future as the end credits arrive. What Happens Later, as the title implies, is more about looking to the past and confronting regrets. Life and love have a different taste when there are more years behind than ahead.

The film’s origins as a stage play (“Shooting Star” by Steven Dietz) are evident. There are no flashbacks, much of the action transpires in real time, there is only a single setting (the airport), and 85% of the film is dialogue. We learn the characters’ backstory through their conversations and come to understand that their breakup was in large part due to miscommunications. What Happens Later neither offers nor promises a “happily ever after” ending. And, although there are instances when the writing crackles and pops, it lacks the zing that Nora Ephron brought to Ryan’s best-known rom-coms. (The movie is dedicated to her.)

There are things that don’t work. The magical realism aspect is overdone. Having the airport announcer (voice provided by “Hal Liggett,” a pseudonym for an actor who is thus far uncredited) interfering in the action is an annoying contrivance and there are times when Willa’s hippie persona borders on a caricature. As if believing the material to be too dry, Ryan tries too hard to make it quirky and those instances, in contrast to the more grounded, believable moments, are when What Happens Later sputters.

Although nostalgia will undoubtedly be a reason for many viewers to give this movie a try, it’s only passingly similar to Ryan’s previous ventures into the genre. This is a more mature project, designed almost exclusively for a slice of older viewers. Like most rom-coms, it is comfort food although it lacks the fantasy element associated with characters who are less seasoned. [Berardinelli's rating: 3 stars out of 4]

Labels: comedy, romance

IMDb 48/100 

MetaScore (critics=59, viewers=42) 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=59, viewers=44) 

Blu-ray

Berardinelli's original review 

Here (2024) [PG-13] ***

 A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Nov. 1, 2024.

For a movie like Here, which eschews the norms of narrative filmmaking in favor of something experimental, the first question to ask is whether the story, stripped bare of the director’s approach, is worth telling. The second question is whether the decision to approach the movie in a nontraditional fashion adds anything to the production. Providing an answer to the first question is more difficult than the second. At its heart, Here is a fairly straightforward melodrama and its strength comes from the accessibility and relatability of the characters and their circumstances. Most of us will have known (or been) these people at various times during our lives. Certain moments have a poignancy that comes from the connections formed between on-screen characters and those watching in the audience. But the biggest problems with Here are the extraneous plot elements that bog down the basic story (in order to advance a theme about impermanence), the ill-advised chronological dysfunction favored by director Robert Zemeckis, and the awkward, distracting use of frames to provide transitions. Although these things don’t destroy the film, they reduce its overall impact and emotional resonance. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to become immersed in a movie when the director is constantly reminding us that it is a movie.

Berardinelli's full film review (2.5 stars out of 4)

Labels: drama, Tom Hanks
IMDb 63/100 
MetaScore (critics=39, viewers=48) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=44, viewers=68)