Four Romance Movies With Very Different Plots

Title: The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
Director: John Cromwell
Language: English
Rating: Not Rated

Oliver Bradford (Robert Young) is a WWII vet who suffered disfiguring injuries. Laura Pennington (Dorothy McGuire) works as a maid (and also has a strong talent for wood-carving art). Pretty much everyone dismisses her as plain. Oliver and Laura become friends and marry for companionship, but some time after their wedding they begin to perceive each other as beautiful, as if a transformation has come over their physical appearance.

There are a few things I like about this movie:

- Generally good acting, especially a touching performance from McGuire, showing Laura's kindness and profound sadness and loneliness, a burning desire to be loved combined with the torment of knowing that it's highly unlikely. Herbert Marshall also puts in a lovely appearance as a blind pianist (who lost his sight in the First World War), and Mildred Natwick is surprising as a housekeeper who could have been a creepy Mrs. Danvers type of figure, but instead is supportive of other people's love even though her own prospects for happiness were bitterly thwarted.

- The movie shows the perniciousness of pity – not just self-pity, but also treating another person as pitiable rather than helping them see what's good, blessed, and possible in their lives, and doing so in a way that isn't condescending.

- I also liked how the movie depicted the uneasiness around "ugly people." This uneasiness exists in the filmmakers themselves and in the audience. The two main characters are what can be called "Hollywood ugly." Oliver hardly looks like the Phantom of the Opera, and while Laura does look remarkably more plain in comparison to her physically transformed self, she still has a facial structure and figure for conventional beauty. In the romantic moments between the couple, we see them as they see each other – the loved one rendered physically beautiful. Would the audience have enjoyed watching them kiss passionately if they were both still shown in their plainer state?

Dancer Taking in Paris

Earlier this year, the Opéra National de Paris YouTube channel posted short videos directed by Benjamin Millepied. They feature different dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet. This one focuses on Dorothée Gilbert and, all around her, Paris.

Where is the boy going in Les quatre cents coups (1959)?

Title: The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups)
Director: François Truffaut
Language: French
Rating: Unrated

At the heart of this beautiful movie is a boy who's unloved. Antoine Doniel's mother tolerates him, or tries to. His father is friendly with him, but they don't have a close relationship. At school, Antoine repeatedly gets in trouble. The one bright spot in his life is his friend, René, who seems a light and friendly spirit, out for some adventure.

The movie isn't melodramatic. It isn't always sad. For a boy of Antoine's age, there are pleasures and fun pranks. He can try to strike out on his own. During one part of the movie, he's staying with René without his parents or René's parents knowing; he's just dropped off the grid. He's walking a fine line between the pleasurable part of running away from home, the childish fantasy of it, and the darker side of it. Who at home cares that he's gone?

In the movie, there's a funny scene where a group of boys jog through the streets of Paris behind their gym teacher, and then in twos and threes they peel away, until the man is basically jogging on this own. That's the playful side of escaping authority. The movie also shows the dark and more desperate side of it. Antoine's truancy eventually leads to petty crime and lands him in a juvenile correctional facility. At one point, during an outdoor sports game, he flees. He's heading for the sea, which he's never seen. But once he's there on the beach, where else is there to go? Once you've reached the limits of yourself, what comes next? The sea no longer represents escape; it's another barrier.

Antoine can't run away from himself. All of his problems are seeded in him. He's long taken into himself the knowledge that he's unloved and unwanted, and he carries it everywhere. What can he make of himself when he has all of this in him? He doesn't need to think about it or talk about it for it to be there. The authorities offer him nothing. Whether it's the police or a psychiatrist or a teacher, they set up pens to put people in. What Antoine carries in him doesn't change, and what he longs for doesn't materialize.

At different points, he tries to take from other people to make himself free and whole, to reinvent himself perhaps or start over. He plagiarizes a paper from a famous writer and steals a typewriter to pawn off for cash. His experiences blur the lines between childhood and adulthood. If only he were an adult, that would mean freedom, because for most of the movie he hangs onto his optimism about adulthood as a liberating force. But take a look at the adults around him. In what sense are they wise or self-sufficient or free? He's running from them too and what they represent.

The movie starts with the camera prowling the streets of Paris. In the shots, The Eiffel Tower is always obstructed or glimpsed from strange angles. There is, from the start, a feeling of hunger. The camera keeps going down one street after another, but where is there to go? After he reaches the sea, Antoine has an expression on his face that says, among other things, "Is this it?"

Worth Watching: Midnight (1939)

Title: Midnight
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Language: English
Rating: Not rated

Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert) is a quick-thinking American gold-digger who arrives in Paris on a rainy night, penniless but wearing an evening gown. She's picked up at the train station by a gruff taxi driver, Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), and the two drive around the city and stop to have some food.


Though they're attracted to each other, Eve can't imagine getting involved with a taxi driver, so she flees his cab and crashes a late night recital attended by upper class notables including George Flammarion (John Barrymore), his wife, Helene (Mary Astor), and his wife's lover, Jacques Picot (Francis Lederer). Eve passes herself off as a noblewoman, and the only one who sees through her guise is George, who offers her money to break up his wife's affair by luring Jacques away. So Eve finds herself in a dilemma - should she marry Jacques, the wealthy playboy, or tenacious Tibor, who's been searching for her ever since she disappeared from his cab?


Colbert is charming and funny, and gives her character a hard edge too, as Eve tries to focus on the intrigue she's involved in and not get sentimental about anyone. The filmmakers seem determined that she and Tibor get together, but there are moments of troubled reflection on her part. Eve tells Tibor that her parents' marriage soured over money issues. And she can't imagine keeping house all day long as Tibor drives around in his taxi. Their conflicting outlooks on life are a real issue, but because this is a light-hearted comedy any concerns are swept away. They'll have their happily ever after even if it kills them.

The ending wasn't as funny as I'd hoped it would be (some parts of it made me cringe). You know how I wish the movie would have ended? With Eve and George teaming up as con artists and infiltrating royal palaces and embassies across Europe. I really liked the dynamic between Colbert and John Barrymore as co-conspirators.


Barrymore's performance in Midnight is deranged. The gears in his head are whirring a few seconds out of sync with everyone else's. He comes across as bored, rich, and off his rocker. In short, he's delightful.


He and Colbert are the highlights of this movie (along with Rex O'Malley playing Marcel, Helene's witty and effete confidant). The dialogue is funny, the characters play off of each other well, and even though Tibor and Eve's romance was problematic and didn't move me much, at least the comedy side in this comedy-romance was entertaining.

*All images link back to their source (Flixster Community).

Worth Watching: Victor Victoria (1982)

Title: Victor Victoria
Director: Blake Edwards
Language: English
Rating: PG

It's 1934, and the scene is Paris. Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is an out-of-work soprano who can hit fearsomely high notes. She meets Toddy (Robert Preston), a self-described "old queen" and out-of-work cabaret singer. He has an idea to help her break into the Parisian nightclub scene: she'll pass herself off as a female impersonator named Victor. Everyone will think she's a man who's really good at looking and singing like a woman. Other than Toddy, no one will know that she's a real woman.

C'est magnifique

Le Flâneur (music by The XX) from Luke Shepard on Vimeo.

Check out Paris in 2000 images at National Geographic Traveler for an interview with Luke Shepard about this project.

A photographer strolling through a city can be thought of as le flâneur: an observer, someone perceptive, thoughtful, attuned to broader patterns and smaller exquisite details, mapping out the city on foot.