The Romance Lover’s Guide to Movie Must-Sees

If you adore Sleepless in Seattle and Pride and Prejudice and The Avengers, then you want a movie guide aimed at women like you. Women who enjoy romances and more! You like both a good kiss and a good knockout and refuse to be categorized—but you wish someone like you would recommend movies.

Which brings Mills & Boon author and professional movie critic Heidi Rice to the rescue. Whether it’s nonstop action with a little heart ’n’ soul, sweetly adorable cartoons, a classic black-and-white screwball comedy or that under-the-radar flick that you never knew you were missing, Heidi Rice will lead you through her must-sees and why you will also enjoy them. From Ryan Gosling’s six-pack to that iconic orgasm sandwich delivered by Meg Ryan, right up to the double whammy of hotties in Prisoners (Gyllenhaal and Jackman)—there’s a little something for everyone.

And a little something for that teenager inside you who’s ready to watch “nekkid” man-candy and spend two hours falling in love all over again….

Dedication

To my Mum and Dad—who love the movies almost as much as me, and loved each other even more. Xx

Movie Bliss: A Hopeless Romantic Seeks Movies to Love
Heidi Rice

Mills & Boon E POP!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Modern Tempted author and film journalist Heidi Rice indulges her inner chick-flick bitch with her take on some of the greatest romantic movies of all time, some movies which boast wonderful touchy-feely moments and a few others that you may never have heard of but will soon wish you had.

Whether you’re looking to have a fabulous Girls’ Night In, planning to drag your other half to a darkened cinema on a secret mission to ogle Ryan Gosling’s nekkid pecs, stuck indoors with bored children on a rainy day, or simply trying to cajole your teenage sons into watching something with a little heart and soul alongside the blood, sweat and firepower… Have no fear; Heidi is here to celebrate what women want in a great movie experience. So if it be Hugh’s sculpted abs gilded by campfire light, Rhett and Scarlett bickering their way through the American Civil War, Meryl cooking boeuf bourguignon (and Alec Baldwin) to within an inch of their lives or Bradley and Jennifer learning to tap-dance, badly, this is so the movie guide for you.

Table of Contents

1) Oldies That Are Awesome

It Happened One Night: A Hitch-hikers Guide to Screwball Romance

The Wizard of Oz: Because of the Wonderful Things It Does

It’s a Wonderful Life: How a Banker Steals My Heart Every Christmas

On the Waterfront: Brando in His Prime Does Bad Boys Proud

The Long, Hot Summer: When Paul Met Joanne…

The Apartment: Mad Men with Laughs

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968): How to Beat a Guy at Chess, Every Time

2) Cartoon Capers, but Not Just for Kids

Beauty and the Beast: A Tale That’s Old but Timeless

Pocahontas: Love on the Wild Frontier (and Mel Gibson Sings!)

The Princess and the Frog: It’s Not Easy Being Green on the Bayou

Up: And Away in My Beautiful Balloon House

Tangled: Rapunzel Has a Good Hair Day

Toy Story 3: For When You Wanna See Grown Men Cry

3) Rom-Coms R Us

When Harry Met Sally…: And Meg Ordered an Orgasm Sandwich

Pretty Woman: Confessions of a Streetwalking Shopaholic

Bridget Jones’s Diary: Pride and Prejudice with Really Enormous Knickers

It’s Complicated: Especially After You Sleep with Your Ex, Meryl. Sheesh!

He’s Just Not That Into You: Oh, Yes He Is!

The Proposal: Ryan Reynolds Looks Good Nekkid. It’s Official

Love & Other Drugs: When Love Means Never Having to Fake an Orgasm

Silver Linings Playbook: Nobody Puts Bradley in a Corner

4) Joys for the Boys (and the Girls, Too)

Public Enemies: Johnny Depp as a Bad Man with a Tommygun

Source Code: He Follows the Plot, While You Follow Jake Gyllenhaal

Limitless: Bradley Takes a Drug That Makes His Eyes Even Bluer…Seriously?

Cowboys & Aliens: aka Buff & Buffer

Drive: Ryan Gosling Riding on the Edge

John Carter: A Massive Flop but Not So’s You’d Notice

Skyfall: Bond Is Back and Bardem’s Got Him

Prisoners: Two Hotties, Lots of Heartache

Rush: Chris Hemsworth to Drive You Wild? Anyone?

5) Offbeat but Right Up My Street

Dear Frankie: Starring Gerard Butler, When He Still Did Subtle

Julie & Julia: The Great American Cook-Off

The King’s Speech: Or How an Aussie Saved the British Monarchy

Attack the Block: The Kids Are Definitely Not All Right

Young Adult: A Mean Girl Grows Up…Eventually

The Artist: Black, White, Silent, French…et Magnifique!

Cedar Rapids: Insurance Salesmen of the World Unite

Rust and Bone: A Gallic Love Story with Nothing Lost in Translation

6) Big Is Beautiful, Bold Is Even Better

Gone with the Wind: The Civil War Never Had It So Good

The Last of the Mohicans: Featuring the Best Kiss-Off Line in Movie History

Brokeback Mountain: A Fine Bromance

Australia: Nicole Explores the Wonders of Oz (and Hugh Jackman, Nekkid)

Valentine’s Day: Twenty Star-Studded Hallmark Cards Come to Life

Man of Steel: Is It a Bird? Is It a Plane? No, It’s the Hottest Guy on the Planet

Glossary

Buff, Buffer, Buffest: Men who make you drool. Henry Cavill being a case in point.

Chick-Flick: A film where the action is mostly in the snarky, snappy, sexy dialogue—and there are a lot more fluffy-cuddly bits than a dick-flick.

Dick-Flick: A film that overdoses on gun action, or car action, or spy action, or sci-fi action or all of the above. And it tends to stint on the fluffy-cuddly bits. (I.e., the opposite of a chick-flick, really.)

Modern Tempted Hero/Heroine: This Mills & Boon hero is still alpha, but he’s also a whole lot of flirty fun—as are the women who can tame him. He’s gonna be smart, sexy and successful, but she’s going to be able to match him every step of the way. He could be Clark Gable’s hitch-hiking reporter in It Happened One Night, cartoon bad boy Flynn Ryder in Tangled or Jake Gyllenhaal’s flirty, dirty Viagra salesman in Love & Other Drugs, while she could be Meg Ryan’s orgasm-faking Sally in When Harry Met Sally…or Joanne Woodward’s Newman-taming smart cookie in The Long, Hot Summer. She’s gonna have to put her heart on the line with this guy—while making sure he never gets the upper hand!

Modern Romance Hero: This is the ultimate alpha male in the Mills & Boon universe. We’re talking the hot guy who’s at the top of his game. Powerful, protective, overpowering—a guy you don’t want to mess with (but secretly can’t resist). For the purposes of this movie-review book, we’re talking Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans, Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind or Daniel Craig in Skyfall—and larger than life in every respect.

Heart-Warming Romance: The home of Mills & Boon American Romance, Cherish Romance and Heartwarming Romance, featuring tough, tender and always relatable heroes and heroines. Look no further than Dear Frankie or It’s a Wonderful Life for a Heart-Warming Romance fix on screen.

Nekkid: That would be Hugh Jackman in Australia and Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal—and several other hunks I haven’t mentioned specifically—so you can be pleasantly surprised when you see the movie.

Romance-arama: A word that I am myself patenting to mean a film with enough different stories to make you dizzy. Coined here to apply to Valentine’s Day and He’s Just Not That Into You, but also applicable to such movies as Love Actually.

Series Romance: This is the stuff Mills & Boon is made of…small books with big themes, hot heroes, heroines just like you and a happy ending. Be warned: not every film in this collection has a happy ending, but they all have a whole lot of heart.

1) Oldies That Are Awesome

Who says you need CGI, SFX, 3D or even colour film to do some amazing storytelling?

It Happened One Night (1934): A Hitch-hiker’s Guide to Screwball Romance

Directed by Frank Capra

Starring:

Clark Gable as Peter Warne

Claudette Colbert as Ellie Andrews

Walter Connelly as Mr Andrews

Jameson Thomas as King Westley

The 1930s in Hollywood were a golden era. There were glittering epics such as Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, fabulously overblown women’s pictures like Dark Victory and The Women and a raft of acclaimed literary classics such as The Grapes of Wrath and Wuthering Heights…. But by far the most entertaining films of that golden age for me, and the films I return to again and again, are the glorious romantic comedies of Frank Capra. Because Capra’s comedies weren’t just funny and gloriously romantic, they were also heartfelt and genuine, shedding a healing light on the hard times of the Great Depression.

Escapism with an edge, I like to call it.

Now, Capra was a fan of Gary Cooper (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town) and later James Stewart (It’s a Wonderful Life), but my favourite of his rom-coms (and it’s got a lot of competition) has to be the time he cast Clark Gable as his leading man in It Happened One Night. This was Gable five years before he took on the iconic role of Rhett Butler in GWTW, and while the darkly handsome good looks, alpha tendencies and trademark playboy tache are already in evidence here, this is a younger, more playful and laid-back Gable—he’s supersexy, but his reporter, Peter Warne, is also witty, wonderfully contemporary and gets as good as he gives from his sassy heroine—Claudette Colbert’s runaway heiress, Ellie Andrews. So if we translate that into Harlequin terms, while Rhett is more of a Presents hero, Peter for me is all KISS.

Like most of Capra’s films, the story is simple and remarkably subtle, brilliantly clever and always character led.

Ellie has decided to tie the knot with ‘society aviator’ King Westley against her millionaire father’s wishes. Dad whisks her away to his luxury yacht to make her see sense, but she escapes—determined to make her way back to King, come what may. Enter our smart, jobbing reporter, Peter Warne, who’s on the lookout for a headline-grabbing exclusive. And Ellie’s race across the country to be reunited with her beau is it. At first Ellie’s reluctant, but after a spot of blackmail and the realisation that she needs Peter—because you see she has no money, very few clothes and she is not used to slumming it—they end up hitch-hiking and bickering their way across the country together.

Thus begins an often-hilarious, frequently heart-warming and also exceptionally sexy battle of wits that turns to romance, when Ellie finally figures out that Peter’s more of a match for her than King will ever be, and Peter figures out that his career isn’t as important as finding true love—and a woman who knows ‘the limb is mightier than the thumb’!

But don’t take my word for it. This film won the five big Oscars of 1935—namely Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay—can still charm the pants off you three-quarters of a century after it was made and, most important of all, put an end to men wearing vests (when Gable revealed his bare chest). And let’s face it, ladies, we’ve all got to salute it for that!

There are two key scenes that encapsulate the perfect blend of humour and romance this movie has to offer. First, the now-legendary hitch-hiking scene in which Ellie strings Peter along beautifully while he happily gallops towards his own comeuppance as he instructs her on the proper way to use your thumb. Only, he discovers that, as already stated, Ellie’s long-legged limb is mightier than his thumb, no matter how he chooses to use it!

And then there’s the pièce de résistance—considered super risqué in its day, and still pretty hot now—when the couple has to share a motel room and Peter constructs the Walls of Jericho (i.e., a blanket hung on a washing line) between their two beds. But you’ll have to watch the movie to see the Walls of Jericho come tumbling down!

I give you It Happened One Night—proof that not only does money not buy you love, but slumming it can actually be very romantic…. Especially if you happen to be doing it with Clark Gable.

The Wizard of Oz (1939): Because of the Wonderful Things It Does

Directed by Victor Fleming

Starring:

Judy Garland as Dorothy

Frank Morgan as the Wizard

Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow

Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion

Jack Haley as the Tin Man

Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West

Surely the ultimate fantasy quest movie, the original Judy Garland version of L. Frank Baum’s classic The Wizard of Oz does so, so many wonderful things—but here are just a few of them.

For starters, there are the catchy hum-along songs. Tunes so memorable that as soon as you say the titles, you’ll be humming them in your head—like ‘We’re Off to See the Wizard’ or ‘If I Only Had a Brain’ or ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’. See what I mean? Works every time…

But let’s not forget the best song of all: Judy Garland’s sends-shivers-down-your-spine version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ which, amazingly, nearly got cut from the finished film because Louis B. Mayer thought it slowed the pace. (Louis, you philistine!) Tons of people have covered this song since (just try sticking it into YouTube and you’ll get the picture), but no one sings it with more heart and soul than Judy, her full, rich, heartbreaking voice all the more poignant when you consider this was her finest hour, when she was a beautiful, doe-eyed teenager full of promise, and all her troubled times were mostly still ahead of her.

Then there’s the superb casting: not just Judy at the peak of her powers, but also all those character actors—from Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West to Bert Lahr’s hilarious Cowardly Lion—who each took their one big chance to shine and turned in career-defining performances.

And don’t forget the glorious Technicolor photography coupled with some eye-popping set design—they make the Yellow Brick Road gleam like a golden halo, the field of deadly poppies glow a vibrant red and the Emerald City sparkle in an array of rich verdant greens. Plus there’s the gorgeous process art, which is so lush and lovely it’s still a feast for the eye—and makes today’s CGI-enabled movie magic look decidedly ordinary by comparison.

And let’s not forget the dreamily good script, which took L. Frank Baum’s original story about a young girl’s quest to get home and moulded it into something that will make you laugh, cry, sing, dance and gasp with amazement. And it boasts a slew of quotable lines that have become an essential part of pop culture: ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!’ ‘I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore’ or ‘I’m melting, I’m melting’, to name but a few.

And last, but by no means least, there’s the fact that this movie can still make you feel like a kid on Christmas morning—no matter how old or jaded you are, or even if it’s the middle of July. It can mesmerise and excite, and fill you with the complete conviction that magical things really do happen and there actually is ‘no place like home’.

The Wizard of Oz is Hollywood’s golden era at its most golden, guaranteed to make your troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops…. Oh, darn it, I’m singing again!

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946): How a Banker Steals My Heart Every Christmas

Directed by Frank Capra

Starring:

James Stewart as George Bailey

Donna Reed as Mary Hatch

Lionel Barrymore as Henry F. Potter

Henry Travers as Clarence

Ward Bond as Bert

Whenever ’tis the season to be jolly, I can never resist the opportunity to pull one of my all-time festive favourites out of the Santa sack and spread some good cheer into the winter chill.

I’ll grant you, though, It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t exactly a chick-flick in the conventional sense—and James Stewart’s suicidal savings and loan man is hardly anyone’s idea of an alpha male. Consequently, Frank Capra’s Yuletide classic may not be everyone’s idea of a film to make you drool over the festive season. But luckily, us romance junkies are about so much more than hunky guys and romantic fantasies, right? We’re so not that shallow. And anyway, I’d argue that this festive favourite does have a hunky guy in it—maybe not hunky in the Hugh Jackman–nekkid sense, but certainly hunky in the huggable sense. James Stewart, after all, is so the template for the grounded and gorgeous heroes of Harlequin’s heart-warming romance lines. And with those stories in mind, I’d also say that It’s a Wonderful Life may be a romantic fantasy but with a it-could-happen-to-you integrity, because this film is about the making and maintaining of a strong, resilient, wonderful marriage. It’s about family and friends. It’s about all those mundane everyday things that you take for granted but which give your life meaning. And it’s about what happens after the Happy Ever After…and how you make it last forever.

So, in other words, if this film doesn’t leave you with a warm glow and a great big ahh wrapped around your heart, then you’d have to be a close personal friend of Ebenezer Scrooge.

All right, already, now I’m going to give you a quick rundown of the plot—for anyone who has somehow managed to miss it on TV every Christmas for the past fifty-something years!

James Stewart is George Bailey, the owner and manager of a small-town savings and loan that is about to go tits up. He wanted to see the world as a kid, had big plans to get out of Bedford Falls and make a name for himself. But George is a guy who’s always done the right thing for his friends and family. So when he fell in love with the girl next door, he married her and had four kids. When his father died, he took over the family business even though he didn’t really want to…. And when his uncle Billy mislaid thousands of dollars of the bank’s money, it’s George who’s set to take the fall.

And in amongst all the good things he did, in amongst the happy times and the tough ones, George lost sight of his dreams. And so, when everything starts to collapse around him one Christmas Eve, George decides to take his own life. So far, so not so warm and fuzzy, I’m sure you’re thinking…but bear with me here. For as George is about to take a header into the town’s ice-filled river, up pops Clarence, a trainee angel to jump in first (yes, George is a bit miffed that he only warranted a trainee one, too). George, being George, saves Clarence before thinking about himself—giving Clarence the chance to get to work.

So what does Clarence do? He comes up with the cunning idea of giving George a glimpse of what good ole Bedford Falls would have been like if he had never lived. Yup, you’ve guessed it, Clarence has basically ripped off his cunning plan from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and given it a clever twentieth-century twist.

So George discovers that the brother he saved from drowning as a kid then died and never got the chance to grow up and become a war hero—and all the men he, in turn, saved also died. George finds his beloved wife, Mary, is a lonely spinster and doesn’t even recognise him. He runs home to find the derelict house they bought and rehabbed together is still a broken ruin. His kids don’t exist, and miserable old man Potter—the big, greedy, unethical banker who has always hated George and his savings and loan—has taken over the quaint, sweet little town and turned it into a garish, soulless, neon-lit strip mall. Yes, times are terrible in Bedford Falls without George. Everything he knows and loves is gone….

So then all Clarence has to do is ask George if he really wishes he’d never lived. And the answer is a great big resounding no! Not just from George, but from everyone in the audience. And as George runs down the snowy Main Street and shouts merry Christmas to all those people and places he knows and loves (and who now know him, too), he’s got his mojo back (so to speak) and he, at last, realises that small dreams can actually be better than big dreams, especially if you know how to appreciate them.

So what’s the moral of the story?

Maybe it’s that we should all learn to cherish the little things? Maybe it’s that every life has value (even nasty old Mr Potter’s, who hasn’t got a single redeeming feature)? Maybe it’s simply that when the chips are down, you should look at what you’ve got, not what you haven’t? All good advice and all very heart-warming (especially if you’ve just been down a heaving Oxford Street in London’s West End trying to do all that last-minute Christmas shopping you should have done months ago).

But what I love about this film, what never fails to send that delicious quiver of emotion down my spine, is the way it portrays George and Mary’s marriage, because at the end of the day, that relationship is the bedrock of George’s life. Mary’s a sweet, pretty, no-nonsense, and utterly competent and patient wife and mother. She adores George, but she also knows him, inside and out—his weaknesses as well as his strengths.

And that makes theirs the perfect partnership.

That doesn’t mean the kids don’t get on their nerves, or that they don’t get on each other’s nerves, but it does mean that they love each other, and that they’re willing to go that extra mile to make things work. George isn’t the only one who’s made sacrifices, he’s not the only one who’s had to work and struggle and keep things together when it would have been easier to let them slide. Of course, this being George’s story, we don’t see a lot of Mary’s struggles, but they’re there, especially when George loses it with her and the kids and then slams out of the family home—on his way to a date with the icy river and Clarence.

And Mary’s the one who gets them their Happy Ever After in the end, because she tells all their friends and family of the trouble George is in. George being a bloke, of course, doesn’t think of that one (must be something to do with that old Y chromosome ‘asking for directions’ thingy). And so the whole town chips in to help with a few dollars here, a couple more dollars there—and in the end it really isn’t about the money, it’s about the love behind it. Cue another great big ahh.

So, is George and Mary’s marriage a romantic fantasy?

You betcha, but isn’t it one we can all aspire to? And isn’t that the same quality you love to unwrap in your favourite series romance? For me, the fast cars, the luxury homes, the designer wardrobe, even the glistening pecs, the awesome six-pack and the sex-god abilities between the sheets are just the sparkly tissue paper. It’s what’s underneath that counts—the good, strong, steady, dependable heart that’s beating just for you. That’s the real present, the gift you want that will keep on giving….

All right, I’m getting a little carried away now, but you get my drift. Especially if you watch this film on Christmas Eve in front of your bauble-laden tree and a roaring fire with either friends, family or the love of your life—or even just your favourite series romance—snuggled by your side.

On the Waterfront (1954): Brando in His Prime Does Bad Boys Proud

Directed by Elia Kazan

Starring:

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy

Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle

Karl Malden as Father Barry

Lee J. Cobb as Johnny Friendly

Rod Steiger as Charley Malloy

A now-little-seen black-and-white social drama, Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg’s tale of labour relations on the New Jersey docks circa 1954 is not a romance, but it has at its centre a love story that is so real and so beautifully evoked in only a few scenes it‚s bound to tear at your heart. Plus it’s performed by surely the greatest film actor of all time in his prime (long before he became the size of a small semi-detached house) and an actress who is not only luminously lovely but also sadly underrated IMHO. The chemistry between them in this movie is raw and provocative and poignant and so powerful that their love story is as fresh and real now as it was over half a century ago. And those are just a few reasons why it is my favourite film of all time.

Now, as it happens, it’s the love story in this movie that resonates so beautifully for me, so I’m going to dwell on that and not the rest of the movie—although that’s pretty spectacular, too. Anyone ever heard of Brando’s ‘I coulda been a contenda’ speech? That comes from this multi-Oscar-winner.

So let’s do a quick plot recap. The setting is the New Jersey docks in the 1950s, where the longshoremen’s union is controlled by corrupt thug Johnny Friendly and his right-hand man, Charlie the Gent. Charlie’s younger brother Terry (a thirty-something has-been ex-boxer) has been inadvertently involved in the killing of Joey, one of the longshoremen who was threatening to ‘squeal’ to the crime commission. Terry feels bad about it, but that’s life on the docks. He’s not about to rat out his brother. Until he meets Joey’s distraught sister Edie….

The drama that follows is about Terry’s battle with his conscience, and the harsh life of America’s dockworkers…. It’s social realism through and through, with a cast full of brilliant method actors, a wonderfully understated script by Budd Schulberg, and haunting black-and-white photography. But it’s the developing relationship between Edie and Terry that drives the story and is the heart and soul of the whole movie.

Take their first meeting, when the rough and inarticulate Terry tugs on Edie’s glove and sits on a kids’ swing while chatting to her with offhand bravado about his miserable childhood—Edie responds with quiet class and what Terry sees as a kooky naiveté. But Edie’s attitude isn’t really naiveté at all— it’s the simple belief that if people are loved they can rise above their circumstances….

Cut to the scene in a dingy neighbourhood bar where Terry (not knowing what to do with a nice girl) takes Edie on a sort of date and proceeds to ply her with drink:

Edie says, a little drunk, ‘Shouldn’t everyone care about everyone else?’

And Terry replies, ‘Boy, what a fruitcake you are.’

But as he says it, the tender astonishment in Terry’s eyes shows he’s already falling in love with this girl who’s sweet and innocent, but has the strength of character to rise above the roughness of slum life rather than be beaten down by it as Terry has been.

Always lurking in the background as they are becoming more attached to each other is the terrible truth about Terry’s involvement in Edie’s brother’s murder. The powerful, intensely dramatic and heartbreaking moment when Terry finally confesses his part in Joey’s murder, we don’t hear Terry’s words—they’re drowned out by a ship’s blaring horn—but we see Edie’s face, going from love to horror….

And then the wildly passionate scene when Terry breaks into Edie’s apartment and they kiss… It’s raw, it’s emotional, it’s desperate, as Terry, unable to voice how he feels, shows Edie the only way he knows how. And she submits, because despite Terry’s guilt, despite the bad things he’s done, she can see the good man he wants to be. Phwoar! I defy anyone not to be blown away by that kiss.

Okay, so this movie may be a little too intense and dramatic for a Girls’ Night In, but it’s definitely worth a peek if you like your romance occasionally raw and realistic and heartbreakingly honest. Plus Brando is beyond gorgeous in this movie—all rough, ready and raw, with inarticulate, pure animal magnetism (just think Tom Hardy without the tattoos, basically).

The Long, Hot Summer (1958): When Paul Met Joanne…

Directed by Martin Ritt

Starring:

Paul Newman as Ben Quick

Joanne Woodward as Clara Varner

Orson Welles as Will Varner

Anthony Franciosa as Jody Varner

Lee Remick as Eula Varner

Angela Lansbury as Minnie Littlejohn

Okay, I’m going to ask you to indulge me a little bit with this sultry, sparky, smoulderingly sexy 1950s romance—because The Long, Hot Summer is very close to my heart. Simply put, it’s the film that turned me on to the wonders of bad boys and romance and the fabulousness of Paul Newman at the impressionable age of thirteen, when I first saw it at the National Film Theatre (an art-house cinema showing old movies on London’s South Bank) during one long-ago long, hot summer (appropriately).

Now, Mr Newman was an incredibly gorgeous man—sonnets could have been written about those chiselled cheekbones, his lean muscular physique and, of course, those unfathomable blue eyes. And he’s at his moody and magnificent best in this movie. But while his looks are certainly breathtaking, that’s only a small part of the package that makes this movie worth its weight in gold to any self-respecting romance junkie (like moi).

First off, there’s the premise (very loosely based on a William Faulkner story), which is quite simply a romance author’s dream. And any author who’s ever had trouble finding that all-important conflict in a story (waves hand in the air) should take notes at this point.

As Ben Quick, a drop-dead-gorgeous drifter with a dangerous reputation, Paul is the quintessential bad boy. All smouldering sexuality, mercenary charm and devil-may-care arrogance, Ben swaggers into Clara Varner’s steamy southern town in the middle of a heatwave and immediately sets Clara’s neat and tidy life on fire after making a Faustian bargain with Clara’s dad, Will—a Big Daddy–style demagogue who’s determined to see his only daughter wedded and bedded and making babies.

Will is a self-made man (played with fabulous OTT bluster by Orson Welles), and he sees in Ben a lean, hungry wolf who’s a chip off the old block, a man who’ll do anything to live the easy life—including seduce a woman into marriage for a share of her daddy’s money.

But Clara’s a smart woman with principles; she’s wise to her father’s schemes and she’s determined not to fall for Ben. She wants refinement and intelligence in her marriage, a man with scruples and standards, a man who loves her, not just a handsome stud who can get her hormones doing the hula….

As she puts it to Ben, ‘I’ve spent my whole life around men who push and shove and shout and think they can make anything happen just by being aggressive, and I’m not anxious to have another one around the place.’

Yeah, right! What? Is she insane? This is Paul Newman in his prime we’re talking about, and he’s totally focussed on making her fall for him. Even to the point of bidding a fortune for her picnic at a local county fair so she’s forced to eat lunch with him. What could be sexier or harder to resist?

Okay, sorry, getting a grip here. Luckily, Clara’s got a lot more integrity than I do (I would have said yes in a heartbeat and the movie would have been over) and she doesn’t give in….

Not until she sees there’s a chink in Ben’s armour. Maybe he’s not as self-assured and ruthless as he pretends to be, maybe there’s actually someone worth taming behind all that arrogant, audacious sex appeal….

But quite apart from the fabulous characters, all that sizzling sexual tension and full-steam-ahead conflict, what really makes this movie stand out is the casting—and the real-life love story behind it. Because as well as Paul Newman in all his glory, we have a young Joanne Woodward cast opposite him as Clara at the exact moment when the two of them were falling in love for real.

The sparks seem to fly off the screen, and this explains exactly why these two had a marriage that defied Hollywood convention and lasted half a century—right up until Paul’s death in 2008 at the grand old age of eighty-three.

When I walked out of the NFT that long-ago summer, I had set my heart on marrying Paul one day. Needless to say, I was a tad miffed to discover he was already taken (not to mention nearly old enough to be my granddad), but when I found out he’d married Clara, well, I was prepared to take it on the chin—because I’d fallen for Joanne, too. She was more than a match for him, and I’d seen exactly why the two of them deserved their Happy Ever After.

They were meant to be together and the evidence is all right here in glorious Technicolor. Watch it and see for yourself.

So if you’re ever in the mood to reaffirm your love of romance or looking for proof positive that there is such a thing as a love that lasts forever, go hunt this movie down on Netflix or catch it the next time it’s on telly. Wait for the scene when Paul’s Ben says to Joanne’s reluctant Clara,

All right then, run, lady, and keep on running. Buy yourself a bus ticket and disappear. Change your name, dye your hair, get lost—and then maybe, just maybe, you’re gonna be safe from me.

And feel the shiver run down your spine.

The Apartment (1960): Mad Men with Laughs

Directed by Billy Wilder

Starring:

Jack Lemmon as C. C. Baxter

Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik

Fred MacMurray as Jeff D. Sheldrake

Ray Walston as Joe Dobisch

Jack Kruschen as Dr Dreyfuss

The rom-com against which all others must be judged (and most will be found wanting), writer-director Billy Wilder’s tale of the troubled romance between an ambitious young insurance adjuster and a heartsick elevator operator was made over fifty years ago but, like all great romances, can effortlessly capture your heart to this day.

As well as the incomparable script, what makes this movie really shine is the perfect casting of a young and adorable Jack Lemmon as an eager-to-please office drone in a huge Manhattan insurance firm—and a young and equally adorable Shirley MacLaine as the smart, pretty lift girl whom he fancies from afar but whose chirpy persona hides a heartbreaking secret.

How does he find out her secret? Well, that’s part of the movie’s brilliant premise—and where the title comes in.

Lemmon’s character C. C. Baxter, you see, is an average low-level employee, but he has ambition, courtesy of his downtown bachelor pad, which he allows his married bosses to use for their clandestine affairs on a nightly basis. So far so Mad Men.

C.C. isn’t really as calculating and cynical as that state of affairs suggests, though. He’s just a cog in a rather corrupt and unpleasant wheel, trying to get ahead. In fact, his apartment-loaning service has sort of backfired on him, because given the power dynamics of the situation (and his rather weak will), C.C. can’t say no when he’s asked to loan out his home at all hours of the night. But C.C.’s wake-up call, his discovery that what he is doing is really much more seedy than he has realised, comes when he is asked by top boss Mr Sheldrake (a brilliantly slimy performance from Fred MacMurray) to loan out his apartment key exclusively for Sheldrake’s latest extramarital fling.

C.C. thinks he’s finally going to get the promotion he’s been hoping for and is delighted with himself, until he makes the devastating discovery (in a poignant, bittersweet exchange at an office Christmas party) that Sheldrake’s latest conquest is none other than Fran Kubelik, the elevator girl he adores. But much worse is yet to come. What he doesn’t yet know is that Fran is as sweet and vulnerable as she appears. Fran has believed Sheldrake’s lies about leaving his wife, and when she is finally beaten down by her lover’s neglect and cruel manipulation she takes an overdose of sleeping pills…on Christmas Eve in the apartment of you-know-who.

C.C. comes back to find her passed out in his bed, and that’s when the comedy takes a dark turn, giving way to a moving and eventually heart-wrenching romance about two people cast adrift in the big city, who must learn not only to love each other, but to love themselves, as well.

I’ve probably given away far too much of the plot. But actually, it’s hard to describe how subtle and wonderfully nuanced this story is—and how remarkably real, even now. Portraying the sexual politics of New York office life, circa 1960, with an honesty and complexity and conspicuous lack of glamour, the film is both a brilliant snapshot of a bygone era and also a remarkably contemporary love story. Both Lemmon and MacLaine play superbly to type—but even the supporting roles, of Lemmon’s seedy line managers, the brash office totty, C.C.’s harassed next-door neighbours, are expertly realised.

If you’ve ever wondered what Mad Men might be like with a lot more laughs, then you need look no further than this beautifully observed, surprisingly dark and yet eventually heart-warming movie that continues to get better and better with age.

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968): How to Beat a Guy at Chess, Every Time

Directed by Norman Jewison

Starring:

Steve McQueen as Thomas Crown

Faye Dunaway as Vicki Anderson

Paul Burke as Eddie Malone

Jack Weston as Erwin

Biff McGuire as Sandy

I adore Steve McQueen. He is the King of Cool for a very good reason. The ultimate movie bad boy, he oozes tough, rugged sex appeal in all his movies, even the rubbish ones. But I’ve always thought that The Thomas Crown Affair is his sexiest screen appearance. A romantic-heist-thriller wrapped in stylish sixties chic and packed with enough sexual tension to blow anyone’s socks off—it’s as cool and sexy today as it was in 1968.

The plot has Steve’s bad-boy billionaire pulling the ‘perfect’ heist, because he’s bored. A dark mix of the smouldering Presents guy and the cool KISS hero, financier Thomas Crown is a man who doesn’t need any more money. But having made his millions, legitimate business no longer challenges him, so he starts seeking his thrills elsewhere. What he hasn’t counted on after his latest heist, though, is getting a few more thrills than he bargained for when Faye Dunaway’s smart, savvy and uber-sexy insurance investigator is sicced on his tail. Because Faye, you see, is the perfect KISS heroine. With a brilliant mind that matches Crown’s, not to mention amazing legs and a razor-sharp women’s intuition, Faye immediately pinpoints Steve as the thief, and thus begins a tantalising game of cat and mouse (where we’re never quite sure who’s the cat and who’s the mouse) as they use all the weapons in their arsenal to come out on top (pun fully intended, folks!).

McQueen is brilliantly cast in this movie—he’s superslick on the surface, completely gorgeous but with a dangerous edge, which means that while Faye’s getting the goods on him, she’s also in danger of losing the battle for her heart. Not least because he’s losing his heart to her, too.

But what also makes this movie work so well is that Faye Dunaway is McQueen’s absolute equal—as prepared to use sex to get what she wants as he is. At a time when women’s lib was just starting to come into its own, Dunaway’s ambitious, stylish career woman forced to choose between a hefty pay cheque and the man she has fallen in love with is a feminist icon to be proud of…right up to that bittersweet ending.

And let’s not forget all the lashings of sixties style: ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’ theme song, Steve’s drainpipe suits, Faye’s Mary Quant–like minidresses, dune buggies, polo matches, the gleeful overuse of gimmicky split-screen photography and the sexiest chess match ever put on film—when Faye decides to put the moves on Steve’s consummate player and wins. I have to admit, I totally ripped off that smokin’ hot chess game in my third book, The Tycoon’s Very Personal Assistant, when I had my hero and heroine play strip poker. What can I say? It inspired me.

I should give the stylish nineties Pierce Brosnan/Rene Russo remake an honourable mention here, because it’s also very watchable, but for me, the sixties original is the real deal—and wins the cool-and-sexy stakes hands down. And that’s despite the appearance of Mr Brosnan’s exceptionally pert nekkid butt in The TCA version II!

2) Cartoon Capers, but Not Just for Kids

A good way to keep the munchkins entertained while enjoying yourself, as well.

Beauty and the Beast (1991):
A Tale That’s Old but Timeless

Directed by Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise

Starring (voice cast):

Paige O’Hara as Belle

Robby Benson as Beast

Richard White as Gaston

Jerry Orbach as Lumiere

David Ogden Stiers as Cogsworth/Narrator

Angela Lansbury as Mrs Potts

So, as a miserably wet bank holiday weekend loomed a few years ago, I dragged my oldest son—and bona fide Disney fanatic—along to a preview screening of Disney’s brand-new 3D version of their Oscar-nominated classic Beauty and the Beast.

Now, given that Disney had a huge black hole to plug after the box-office disaster that was John Carter (more on that in chapter 4), their decision to start rereleasing the best of their back catalogue in 3D (The Lion King got the same treatment the year before) may not have been entirely altruistic—but if you happen to be a mum on a mission to entertain housebound hellions (and give yourself a treat in the bargain), this film was still a godsend.

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