romantic comedies

Okay, Gregory Peck has a rival in Dana Andrews (okay, so Peck is probably still my favorite leading man, but Andrews comes in close second).

I enjoyed this film. Dana Andrews is so handsome, Margie’s outfits are so pretty (I mean to make some similar), the Frake parents are hilarious, and its just fun. But I thought Margie and Wayne’s naivete rather disconcerting. Hers, because normally for a story like this, the guy is a Wickham or Willoughby who means naught, and his, because a grown man should not be that dumb. Also, I can understand Margie’s discontent; she had a unattractive, boring, maybe suitor, and wanted a more interesting life. But Wayne had everything he wanted and needed. I think their stories show the difference between not wanting to settle versus discontent. And I am glad of the ending, even though I think early Hollywood has a desire to make everything end unnaturally happy (more on this theme). I mean more often (Roman Holiday does exist after all) than modern films and more wholly.

This post contains SPOILERS.

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With my accent I have trouble pronouncing “steal” so near to “million” in the same sentence. I want to say, “How to Still a Million.” I was somewhat confused as to how I was supposed to pronounce “million.” I normally pronounce “steal” as “stEEl” and “million” as “millyen.” If you pronounce these differently I would love to know how. I love English dialects, accents, word choices, and language patterns.

I loved this movie. The plot is simple and ridiculous and paired with the personalities and tones makes for a sweet and hilarious romantic comedy. I am just not good at describing it, it is just simply delicious. I don’t normally like ridiculous (you know, anything in The Princess Bride line as far as humor or absurd melodrama, e,g, YA romance), but this plot paired with deadpan sarcasm and general wittiness is de-light-ful.

Simon McDermott (O’Toole) is soooo funny (and handsome). I think the chemistry and interaction between Peter O’Toole and Audrey Hepburn perfect and perfectly hilarious. The whole movie is brilliantly quotable as I noticed when reading through a quote list (and the list didn’t include everything), too bad I am not a good quoter. And I mean tons of pithy exchanges. But it isn’t just the lines, the timing, facial expressions, circumstances, everything makes it so funny.

Watch it. If you have Amazon Prime, Prime video currently offers it free as of 8/23.

State Fair (1945)

How to Steal a Million (1966)