The Silver Screen Oasis

Me too. Let's hope they can catch

Wendy, I watched a film you'd love tonight. Back Street starring Margaret Sullavan and Charles Boyer, Margaret Sullavan, who I normally adore is not at her best here in big hats and costumes, she's more suited to the later fashions of the 1920s. Her and Boyer are convincing as a couple who loved and were prevented from getting married, only to meet five years later, still in love with one another. She ends up being Boyer's mistress through the years, in a plot that is surprising in the time of censorship, perhaps with war approaching a more sensible approach was taken to such storylines. It's another woman's movie in hubby's opinion, romantic and hopeless with that wonderful accent and beautiful eyes. Another movie in which the woman's part is greater than his, a movie in which I felt he was building up her performance yet he was much more understated and therefore more moving and believable.

Give me romantic and hopeless! Aaahhhh...... swoon.

Oh wow, thanks for the Boyer photos.

I think History is Made at Night one of the most romantic movies ever made, but it was directed by Frank Borzage, so no surprise there.

Boyer and Daniele Darrieux included in a folder of pics of favorite movie couples on my movies page. ;)

Has anyone mentioned How to Steal a Million? Boyer plays a Parisian detective determined to foil some art thieves. The thieves (they only have the best intentions, though!) in question just happen to be the utterly, utterly delightful couple of Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. One of my all-time favorite romantic caper comedies.

Ah Wendy, thank you for the most delightful pictures. Now I really want to watch The Garden of Allah again, it's an example of two magnetic stars making us forget the plot is unprobable and unbelievable.

I haven't seen How To Steal a Million but know how to get hold of it.

How to Steal a Million is a lot of fun - I love the scene in the broom closet and Hugh Griffith - the old reprobate!

And it has the cocktail dress to absolutely die for..... sorry, can't delete the computer talk, but the picture is worth it anyway!

What computer talk? All I see is a gorgeous dress! Ha ha!

I've got the biggest pile of ironing to do tomorrow, I think it might be keeping me company

Wendy, I can name two of the movies the clips come from, Garden of Allah and Algiers, is the bottom one History made At Night, it's pretty difficult to work out who the actress is her lips are locked so closely with his. The one with Loretta Young, which one is that and has anyone ever seen it?

That one is called Shanghai and his leading lady is Loretta Young. They also made one called Caravan and here are some photos from it:

Perhaps it bombed because of the wig, it looks a little unreal.

I started How To Steal A Million, I only just got to the bit where Boyer comes in and had to leave it, I'm looking forward to the rest later. I love Audrey.

I was reading about the making of History is Made at Night, for me a film that is one of the most unashamedly romantic films of all time. It said that Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur were very businesslike and cordial to one another on the set of HIMAN, but once the cameras were on the romance really came alive. So convincing was it that between any other stars there would be sure to have been an affair. Jean Arthur's biographer quotes hos source as saying 'Not Boyer, he didn't play around with costars and certainly not with Jean Arthur'. It amused me

Ha! I love that! And it's nice for once to hear that there was no affair, and that they really ACTED the romance - makes me think more highly of them both and of their talent because it seemed so true and lovely.

I'm trying to get a chance to watch some of the Boyer films I got recently (thank you), but we have had a dreadful week, with two trips to the doctor and my daughter being diagnosed with migraines and then she got a cold on top of that.

However, I did get to see Madame De.... it was great but quite disturbing to me - the study of a marriage that works until the light of day is finally shone upon the couple's hypocrisy. I loved the ironic turning of the plot - things would have been fine had she continued leading her shallow existence, having affairs, never actually falling in love. Her growth as a human being actually led to her downfall. As her new found humanity grew, her debasement grew as well, exponentially. That's a fantastic premise for a movie.

There is no question in my mind now about Boyer's talent as an actor - he was BRILLIANT in this film, both sympathetic and unsympathetic by turns, just as Danielle Darrieux was, maybe more so. His motivations were revealed gradually, and I found myself falling into the movie a little at a time, mainly due to Boyer's fascinating portrayal. He was so "army", if you know what I mean, that I wasn't expecting him to be sympathetic at all. I thought he would be either so cold and rigid that I would not be able to feel for him, or that he would be so weak and cuckolded that I would hate him. But neither was the case. He was the main mover of the plot, and as such, could have been simply a cartoon. But the unspoken here was all - and Boyer was miles deep in expressing the unspoken. It reminded me of Voyage to Italy, not in style, but in the subversion of emotions by the main characters. They talk to one another, but it is shallow, they don't reveal. Not to each other.

I am shocked that reviews of the movie mention "the exquisite Darrieux" but say little of Boyer's performance - I thought he was by far the best actor, the most compelling, complex, interesting and well developed character, even if it was her story. Though I saw the horrible hypocrisy of his actions, I never once felt him to be a caricature, or less than human. He was horrible, as all humans can be when something they perceive as "theirs" is taken. And yet, inexplicably, I felt for him just the same. In those moments between them when they are the furthest apart emotionally, I felt him to be a sad and wretched man, who only wanted to go back to the shallow love that they had had before. I guess he supported Darrieux so well and so subtly that people overlook his fantastically dexterous and deep performance. Maybe because he is not a likable character, they short shrift him as an actor. Maybe they always overlooked Boyer a little, no matter how good he was. So far, I think this was his finest acting.

How I agree with you over Madame De and how well you sad it too. Ophuls is one of my favorite directors and Madame De is one of my many favorite films of his. I agree with you about Boyer, he's often called on to play the male lead in what are essentially women's showcases, Gaslight, Madame De, History is Made at Night, Conquest, All This and Heaven Too and always delivers as good if not better perfromance than the actress.

He did give the best portrayal in the movie, my sympathy, what there was of it for any of them, was with him, he was very army. Victor De Sica always reminds me of Chaplin, the same greying full head of hair, he was good as the lover who got in too deep.

Mayerling is another good showcase of Boyer and Darrieux, he's superb as Crown Prince Rudolf, she's very much underplayed as Marie Vetsera, one of my favorite French movies of the thirties.

I think Mayerling is my next Boyer film to watch - I have been waiting since I was about 12 years old to see this one, when I read about it in my sister's "50 greatest movies of all time" book.

I liked De Sica, he was very good, but isn't it ironic how in the end, he was crueler and colder to Madame De....than Boyer was? He literally backed away from her (albeit because he thought she was playing with him), and we saw a very unflattering side to his nature, while Boyer became somewhat more sympathetic. De Sica ended up paying the price anyway, even if we aren't sure of his love anymore.

This was my first Ophuls. I loved the way the movie kept shifting on sand, the balance kept changing all the way through - like a roundelay. I am assuming La Ronde has the same sort of back and forth, circular emotional pull and play.