"What are manners? Little rules for little people!"
Yes! Success! Triumph!
For years I've been wanting to see the Leslie Howard/Bette Davis/Olivia de Havilland vehicle It's Love I'm After and tonight I finally got to see it!
What an extraordinary movie. For one it's a screwball comedy, and it's so odd to see Leslie Howard playing farce - and one with such noticeable ties to both his career and private life (he plays a dashing romantic actor who can't keep it in his pants. Wow.) It's a joy seeing him in such a caddish role though; Between this and The Scarlet Pimpernel I've discovered I really prefer his more flamboyant parts.
God, I thought I finally was over him. Those propaganda war movies had me thinking I could just appreciate him as an actor and an attractive (balding, lean, crooked-toothed) man, but oh, he kisses Davis, he kisses de Havilland, and I'm sighing audibly every time.
But wait, let's talk about the bits of the movie that completely blew my mind: The sex. The implied sexuality in a movie from 1937! Not only the recurring gay jokes about Howard's character and his valet, but what about that scene where Howard tries to scare de Havilland by implying he means to rape her, and it's all that he can do to stop her from tearing off his clothes. That's Olivia de Havilland we're talking about here, and she's playing a character who's not pure as the driven snow? How on earth did this movie pass the censors?
Hang on toots, you get to marry him in Gone with the Wind.
I think I might love this movie.
For years I've been wanting to see the Leslie Howard/Bette Davis/Olivia de Havilland vehicle It's Love I'm After and tonight I finally got to see it!
What an extraordinary movie. For one it's a screwball comedy, and it's so odd to see Leslie Howard playing farce - and one with such noticeable ties to both his career and private life (he plays a dashing romantic actor who can't keep it in his pants. Wow.) It's a joy seeing him in such a caddish role though; Between this and The Scarlet Pimpernel I've discovered I really prefer his more flamboyant parts.
God, I thought I finally was over him. Those propaganda war movies had me thinking I could just appreciate him as an actor and an attractive (balding, lean, crooked-toothed) man, but oh, he kisses Davis, he kisses de Havilland, and I'm sighing audibly every time.
But wait, let's talk about the bits of the movie that completely blew my mind: The sex. The implied sexuality in a movie from 1937! Not only the recurring gay jokes about Howard's character and his valet, but what about that scene where Howard tries to scare de Havilland by implying he means to rape her, and it's all that he can do to stop her from tearing off his clothes. That's Olivia de Havilland we're talking about here, and she's playing a character who's not pure as the driven snow? How on earth did this movie pass the censors?
Hang on toots, you get to marry him in Gone with the Wind.
I think I might love this movie.