CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

mark.waltz During the 1940's, Barbara Stanwyck was either suffering or making some man suffer in his quest for sin. This is the former, a tearjerker where she plays a concert pianist who discovers she has a fatal disease yet refuses to give up her life. A rarely seen film that for some reason has become her most obscure 40's film (not even given clips in tributes to her or documentaries), "The Other Love" is an elegant film that is worthy of re- discovery. She has two great leading men here-David Niven as her very loyal doctor and Richard Conte as the dangerous race car driver who distracts her from her treatment. A lush musical score (which makes it seem like one of Ross Hunter's later tearjerkers), and a fine supporting cast, including Natalie Schafer, Gilbert Roland and Joan Lorring. I was lucky enough to catch this years ago on the late show in L.A. before the advent of cable, the old version of AMC and TCM which I have never seen this run on. From what I had recalled of the film, it was beautifully photographed with lush sets in exotic places, and is a shot above the average melodrama. Time for this to be re-discovered in tribute to its magnificent leading lady.Recently released on DVD through Olive Films, I was delighted to discover how marvelous it still was and how likable Missy was in it. Still gorgeous, she is like no other leading lady and seems much ahead of her time. She wears some particularly stunning outfits including a sequined sweater that is to die for, pardon the pun, considering the plot. Joan Lorring particularly stands out in the supporting cast as another patient who is rather tragic. Niven's nobility and Conte's fun- loving scoundrel give Stanwck a lot of different moods to play off of, and she does so most admirably. Maybe now that this has been released commercially, it will receive the attention it has long deserved.

dogedoc-152-623802 This film transitions beautifully from the romantic 1930's film to the modern romantic genre. The setting is wonderful and the car that Clermont cracks up when Stanwyck and Conte meet on an Alpine road seems to me to be a Maserati 8C; a car that today would likely fetch a million dollars. Unfortunately, there is little else in the way of vintage autos to whet the appetite of a car enthusiast. The glamorous places where the scenes take place are enchanting, which does wonders to develop the "feeling" of the plot. All in all, a noteworthy romantic "sleeper" of a film with a beautiful musical score and poignant dialog that has escaped the attention of vintage film critics.

secondtake The Other Love (1947)A torrid but never horrid romantic movie, what was called then a "woman's picture" and is now in the category of "chick flic." Which is what makes it worth watching right there--it's dripping with love and longing and ideals gone astray. It's set in a sanitarium the Swiss Alps and is grand as well as comforting. And it stars Barbara Stanwyck as a world famous pianist, and she pulls every scene up a notch. The men are less compelling: David Niven is necessarily dry and reserved (and no great contribution to the romance), and Richard Conte is supposed to be the Italian love idol but in fact he's dry and reserved, too, unnecessarily.The plot is based on a short story by the uneven but legendary German writer Erich Maria Remarque (who is neither a woman nor French), whose work is the basis of several movies, notably the pacifist WWI novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front." I say all this because the one clear flaw in this movie is the plot, the Remarque part of it. In a way, the idea of going to a t.b. clinic to get better or die (the two options equally likely back then) and having an arrogant famous woman face her mortality, sounds like a no-brainer. And her back and forth, her rebellion, her falling in love (tepidly) or falling in lust (still rather tepidly) is great stuff not quite exploited. And there is no real turn of events. It plays itself out, beautifully but inexorably.That is, this is a really warm, gorgeous movie, with photography by Victor Milner, who had just finished two cinematic masterpieces ("It's a Wonderful Life" and Stanwyck's previous film, "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers"). And the music is great (of course), led by Miklos Rozsa, an old world high romantic composer. You want to be there, and you relate to Stanwyck's dilemma. It's a great movie in its bones, but never quite getting off the ground. Yet it is about stuff that matters: acceptance and deception in the face of death, from several sides. And it is, in fact, about true love of some highly idealized, self-sacrificing kind.

Igenlode Wordsmith I was actually pretty much impressed by this story -- with its clever prefiguring, scenes of idyllic beauty, happiness, and jarring chills as abrupt as any horror movie, its music and raging against the dying of the light -- right up until it hits the last few scenes, which somehow strike a false note. Perhaps it's because my sympathies have a tendency, whether in sob-stories like this or in fluff as light-hearted as 'An American in Paris', to veer towards those third parties whose own affections serve only as a momentary derailment to the course of True Love. Perhaps it's my own experience of watching such illness play out its rapacious course, and knowledge of the futile health myths of the era. But after the touch of ice that runs through the rest of the film, the grand finale strikes me as a cop-out.From a medical point of view it does occur to me to wonder how many modern viewers will realise from the start what's supposed to be going on! The dread opening words 'Swiss sanitarium' are no longer a universally-recognised shorthand for the unnamed spectre of tuberculosis, the cancer equivalent for sentimental sagas of the era. But it is, of course, tuberculosis requiring all those chest X-rays, mountain air, and 'stimulating diet'...The story is skilfully constructed along the lines of a murder-mystery, lulling the viewer into security for long stretches of time, arousing sympathy and indignacy at a regime that can deprive Karen of her music as well as her liberty and her mobility. Celestine's constant light malice on the subject of Dr Tony -- jealousy or realistic view? -- stirs up additional doubt, and her role turns out to have a much greater significance than we were led to believe. Questions of truth or lies run like a twisting theme throughout the greater part of the film, keeping the audience off-balance, and making Karen's ultimate reaction of discovery easier to comprehend. (Again, though, I do wonder if modern viewers will realise that in medicine of the period, deceiving patients for their own good was no misdemeanour but more or less expected!)By and large, I found this film much more sophisticated than one might expect from a genre piece of this nature. I've already mentioned the elements that verge unexpectedly on horror amid the sweetness, and the innocent establishment beforehand of items that will later prove significant. Celestine is not what she may appear. And Clermont, too, is not the opportunistic cad first appearances might lead us to assume.My main problem is that it seems to turn a corner into a quite different sort of film in the last few minutes, for no very convincing reason. Given its previous record in this line, I was anticipating some kind of apocalyptic revelation right up until the final shot... and was left still hanging there, waiting, when the film proved merely to have ended. It felt like a simplistic resolution to what had previously proved a complex structure. And, I think, it turns the story into one about the heroine learning her lesson rather than one about her fierce passion for life -- and thus, for me, making her a less appealing character. Despite everything, the cruise might have been the better option...