Having continually offered reports including eyewitness dispatches about the ever-receding tide of Western civilization, I think I probably owe a little escape – or, better, escapism – to readers, some respite from reality. At least until the end of the holidays.
After sorting through the vaults for some diverting holiday fare, here is a festival’s worth of A-list movies set in some of the great cities of the world – those same places that often serve as a backdrop to the ongoing multi-pronged war on the West that, alas, characterizes our era. But enough of that for now.
Given the gloom, some parameters. First, freshness. While these movies are what you could certainly call Cinema Antique, some of them may well prove to be new discoveries. In other words, no “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Casablanca” here – although “Casablanca” wouldn’t make this particular cut because of my second criterion: total uplift.
There are no world wars brewing in these pictures, no bad cases of rotten luck. And no poignant states of marginal truth.
Let’s kick off this cinematic tour in celluloid New York City with “Easy Living” (1937), an especially carefree A-list romantic comedy written by Preston Sturges about what happens when career girl Jean Arthur crosses paths with a Wall Street millionaire (who never heard of subprime “toxic paper”) played by Edward Arnold. Ray Milland portrays the handsome son. And if you haven’t seen “The Band Wagon” (1953), an all-time best musical with songs by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz and starring Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Jack Buchanan and Oscar Levant (who built a comedic career on his neurosis), it will lend a high note to any holiday. And speaking of holidays, New York City and escape (at least to Connecticut), “Holiday Inn” (1942) combines all three as Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Virginia Dale and Marjorie Reynolds sort out their tangled stage careers and love lives with help from Irving Berlin songs and comic relief from Astaire’s agent Walter Abel.