For many years after my wife Andrea Serota and I sold the Savoy Theater and Downstairs Video, our friends were still stopping us on the street to ask for film recommendations. It seems that there is a growing variety of options for watching films (including Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Hulu, or Criterion), but finding guidance for selection is as haphazard and confusing as ever. We recommended films every month for a while, but stopped in October 2019. Now we are reviving this occasional list of a dozen or so of our favorite films. The list will include films American and foreign, feature and documentary, classic and contemporary, and ones appropriate for the whole family. 

MARCH 2023

COMPARTMENT 6 is a film by Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, taking place almost entirely on a train going from Moscow to Murmansk. A Finnish archeology student is forced to share a compartment with a loutish Russian man and an unlikely frienship develops.

Two other excellent films set almost entirely on a train are Alfred Hitchcock’s THE LADY VANISHES, still top-notch entertainment after 85 years, and the noir thriller THE NARROW MARGIN. And we shouldn’t forget Buster Keaton’s silent epic, THE GENERAL, in which Buster commandeers a stolen locomotive during the Civil War.

Two films starring Alan Bates: some aspects of the 1966 cult favorite KING OF HEARTS don’t hold up that well, but it’s still a delightful film. In a much darker mood, Bates is menacing in the film adaptation of Harold Pinter’s THE CARETAKER (1962), one of the finest stage-to-screen films.

Sir Michael Redgrave gives a superb and moving performance in THE BROWNING VERSION (1950) as a British boys’ school professor whom life has passed by. Albert Finney was also excellent in the same role when the film was remade in 1994.

One of the most remarkable animated films in recent years was FLEE, which told the harrowing story of one teenager’s escape from war-torn Afghanistan and his journey to safety in Sweden. A more light-hearted work of brilliant animation is the French A CAT IN PARIS.

Claire Denis’ autobiographical film CHOCOLAT told her story of growing up in isolated Cameroon, where her father was a wealthy businessman. The film was unavailable for many years, and has just been restored and re-released.

One of our most popular films at the Green Mountain Film Festival was a German/Turkish comedy IN JULY, which recounts a road trip with many detours, from Hamburg to Istanbul. A.O. Scott of the New York Times called Fatih Akin’s film “a love letter to a benign and beguiling vision of Europe.”

If you looking for a classic American comedy, there is no better than THE LADY EVE, from 1942. It was written and directed by Preston Sturges, and stars Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. Andrea says, “Stanwyck has never been better.”

Two recent films are now available streaming, both based on real-life events. TILL stars Danielle Deadwyler as the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old murdered in Mississippi in 1955; SHE SAID tells the story of Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the New York Times reporters who broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s trail of abuse.

Some upcoming Savoy films we’re looking forward to seeing: WOMEN TALKING, the French drama ONE FINE MORNING, and the Irish film THE QUIET GIRL, based on Claire Keegan’s novel FOSTER.

 

JANUARY 2023

RANDOM HARVEST is a classic melodrama from 1942. It’s based on James Hilton’s novel about a World War I soldier suffering from amnesia (Ronald Colman) and a sympathetic showgirl who devotes herself to his care (Greer Garson).

James Gray wrote and directed this year’s ARMAGEDDON TIME, an autobiographical story set in 1980 Queens, New York City. A young boy faces anti-Semitism and comes to learn hard truths as a result of his friendship with a Black classmate. We also recommend Steven Spielberg’s take on his own childhood, THE FABELMANS, now at the Savoy.

The setting of DECEMBER BRIDE (1990) is coastal Northern Ireland. Based on a well-known Irish novel of 1951, it tells the story of an independent young woman (Saskia Reeves) courted by two brothers (Ciaran Hinds and Donal McCann).

QUAI DES ORFÈVRES is the Parisian equivalent of Scotland Yard. This 1947 film is a police procedural with Louis Jouvet as an unconventional detective. The post-war atmosphere is captured brilliantly by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

If you’re looking for a comedy, you can’t go wrong with two Katherine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy classics, PAT AND MIKE, set in the world of sports, and ADAM’S RIB, where they play attorneys on opposite sides of a controversial case.

TO LESLIE is an independent American film with Andrea Riseborough in a role that snagged her a Best Actress Oscar nomination this year. You’ll see why in this moving study of a woman trying to put her life together after years of hard living.

THE GOOD BOSS is a black comedy starring the great Spanish actor Javier Bardem in the title role, the CEO of a successful company who faces a personal and business crisis.

The excellent seven-season French television series A FRENCH VILLAGE helped get us through the first few months of the pandemic. The seasons cover the years 1940 to 1946 and show how the German Occupation of one mid-sized village triggered one excruciating crisis of conscience after another.

ARGENTINA 85 has been nominated for this year’s Foreign Film Oscar. It tells the true story of how, against mighty odds, the perpetrators of Argentina’s “Dirty War” of the 1970s, in which thousands were killed or jailed, were finally brought to justice.

EX LIBRIS – This is one of many films from the master documentarian Frederick Wiseman that is available through the Kanopy platform – all you need is a library card at the Kellogg-Hubbard or other participating libraries. Fittingly, this film takes a long look behind the scenes at the New York Public Library.

ANIMATION FROM THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA – Since the mid-1940s, the NFB  has been producing mind-boggling animation from talented artists. All the films are available on  the www.nfb.ca site. It can be overwhelming, but we’d start with the work of Norman McLaren, Frédéric Back, Eugene Federenko, and Caroline Leaf.

 

OCTOBER 2019

Last month, we recommended Carol Reed’s THE FALLEN IDOL. Here are two other excellent films based on Graham Greene novels: Neil Jordan’s THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1999), starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore, and THE QUIET AMERICAN (2002), directed by Australian Philip Noyce, starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser.

TWO-FAMILY HOUSE (2000) – A charming and neglected American indie film, written and directed by Raymond DeFiletta based on a family story, set in working-class Staten Island in the mid-50s.

THE JAZZ LOFT ACCORDING TO W. EUGENE SMITH – This recent documentary uses photographer W. Eugene Smith’s massive, fly-on-the-wall archive of photos and audio tapes documenting the likes of jazz greats Thelonious Monk, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Giuffre, Hall Overton and others at work and play in the Sixth Avenue wreck that was Smith’s home and studio from 1957 through the ’60s.

 FROM MAO TO MOZART – (1979) – Isaac Stern’s cultural tour of China is documented, with the master violinist performing and mentoring young Chinese musicians.

 WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT (1987) – Pierre Sauvage was born in a small village in France in 1944, among what would become as many as 5000 Jews who were helped by the collective efforts of the town, hidden from occupying Nazis. As an adult, he went back to tell the remarkable story.

WILDLIFE (2018) – One of last year’s finest independent films was written and directed by Paul Dano, and stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Casey Mulligan whose marital strife takes a toll on their teenage son (a fantastic young actor named Ed Oxenbould).

Two classic American independent films- SALT OF THE EARTH (1954), written, produced, and directed by three blacklisted Hollywood writers, tells the story of a New Mexico labor struggle. NOTHING BUT A MAN (1964) follows an African-American construction worker (Ivan Dixon) as he fights to retain his dignity in the segregated south.

MIFUNE (1999) is not a Japanese film! It’s Danish, with humorous reference to the great Japanese actor. It’s a darkly comic study of two brothers, one of whom is forced to take on the other’s care.

TO BE AND TO HAVE (2002) – A documentary portrait of a one-room school in rural France, where the students (ranging in age from 4 to 11) are educated by a single dedicated teacher.

MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN (1941) – Dave Fleischer’s film is an animated gem, deserving of greater viewership. The happy tranquility of Buggsville is shattered when the populace learns that a colossal skyscraper is to be built over their tiny town.

Two Fred Astaire classics: The first, SWING TIME (1938), costars Ginger Rogers, with a score by Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern, while Vincente Minelli’s THE BAND WAGON has Astaire teamed with Cyd Charisse, with a witty script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and a score by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz.

 AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS (1987) – Louis Malle’s autobiographical film is set in wartime France. A French boarding school run by priests seems to be a haven from World War II until a new student arrives.

 SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1962) – Francois Truffaut’s French New Wave classics is a comedy/thriller/romance with a memorable lead performance from Charles Aznavour.

Two Japanese films round out the list: TAMPOPO (1985), an unpredictable food comedy, and SHALL WE DANCE (1996), in which a successful but unhappy accountant finds the missing passion in his life when he begins to secretly take ballroom dance lessons (far superior to the Richard Gere-starred remake).

 

SEPTEMBER 2019

Since there is not an active film industry in Greenland, we thought we’d highlight three Danish films, all by the eminent director Bille August. TWIST AND SHOUT (1985), a poignant film about teenage friendship, set when Beatlemania hit Copenhagen; THE BEST INTENTIONS (1992), based on Ingmar Bergman’s screenplay depicting the courtship of Bergman’s parents; and the Oscar-winning PELLE THE CONQUEROR (1987), starring Max Van Sydow as a Swedish immigrant in turn-of-the-century Denmark.

We sadly note the death of Peter Fonda. He directed and starred in an excellent but little-seen western THE HIRED HAND (1971), and got an Oscar nomination for his role as a taciturn beekeeper in ULEE’S GOLD (1997).

 NO SUBTITLES NECESSARY (2008) – The spectacular cinematography on Fonda’s THE HIRED HAND was done by the Hungarian émigré Vilmos Zsigmond, and this documentary tells the story of how Zsigmond and fellow countryman Laszlo Kovacs escaped from Hungary in 1956 and revolutionized Hollywood cinematography from the 60s through the 80s. It features clips from EASY RIDER, FIVE EASY PIECES, McCABE AND MRS. MILLER among others.

ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (1999) – Women with strength, passion, and humor dominate Pedro Almodovar’s emotionally rich film, in which “Streetcar Named Desire” meets “All About Eve.”

 REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940) – Before directing his own films, Preston Sturges wrote this unusual comedy/family drama/weepie, starring Fred MacMurray as a District Attorney and Barbara Stanwyck as a troubled woman he arrests for shoplifting.

SATIN ROUGE (2002) – In a film from Tunisia, the marvelous Hiam Abbas stars as an attractive widow who takes up belly-dancing, but hides it from her teenage daughter.

STRICTLY BALLROOM (1992) – Before Australian Baz Luhrman struck the big time with MOULIN ROUGE and other films, he made this delightful romantic comedy set in the world of competitive ballroom dancing.

TWO BY AVIVA KEMPNER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HANK GREENBERG (1998), YOO HOO, MRS. GOLDBERG (2009). Recently documentary filmmaker Aviva Kempner came to Montpelier to show her latest film, THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE. Two of her earlier films deal with other fascinating Jewish personalities, the baseball player Hank Greenberg, and the writer/actor Gertrude Berg, better known to radio and TV fans as “Molly Goldberg.”

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH (1957) – A young British couple (played by Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna) inherit a run-down movie theater in the industrial north, and try their best to keep it going. Also starring Peter Sellers and Margaret Rutherford.

LAGAAN (2001) – A three-hour-plus Bollywood film about a cricket match? LAGAAN has to be seen – and enjoyed – to be believed.

MONA LISA (1986) – Neil Jordan’s moody thriller stars an amazing Bob Hoskins as a man recently released from prison who is hired by crime boss Michael Caine to be a driver for a high-priced call girl.

 WHITE MANE (1953)/THE RED BALLOON (1956) – Albert Lamorrise was the director of these two family classics, the first set in the Camargue region of France and the other in the heart of Paris. Both have minimal dialogue.

TIGER BAY (1959) – The film that made a star of Hayley Mills is an offbeat crime film showing the relationship between a young killer (Horst Buchholz) and a 12-year-old girl who witnesses his crime.

BURNING BUSH (2016) – Agnieszka Holland mini-series, done for Czech television, is a riveting exploration of political tension in 1968 Czechoslovakia, and the consequences of the self-immolation by student Jan Palach.

CHICKEN RUN (2000) – Aardman Animation, the British company that brought us Wallace and Gromit, made a wickedly entertaining full-length claymation version of THE GREAT ESCAPE, this time set in a barnyard.

AUGUST 2019

THE LONG DAY CLOSES – Terence Davies’ 1992 film is a recreation of his childhood Liverpool, where a shy youngster copes with the pressures of school and home life in 1950s Britain via the local movie theater.

TOPSY-TURVY – Mike Leigh’s masterful 1999 film tells the story of how W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were inspired to write “The Mikado.” Jim Broadbent shines as the dour Gilbert.

A TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL (1985) – An elderly lady (Geraldine Page, in an Oscar-winning performance) disobeys her family and travels alone from Houston to her childhood Texas home in Bountiful. Adapted from a play by Horton Foote.

TWO WITH GENE TIERNEY: THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR – Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney star in Joseph Mankiewicz’ 1947 romance/ghost story. LAURA (1944) is one of the celebrated film noirs of the 1940s. Directed by Otto Preminger, it stars Tierney,Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, and Vincent Price.

WINGED MIGRATION (2001) a visually dazzling documentary by Jacques Perrin that records the flight of dozens of different birds as they follow their navigational instincts and make the taxing journey to more temperate climates in the fall, all chronicled without the use of narration

TOUCH THE SOUND (2004) This documentary is subtitled “A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie.” Glennie is a world-renowned deaf Scottish percussionist who has explored the boundaries of sound.

SUGAR CANE ALLEY (1983) – A poignant coming-of-age story set In the French colony of Martinique in the 1930s, where rambunctious teenager Jose lives in a rundown shack in a small farm village with his doting grandmother, M’Man Tine.

THE GOOD FIGHT – The 1984 documentary is subtitled ‘the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War” and with a combination of archival footage and interviews with surviving veterans illuminates that conflict and the Americans who fought there.

RUNNING ON EMPTY (1988) – Anti-war activists Arthur Pope (Judd Hirsch) and his wife Annie (Christine Lahti) are continually on the run after a bombing. But now their son (River Phoenix) is a teenager, wanting some stability.

FROZEN RIVER (2008) – Set in Mohawk country in upstate New York, the films stars Melissa Leo as a woman who becomes involves with smuggling migrants across the Canadian border.

DAY FOR NIGHT (1973) – One of our favorite Frannois Truffaut films takes us behind the scenes of the filming of a fictional film. We meet the stars, director, producer, script girl, and others as Truffaut (playing the director himself) demystifies the filmmaking process.

DIVIDED WE FALL (2000) – This brilliant Czech dark comedy is about a childless couple during the World War II years ina small Czech town who take in a young Jewish man hiding from the authorities.

BABETTE’S FEAST (1987) – This Danish film is a brilliant retelling of Isak Dinesen’s short story involving two pious sisters and the Frenchwoman (a political refugee) who is their cook.

STRAIGHT NO CHASER (1988) A must-see for any jazz fan: a documentary on the brilliant and unpredictable genius Thelonius Monk. A good fictional counterpart is Bertrand Tavernier’s ROUND MIDNIGHT (1986), which stars Dexter Gordon as an American jazz musician living in exile in Paris.

THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (1994) The mythical creatures known as selkies – half seal-half human – are at the center of this lovely and moving film by John Sayles, set on the rugged Irish coast.

 

 

JULY 2019 

Two food films: BIG NIGHT (1996), set in New Jersey in the 1950s, stars Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub as two brothers struggling to keep a small Italian restaurant open; EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN (1994) is a family drama with many comic touches set in Ang Lee’s native Taiwan.

MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON (1990): an adventure film based on the efforts of Victorian-era explorers Richard Burton (Patrick Bergin) and John Speke (Iain Glen) to find the source of the Nile.

 EIGHT MEN OUT: John Sayles’ historical drama about the ‘Black Sox’ scandal of 1919, when the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series. David Strathairn and Ray Liotta star.

 SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN : The 1952 film directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen (and starring Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor) is endlessly enjoyable. It’s a loving and tuneful satire on all things Hollywood and an insightful look at the era when silent gave way to sound.

LITTLE ODESSA (1994): Not many know about this American independent film with a stellar cast (Tim Roth, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximillian Schell, and Edward Furlong) set in a Brooklyn neighborhood, where one family’s closeness is threatened by a son’s ties to the Russian mafia.

WOMEN IN LOVE (1969): D.H. Lawrence’s provocative novel was turned into a screenplay by Larry Kramer and directed by Ken Russell. In 1920s England, two free-thinking sisters (Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden) are wooed by two friends (Alan Bates and Oliver Reed).

 TURTLE DIARY (1985): Another film starring Glenda Jackson may be a little harder to track down (it is on YouTube). Jackson and Ben Kingsley star as two lonely people who bond over freeing some sea turtles from captivity.

 UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964): Jacques Demy’s romantic drama starred Catherine Deneuve, and its dialogue is entirely sung to a score by the late Michel Legrand.

 ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (1958): Louis Malle’s debut was a suspense thriller with a debt to Hitchcock but stylistically a forerunner of the French New Wave. It made Jeanne Moreau an international star. Musical score by Miles Davis.

LASSIE COME HOME (1943) – Roddy MacDowell and Elizabeth Taylor star in this heart-tugging and heart-warming family drama, adapted from the Eric Knight novel. A more recent version, the 2008 LASSIE, is more faithful to the original source; it is also an excellent film but may prove a challenge to find.

MONDAYS IN THE SUN (2002): Javier Bardem has the lead in this film set in a Spanish port town where the dockside workers have been laid off, and they struggle to keep their spirits high.

GOOD BYE LENIN! (2003): In this biting German comedy, a Communist true believer in East Berlin has a stroke the night the Berlin Wall comes down, and when she regains consciousness months later, her son frantically tries to convince her that nothing has changed.

MONGOLIAN PING PONG (2002): A ping pong ball mysteriously shows up in a nomadic community in Inner Mongolia; two children undertake a journey to find out where it came from.

 SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957): It’s an iconic film from the 50s now, but it was a commercial failure on release. Burt Lancaster is a ruthless gossip columnist and Tony Curtis is a weaselly press agent. Direction by Alexander Mackendrick, pungent dialogue by Clifford Odets.

 GREEN FOR DANGER (1946): A whodunit set at a provincial army hospital in wartime England. It features Alistair Sim as a droll Scotland Yard inspector.

THE FALLEN IDOL (1949): Sir Carol Reed directed Graham Greene’s own adaptation of his short story, which is set in a foreign embassy in London. A young boy, neglected by his ambassador father, forms a tight bond with the head servant, memorably portrayed by Ralph Richardson.

 HIGH LONESOME (1994): The New York Times said of this documentary, “You need not have the slightest interest in bluegrass music to find this film a fascinating bit of Americana, a patchwork of historical, moral and cultural influences that conspired in creating an unusually pure American folk tradition.”

 SONGCATCHER (2000) – Maggie Greenwald’s independent film is set in Appalachia in 1907, where a musicologist (Janet MacTeer) goes in search of old songs and tunes.

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (2007) – Alex Gibney’s documentary explores the American military’s use of torture by focusing on the unsolved murder of an Afghani taxi driver who, in 2002, was taken for questioning at Bagram Force Air Base.

JUNE 2019

BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING (1932) – In Jean Renoir’s comedy, a Parisian bookseller saves a tramp (the marvelous Michel Simon) from drowning in the Seine, and takes him into his well-appointed home with chaotic results. Remade by Paul Mazursky as DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS.

THE COURT JESTER (1955) – Danny Kaye is at his best in this fast-paced parody of swashbuckling adventure films. Great for all ages. “The vessel with the pestle,” anyone?

A SPECIAL DAY (1977) – Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren star in Ettore Scola’s film, which takes place on the day in 1938 when Hitler arrived in Rome for a state visit. It’s perhaps the finest Italian film (with THE CONFORMIST) about the Fascist era.

LACOMBE LUCIEN (1973) – Louis Malle’s film deals with an uncomfortable subject in France: collaboration with the occupying Nazis, here told through the eyes of an apolitical 17-year-old who gradually develops a conscience.

I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING (1945) – Wendy Hiller stars as a headstrong young woman stranded in a small Scottish port on the way to her wedding. It’s a high point of the long collaboration between director Michael Powell and producer Emeric Pressburger.

HOWARDS END (1992) – Producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala did E.M. Forster proud with this splendid adaptation of his novel (Andrea says, ‘I just re-read the book and they did a magnificent job’). The cast features Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Bonham-Carter, and Vanessa Redgrave.

THE HOST (2006) – Bong Joon-ho’s all-stop-out horror/comedy involves a dysfunctional Korean family who must band together to defeat an amphibious monster, the by-product of U.S. military pollution.

THE KING OF MASKS (1997) – Wu Tianming’s drama is set in 1930’s China where an elderly artist discovers the scruffy street child he bought to continue his art is actually female. Roger Ebert called it a “film of simplicity, beauty and surprising emotional power.”

THE BIG ANIMAL (2000) – In a small Polish town, a schoolteacher and her bank-clerk husband find a camel that a traveling circus left in their garden. Directed by Jerzy Stuhr (who has the lead role) from a script by Krzysztof Kieslowski, it’s a whimsical and bittersweet tale that works on many levels.

THE BEST INTENTIONS (1992) – Danish director Bille August adapted Ingmar Bergman’s script – the story of how Bergman’s parents met and married.

THE BEST OF YOUTH (2003) – Entertainment Weekly: “The lives of two brothers come to embody nearly four decades of Italian history in a grandly engrossing drama — a narrative masterpiece thoroughly worth the six-hour running time.” It’s ideal for breaking into three two-hour segments.

SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1944) – This was Alfred Hitchcock’s own favorite of his films. Shot on location in Santa Rosa, California, it tells the story of Charlie, a serial killer played by Joseph Cotten, who takes shelter in his sister’s ‘all-American’ home.

MEEK’S CUTOFF (2010) – During the 1840s, six settlers and their guide are caught in a dangerous situation: they are lost, food and water are running out, and the surrounding desert threatens to claim them all. Starring Michelle Williams and Zoe Kazan. Written and directed by Kelly Reichardt.

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (1988) – Steve Martin and Michael Caine are two competing con men working the French Riviera. It’s one of our favorite laugh-out-loud comedies.

THE RITCHIE BOYS (2004) – This documentary reunites a group of European refugees who came to America and then enlisted to fight in World War II, training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, and then becoming interrogators in war zones.

THE BEAUTY ACADEMY OF KABUL (2004) – Liz Mermin’s documentary shows how six American hairdressers set up a school to train Kabul women in the business of hair and makeup. The New York Times: “By offering a means of economic independence — as well as living examples of women bossing around men on a daily basis — the beauty school is providing hope for students whose grace, strength and humor are nothing short of astounding.”

KATHERINE HEPBURN – May marked the 112^th anniversary of the birth of the actress known for her fierce independence and spirited personality. Perhaps our favorite of her films is an often-overlooked one called HOLIDAY, from 1938, a romantic drama with many comic touches co-starring Cary Grant. Others worth seeing (or re-seeing) are STAGE DOOR, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, ADAM’S RIB, and PAT AND MIKE.

MAY 2019

THE LADY EVE (1942) – Writer-director Preston Sturges made six outstanding romantic comedies in a row in the early 40s, then fell into obscurity. He was rediscovered in the 1970s and is now appreciated as perhaps the wittiest and most sophisticated of American filmmakers. There’s no better place to start than THE LADY EVE, in which Barbara Stanwyck’s con artist falls in love with her intended target, an heir to an ale fortune played by Henry Fonda.

 LAUREL AND HARDY SHORTS – With this year’s release of the biopic STAN AND OLLIE, there is renewed interest in the gut-busting comedy of the real Stan and Ollie. Four of their best are BIG BUSINESS (from the silent era), BUSY BODIES (disaster in a woodworking shop), COUNTY HOSPITAL (whose bits are reproduced in STAN AND OLLIE), and THE MUSIC BOX (aka “the one with the piano and the stairs”). 10-year-old Miriam can’t get enough of these films and recommends them highly. Fair warning: these films do not present good modeling for conflict resolution!

THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE (1953) – Max Ophuls’ film follows a pair of earrings as they change hands during a series of betrayals and romances. It stars Danielle Darrieux in the title role, with Charles Boyer as her faithless husband and Vittorio de Sica as her lover. The Guardian: “A true great, Ophuls’ film is erotic, gripping, elegant and mysterious”

 KITCHEN STORIES (2003) – In the 1950s, a Swedish researcher is part of a team planning to revolutionize the home kitchen. Scientist Folke is sent to a rural Norwegian town, where he tracks the kitchen behavior of single men. Folke is under strict orders to avoid personal interactions with his subject at all costs, but despite warnings from his superiors, he strikes up a strange camaraderie with the farmer Isak. Variety called Bent Hamer’s film “a warmly observed humanist comedy about misguided social conditioning and the redeeming value of friendship and individuality.”

 PHOENIX (2015) – Nelly (Nina Hoss) is a German woman who survived the horrors of a WWII concentration camp but is left disfigured in this stunning drama directed by Christian Petzold. She returns to Berlin to find her husband, and…..we won’t tell you any more.

HAPPY TEXAS (1999) – When bank robbers Harry (Jeremy Northam) and Wayne (Steve Zahn) escape from prison and stumble into the tiny Texas Panhandle town of Happy, they’re mistaken for the gay couple who were scheduled to help plan the town’s children’s beauty pageant. We saw this film at the Boston Film Festival with an audience that was laughing uproariously from start to finish, so it remains a mystery why this film was a commercial failure, and is still little-known.

SHORT-TERM 12 (2013) – The title of this American indie refers to a residential treatment center for troubled teens, and features future Oscar winners Brie Larson and Rami Malek as two of the counselors. The film is closely observed, quite moving, and resists sentimentality and easy answers.

THE MAGIC FLUTE (1975) – Ingmar Bergman’s film of the Mozart opera is a total delight for the ears and eyes. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-magic-flute-1976

NOTE BY NOTE (2007) – Making a piano is no easy task, and making one by hand is even harder. Documentary filmmaker Ben Niles spends over a year charting the process by which Steinway & Sons, the most prestigious name in the industry, manufactures one of its concert grand pianos. You’ll meet fascinating people on the factory floor, the showroom, and the concert stage.

THE MAGGIE (1954) – One of the best (and less well-known) of the “Ealing comedies” that came from that English studio. It was released in the U.S. as “High and Dry.” A wealthy American plans to surprise his wife with a summer residence in the British Isles. Arrogantly certain that he can make a shrewd deal, he charters a small, rundown transport boat, “The Maggie,” to carry his furnishings to the new property. The pilot desperately needs the job to save his boat — but he and the crew of two men and a boy nevertheless plan to get the most out of the American on an unorthodox journey.

NEVER CRY WOLF (1983) – Based on Farley Mowat’s memoir, Carroll Ballard’s film tells the story of research scientist Tyler (Charles Martin Smith), who is sent to the desolate Canadian tundra to find out whether the local wolf population is responsible for decimating Canada’s caribou herds. Helped by a local Inuit native, he manages to establish an observation post and, while braving the harsh climate, begins to study a family of wolves, as well as the caribou.

PERSEPOLIS (2007) – Marianne Satrapi helped turn her own graphic memoir into this affecting animated film, based on her life in pre and post-revolutionary Iran and then in Europe. The film traces Satrapi’s growth from child to rebellious, punk-loving teenager in Iran. In the background are the growing tensions of the political climate in Iran in the 70s and 80s, with members of her liberal-leaning family detained and then executed, and the background of the disastrous Iran/Iraq war.

 KEY LARGO (1948) – Although other Bogart and Bacall collaborations like THE BIG SLEEP are better-known, John Huston’s 1948 thriller is an excellent one. Visiting Key Largo to pay his respects to the family of his late war buddy, Frank McCloud (Bogart) attempts to comfort his comrade’s widow, Nora (Lauren Bacall), and father, James Temple (Lionel Barrymore), who operate a hotel. But McCloud realizes that mobsters, led by the infamous Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), are staying in the hotel.

APRIL 2019

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946): William Wyler’s epic drama captured the plight of returning World War II veterans.

THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (1932) : A chilling political whodunit from German director Fritz Lang, his last film before fleeing Nazi Germany.

THE LUNCHBOX (2014): A poignant story of loneliness and connection in contemporary Mumbai/Bombay.

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (2007): Ryan Gosling stars in this independent comedy-drama about a shy young man in the Midwest with an unusual predeliction.

RING OF BRIGHT WATER (1969): A family favorite about a young Londoner and his pet otter who live on the Scottish coast.

TESTAMENT OF YOUTH (2014): Based on Vera Brittain’s famed memoir, the film stars Alicia Vikander an independent young woman who abandoned her Oxford studies to become a war nurse.

 A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM (1994): The story behind the group portrait of 57 notable jazz musicians photographed in front of a brownstone in Harlem, New York City. 

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (2003): Amazing animation by Sylvain Chomet. When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters–an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire–to rescue him.

HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29 (2008): “The most famous football game in Ivy League history,” played in 1968, was the source of a extremely entertaining documentary, definitely not only for sports fans.

A TASTE OF HONEY (1962): Rita Tushingham stars in a drama set in England’s industrial north. Directed by Tony Richardson, it’s as fresh today as it was then.

FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002): Director/writer Todd Haynes essentially made a 1950s melodrama, but dealing with racial and sexual issues that movies of that era could not touch. Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid star.

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (2008): Germans in Turkey, Turks in Germany. Writer-director Fatih Akin explores borders and cultures in a affecting drama.

NOW VOYAGER (1942): Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains star in one of the best melodramas of the ‘classic Hollywood’ era. Get out your handkerchiefs!