The Great Romantic Films

  • 2.2.22


I've decided to do a little project this February — in celebration of upcoming Valentine's Day — and dedicate this month to watching the unseen films listed in the book The Great Romantic Films by Lawrence J. Quirk (only pre-1970s). I own this book since forever but just recently dug it up from the basement of my mum's apartment and took it with me to Barcelona. 


This book was first published in 1974, and focuses on films from 1932 to 1973 dealing with various aspects of romance. Every title entry in the book comes with gorgeous black-and-white photos (photos in this post are random photos and not taken from the book). Covering 50 films in total, selected titles include well-known films like Stella Dallas, Wuthering Heights, The Old Maid, Random Harvest, Humoresque, Letter From an Unknown Woman, All That Heaven Allows and Now, Voyager.


Below I'll present you with the full list of 50 films discussed in the book. All titles in bold letters are the unseen films, the ones I'm trying to watch this month, 19 films in total. The film titles in red are the so-called modern films, the ones I don't intend to watch — films numbered 44 till 50. Number 44 and 45 are still from the 1960s, but I expect not to enjoy them — they seem too modern to my taste —  so I'm not including them in my watchlist. 

Some of the film dates in the book *) don't match the dates from film sources online (e.g. IMDB). I used the dates mentioned in the book, naming all the titles chronologically and following the exact order of the book's index. — *) The films concerned are Camille, Portrait of Jennie, My Foolish Heart, All That Heaven Allows, The Loves of Isadora and Teorema. 
  1. Smilin' Through (1932) with Norma Shearer and Fredric March;
  2. Only Yesterday (1933) with Margaret Sullavan and John Boles;
  3. The House on 56th Street (1933) with Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez and Gene Raymond;
  4. Death Takes a Holiday (1934) with Fredric March and Evelyn Venable;
  5. No Greater Glory (1934) with Frankie Darro;
  6. The Life of Vergie Winters (1934) with Ann Harding and John Boles;
  7. Alice Adams (1935) with Katharine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray;
  8. These Three (1936) with Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon and Joel McCrea;
  9. Camille (1937) with Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor;
  10. Lost Horizon (1937) with Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt;
  11. Maytime (1937) with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy;
  12. Stella Dallas (1937) with Barbara Stanwyck and John Boles;
  13. Marie Antoinette (1938) with Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power;
  14. Wuthering Heights (1939) with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier;
  15. The Old Maid (1939) with Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins and George Brent;
  16. Intermezzo (1939) with Leslie Howard and Ingrid Bergman;
  17. Back Street (1941) with Charles Boyer and Margaret Sullavan;
  18. That Hamilton Woman (1941) with Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier;
  19. A Woman's Face (1941) with Joan Crawford and Melvyn Douglas;
  20. Lydia (1941) with Merle Oberon and Joseph Cotten; 
  21. Kings Row (1942) with Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan;
  22. Now, Voyager (1942) with Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains;
  23. Random Harvest (1942) with Ronald Colman and Greer Garson;
  24. A Song to Remember (1945) with Paul Muni, Merle Oberon and Cornel Wilde;
  25. The Enchanted Cottage (1945) with Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young and Herbert Marshall;
  26. This Love of Ours (1945) with Merle Oberon, Claude Rains and Charles Korvin;
  27. My Reputation (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent;
  28. A Stolen Life (1946) with Bette Davis, Glenn Ford and Dane Clark;
  29. To Each His Own (1946) with Olivia de Havilland and John Lund;
  30. Humoresque (1946) with Joan Crawford and John Garfield;
  31. Song of Love (1947) with Katharine Hepburn, Paul Henreid and Robert Walker;
  32. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) with Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan;
  33. Enchantment (1948) with David Niven and Teresa Wright;
  34. Portrait of Jennie (1949) with Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten;
  35. The Heiress (1949) with Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift;
  36. My Foolish Heart (1950) with Dana Andrews and Susan Hayward;
  37. The Blue Veil (1951) with Jane Wyman, Charles Laughton and Joan Blondell;
  38. Rhapsody (1954) with Elizabeth Taylor and Vittorio Gassman;
  39. All That Heaven Allows (1956) with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson;
  40. Tea and Sympathy (1956) with Deborah Kerr and John Kerr;
  41. The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957) with Jennifer Jones and John Gielgud;
  42. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) with Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty;
  43. Madame X (1966) with Lana Turner, John Forsythe and Ricardo Montalban;
  44. The Loves of Isadora (1969) with Vanessa Redgrave;
  45. Teorema (1969) with Silvana Mangano and Terence Stamp; 
  46. Love Story (1970) with Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal; 
  47. The Music Lovers (1971) with Richard Chamberlain and Glenda Jackson; 
  48. Death in Venice (1971) with Dirk Bogarde;
  49. A Separate Peace (1972) with John Heyl and Parker Stevenson; 
  50. Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973) with Maggie Smith and Timothy Bottoms. 
Of the films already seen (some even multiple times), my favourites are Alice Adams, Random Harvest, My Reputation, Portrait of Jennie, All That Heaven Allows and Now, Voyager.


Smithy: “Isn't there something morbid in burying one's heart with the dead?”

Paula: “That's a strange thing for you to say. Your capacity for loving, your joy in living, is buried in a little space of time you've forgotten.”

Smithy: “In some vague way, I still have ...”

Paula: “ ... hope?”

Smithy: “Yes, I suppose that's it.”

Paula: “Have you, Charles? Do you feel that there ... really is someone? That someday you may find her? You may have ... come so near her, may even have brushed her on the street ... You might even have met her, Charles. Met her and not known her. It might be someone you know, Charles. It might ... it might even be me.”

 — Random Harvest



Of the films I still need to see (19 in total), I'm looking most forward to watching Lost Horizon and Enchantment. There are a couple of films that I'm not keen on watching at all, e.g. Maytime, A Song to Remember and Song of Love, but they might be fun and I hope the music will be good. 

I might do a follow-up post at the end of the month after completing this project. If not, you can still read my thoughts on all films watched in my February round-up post. 


PHOTOS IN THIS POST FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
*Smilin' Through (1932) with Norma Shearer and Fredric March;
*Book cover of The Great Romantic Films by Lawrence J. Quirk, first published in 1974;
*Alice Adams (1935) with Katharine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray;
*Random Harvest (1942) with Ronald Colman and Greer Garson;
*To Each His Own (1946) with Olivia de Havilland and John Lund.
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