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Gaspard Ulliel

1984-2022 💔

Such a tragedy and devastating news, one of the best French actors of his generation 🤍

One of his posthumous roles will be in Moon Knight with Oscar Isaac 😔

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Rest In Peace to the legendary Betty White. Thank you for being a friend to us all. 😥

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"A song to the stars. They must think we are funny people. Scheeming to destroy each other. As if we had forever to live ."

Cleopatra ( 1934).

Dir. Cecil B. DeMille.

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Rest In paradise Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer. 13 December 1929 - 5 February 2021

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Merle Oberon

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Laurence Olivier

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Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, 1939)

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Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939)

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Review 15: Wuthering Heights (1939)

12th Academy Awards

Other wins: no other Oscar wins, but 8 nominations (including Best Actor, Best Picture and Best Director); New York Film Critics Award for Best Picture; Library of Congress deemed as ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’.

Director: William Wyler (also directed Mrs Miniver, Ben-Hur, Jezebel, Roman Holiday, and Funny Girl)

Plot: based on a novel by Emily Brontë, the movie tells a story of a temperamental orphan Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), and his spoiled and equally feisty beloved Cathy (Merle Oberon). Drawn together by passion, but separated by social class, the two would bring destruction to others and to themselves.

Main point: from hate to love there is only one step. But the real point is that the film had to try desperately to make those two characters somewhat less shitty. So, the main point from my perspective is that both Heathcliff and Cathy sucks.

+ Not gonna lie, it is a beautifully shot film, the one that perhaps set the tone for all the upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptations. It is also nice to see the evolution of Laurence Olivier as a performer, how subtly throughout the film he steps away from larger-than-life theatre performer to become a great movie actor.

- Not sure I’m quite the fan of all the creative choices the filmmakers made. I can understand the total exclusion of the ‘next generation’ characters, for it may have been too immoral for the Code-era Hollywood. But the fact that they moved away from violent, Byronic book Heathcliff, to noble pauper with an occasional temper Olivier-Heathcliff wasn’t quite my cup of tea. Also, Edgar Linton (played by David Niven) was turned into sort of a villain. All of this works for Hollywood, but kinda takes away the reason why the book withstood the test of time. Cannot say that Merle Oberon was great in this either, though her last scenes really showcased her talent.

Would I recommend watching it? - Sure! If you’re a fan of classical cinema and Wuthering Heights, this would be a good film to watch. It definitely weaves nicely into Laurence Olivier’s career arc. And obviously, it’s a cinematography winner, so that definitely can be seen here.

8/10

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Jeanette MacDonald

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Nelson Eddy at home, 1938. Photo portrait by Durward Greybill.

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Sweethearts (1938), dir. W.S. Van Dyke

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Sweethearts (1938), dir. W.S Van Dyke

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Review 14: Sweethearts (1938)

11th Academy Awards

Other wins: none, but nominated for Best Sound and Best Original Score.

Director: W.S. Van Dyke (also directed Tarzan the Ape Man, The Thin Man, and 5 other musicals with MacDonald and Eddy)

Plot: in an eerily similar representation of the actors’ real life romance (depends which sources you trust), Sweethearts tells a story of two Broadway stars, Gwen Marlowe (played by Jeanette MacDonald) and Ernest Lane (Nelson Eddy) who have to manage industry pressure to find time for each other outside the stage.

Main point: showbiz really isn’t the best place for marriage. And sometimes you just gotta learn to say no.

+ I definitely learn towards sources that prove the relationship between Eddy and MacDonald, for they both had an absolutely incredible chemistry on stage. Both of their voices were incredibly good, and Jeanette looked like an absolute doll (at one point in the film even displaying 1938 fashions).

- It is one of the most anxiety inducing films of the 1930s. The viewer, pretty much like the main characters, just can’t catch a break, and not in exactly the best way. There’s hardly any relief, the first half of the film is too dragged out compared to the second half, that’s rushed through too quickly. And the ending is completely unsatisfactory, at least in my personal opinion.

Would I recommend watching it? - Honestly? Yes. It’s not a bad or a boring film, the two main actors are an absolute joy to watch, and even though you’re likely to stress for the whole hour (or even longer) of the film, it’s still a movie that deserves a bit more attention. It’s also interesting how it matches the other cinematography winner of the same year, The Great Waltz, with both receiving a very mild success, both being MGM musicals, and both starring professional opera singers. Hollywood was definitely into singing that year.

8/10

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Wuthering Heights (1939) dir. William Wyler

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Miliza Korjus

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Luise Rainer, 1937