Watchingwell 

                                 Curated classic films

Happy New Year …

                it could be worse.

    So did you ever think, why is everybody so happy on New Year’s Eve, celebrating another year when it just means that we’re another year closer to death?  Oh, sorry, that’s just me.

    However, it does remind me that there have been some New Year’s Eve celebrations in movies that were more notable for misery than joy and while everyone is throwing streamers and singing Auld Lang Syne, at least one of the main characters is singing an entirely different tune.  And that should give you good reason to celebrate because you’re not in one of these unfortunate situations.

After the Thin Man (1936), directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the second in the series, after the first, very successful, comedy/mystery adventure of Nick and Nora Charles, this sequel is a little darker and not as funny. But it features a very young James Stewart playing the rejected suitor of Nora’s unhappily married cousin, whose husband has disappeared.  Nick and Nora spend New Year’s Eve trying to find him at his last known hangout, “The Lychee Club”.

Holiday (1938). Directed by George Cukor, Katherine Hepburn plays a free soul trapped in a stuffy society family, but remains loyal to her siblings, a weak, unhappy brother, played by Lew Ayres and a shallow, self-satisfied sister, played by Doris Nolan.  When sister gets engaged to another free spirit (How this happens, we are puzzled to imagine, except that he is played by Cary Grant.), Hepburn’s character, Linda, tries to throw her an engagement party on New Year’s Eve. But Daddy intervenes and makes it a social event and Linda is very unhappy. Guess how it ends.

Bachelor Mother (1939), directed by Garson Kanin and starring Ginger Rogers as – what else – a kind-hearted, working girl, who finds a baby outside a foundling home and tries to bring it inside, and then, as it happens only in the movies, nobody believes that the baby is not hers. We, the audience, believe that we could extricate ourselves from this predicament even in 1939, by involving the legal system.  However, then there wouldn’t be a movie. Ginger’s employer, or to be exact, the employer’s son, played by David Niven, gets involved and makes it even more difficult for her. Fast forward:  they go out for New Year’s Eve while he still believes that she’s the mother.  (Remade sadly in 1956 as Bundle of Joy with Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.)

Holiday Inn (1942). Directed by Mark Sandrich, Bing Crosby and his partner, Fred Astaire, open a country inn and entertain there on all the holidays, courtesy of the appropriate Irving Berlin songs, including “Let’s Start the New Year Right”, for New Year’s Eve. With the help of lovely Marjorie Reynolds, the inn is a big hit.  But when Fred wants to steal her and head out to Hollywood, Bing tries to secretly thwart the plan, which Marjorie resents. Bing spends the rest of the holidays at the inn alone and miserable.

Remember the Night (1940).  Directed by Mitchell Leisen.  Barbara Stanwyck is befriended by district attorney, Fred MacMurray, back home in Indiana for the holidays. Bittersweet New Year’s Eve dance as Stanwyck is facing jail time when she returns to New York, at the same time she is falling in love with Fred.  And vice versa.  This year the film has moved up to my number two holiday film (number one being The Cheaters from 1945, as all you loyal readers know).

I’ll Be Seeing You  (1944) Directed by William Dieterle and an uncredited George Cukor. Similar kind of story as soldier, Joseph Cotten, is befriended by Ginger Rogers when he is alone during the holidays. Another bittersweet New Year’s Eve dance as Ginger is facing jail time when she returns after the holiday furlough. And they also fall in love. Nice family drama with Spring Byington, Tom Tully and Shirley Temple rounding out the cast.

One-Way Passage (1932). Directed by Tay Garnett.  William Powell is a murderer being returned to face the gallows on a ship crossing the Pacific where he meets Kay Francis, an heiress who is dying and is having one last adventure. When the detective repays Powell’s character for saving his life by allowing him the freedom of the ship, the romance takes shape and the couple vow to meet in Agua Caliente on New Year’s Eve. But of course, they never make it.

Till We Meet Again (1940) Directed by Edmund Gouldin, Merle Oberon and George Brent reprise the Francis/Powell roles in this faithful remake and do respectable work as the doomed pair who fall in love on the ship that is taking him to the gas chamber.

Show Boat (1936). Directed by James Whale, starring Irene Dunne and Alan Jones, remade in 1951 with Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel, and directed by George Sidney. In both versions of the Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern musical, a New Year’s Eve celebration is a sad occasion until Magnolia’s reunion with her estranged parents, strangely, with the background of “After the Ball” a song not written for the show.  The earlier version is more faithful to the Edna Ferber novel and covers more time, and has Helen Morgan and Paul Robeson in memorable performances.

The Apartment (1960). Directed by Billy Wilder, starring Shirley MacLaine, who has not managed her life very well, even  failing at suicide. At the end of the film, has a New Year’s Eve epiphany as she realizes that she is miserable with Fred MacMurray, the married man with whom she has been having a fling, and ditches him for Jack Lemmon.

But the award for the worst movie New Year’s Eve experience goes to Fredo Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974) when brother, Michael gives him the kiss of death (literally) instead of wishing him a Happy New Year. And we all know why, having seen this 496 times.  Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

  

But, seriously,

Happy New Year!