Midnight (Mitchell Leisen, 1939). Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder wrote the screenplay for this zingy romantic comedy about Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert), a down-and-out U.S. showgirl who tries to change her fortunes in Paris. Right after her arrival the French capital, Eve is befriended by a rakish taxi driver (Don Ameche) who’s immediately smitten with her. After she lucks into a masquerade that gives her access to the comforts of high society, the taxi driver endeavors to track her down and win her back. As might be expected given the master craftsmen who signed their names to it, the script has notable bounce and a satisfyingly sardonic view of class differences. And Mitchell Leisen is brisk and expert in his direction. Even so, Midnight gets most of its fuel from Colbert’s relaxed, expressive acting. She makes the character’s craving of higher ground into an endearing rather than off-putting quality while also bringing emotional grounding to some of the wider swerves of plot. Adding to the pleasure of it all, he performance is peppered with reaction shots that are all by themselves little masterpieces.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Nick Park, 2024). Arriving nearly twenty years after the first and only other full-length feature starring the title characters, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is exceedingly pleasant and rich with charm. It is also miles away from the headlong brilliance of the original shorts, a conclusion made all the more clear by the inclusion of Feathers McGraw, the villain of the standout entry in the Aardman Animation canon, The Wrong Trousers. In the film, sweetly befuddled inventor Wallace (voiced by Ben Whitehead) invents a helper robot that resembles a garden gnome in a misguided effort to provide some relief for his faithful pooch companion, Gromit. From his prison cell, Feathers McGraw figures out how to take over the contraption and fabricate a whole army of clanging cads in an effort to exact revenge against the heroes who previously thwarted his nefarious plans. Nick Park’s direction is a feat of clean, clear storytelling, and he his screenplay collaborator, Mark Burton, bring in some cheeky aping of the Mission: Impossible film franchise. Well-staged as they are, the action sequences don’t carry the level of creativity that was present in earlier efforts featuring the duo, and some of the comic relief among the supporting plasticine figures falls flat. There’s no denying the warmth and joy that runs through the movie, though.

Chilly Scenes of Winter (Joan Micklin Silver, 1979). Prickly and defiantly odd, Joan Micklin Silver’s film about the toxicity of obsessive love revels in its own complications. Based on Ann Beattie’s debut novel, released three years earlier, Chilly Scenes of Winter follows Charles Richardson (John Heard), a government office drone who is scuffling through life in lovelorn misery. He harbors a desire for Laura (Mary Beth Hurt), a woman he had an affair with but who ended it to return to her husband (Mark Metcalf). As Charles schemes to get her back, he also deals with his mentally unbalanced mother (Gloria Grahame) and wry, layabout friend who’s also become a roommate (Peter Riegert). Silver finesses all this story into ninety-two elegantly efficient minutes. Her focus is sharp and yet she allows room for stray, inventive details throughout. Heard is sensational in the lead role. He is magnetic and unpredictable, even as he emphasize the character’s most troublesome qualities, such as a undercurrent of menace and a willingness to lash out when he’s unhappy or even just uncomfortable. The film’s dark qualities left the studio baffled. They forced Silver to concoct a nonsensical happy ending and changed the title to the meaningless Head Over Heels. Silver’s original version, salvaged and released a couple years later, is thankfully what endures.