Tag: harold s bucquet

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Nine

Dan Seeger

#39 — Without Love (Harold S. Bucquet, 1945) Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made nine films together. It is without a doubt one of the great screen partnerships in American film history, practically defining what that elusive quality chemistry looks like for every generation to follow. Of course, there was an off-screen pairing between the two of them, officially secret but widely known, that added turbo to the fuel, but the real life twinkle of romance does explain everything. It’s entirely possible that the splendid contrasts of their acting styles — she strident, he relaxed, she crisply intelligent, he scruffily … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Nine

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Bernhardt, Bicquet, Donen, Huston, Pakula

Dan Seeger

Two for the Road (Stanley Donen, 1967). This comic drama about the evolution of a marriage, with particular focus on the sharp degradation it experiences, is playful with its chronology in a way that must have been completely novel at the time of the film’s release. Now, it’s a more familiar cinematic approach, which doesn’t make Two for the Road terribly ineffective, though it does undercut some of the sillier moments that were presumably inserted to make the film easier to grasp a hold of for perplexed audiences. Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney are both terrific as they play the … Continue reading Bernhardt, Bicquet, Donen, Huston, Pakula