An Affair to Remember (1957)

Click to Amazon

119 min – view video trailer

Director: Leo McCarey
Starring: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr

Genres: Drama, Romance

IMDB 7.4 / Amazon 4.5 / Tomatometer 65% / MRQE 70%

Oscars: Nominated for 4 Won 0

A couple falls in love and agrees to meet in six months at the Empire State Building – but will it happen? IMDB 7.4 from over 15,533 users

In this poignant and humorous love story nominated for four Academy Awards, Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meet on an ocean liner and fall deeply in love. Though each is engaged to someone else, they agree to meet six months later at the Empire State Building if they still feel the same way about each other. But a tragic accident prevents their rendezvous and the lover’s future takes an emotional and uncertain turn. Amazon 4.5 stars from over 289 users

An Affair to Remember, director Leo McCarey’s scene-for-scene remake of his own 1939 film Love Affair, isn’t really an improvement on the original, but it’s equally as enjoyable. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, high-profile types both engaged to be married to other people, meet and fall in love during an ocean voyage. To test the depth of their commitment to each other, Grant and Kerr promise that, if they’re still in love at the end of six months, they will meet again at the top of the Empire State Building.  Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 65% Audience 87%

MRQE 70% from 49 reviews

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW0LCcCKsBQ]

Funny Face (1957)

Click to Amazon

103 min – view video trailer

Director: Stanley Donen
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson

Genres: Comedy, Musical, Romance

IMDB 7.0 / Amazon 4.3 / Tomatometer 84%

Oscars: nominated for 4, Won 0

Ranked #184 Greatest Movies Through 1960

An impromptu fashion shoot at a book store brings about a new fashion model discovery in the shop clerk. IMDB 7.0 rating from over 12,970 users

This filmed version of the 1927 George Gershwin Broadway musical Funny Face utilizes the play’s original star, Fred Astaire, and several of the original tunes, then goes merrily off on its own. Astaire is cast as as fashion photographer Dick Avery who is sent out by his female boss Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) to find a “new face”. Amazon 4.3 stars from over 223 users

It doesn’t take Dick long to discover Jo (Audrey Hepburn, who does her own singing), an owlish Greenwich Village bookstore clerk. Acting as Pygmalion to Jo’s Galatea, Dick whisks the wide-eyed girl off to Paris and transforms her into the fashion world’s hottest model. Along the way, he falls in love with Jo, and works overtime to wean her away from such phony-baloney intellectuals as Professor Emile Flostre. Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 84% Audience 82%

MRQE 54% from over 53 reviews – Madison Public Library

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6VLdVrVQGQ]

12 Angry Men (1957)

Click to Amazon

96 min – view video trailer

Director: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee Cobb, Martin Balsam

Genres: Drama

IMDB 8.9 / Amazon 4.7 / MRQE 89% / RottenTomatoes 100%

Oscars: nominated for 3, won 0

Ranked #14 Greatest Movies Through 1960, included in 10 of 37 lists of Greatest Movies, a Zagat Top Movie

A dissenting juror in a murder trial slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court. IMDB rating 8.9 from over 192,956 users

Zagat summary snippet: Human nature at its best and worst in a brilliant courtroom drama with a taut script and an unforgettable Fonda. A study of American democracy that is suuspenseful and compelling.

Eleven jurors are convinced that the defendant is guilty of murder. The twelfth has no doubt of his innocence. How can this one man steer the others toward the same conclusion? It’s a case of seemingly overwhelming evidence against a teenager accused of killing his father in “one of the best pictures ever made. Amazon 4.7 stars from over 322 users

Eleven of the jurors vote for conviction, each for reasons of his own. The sole holdout is Juror #8, played by Henry Fonda. As Fonda persuades the weary jurors to re-examine the evidence, we learn the backstory of each man.  Rotten Tomatoes 100% critics / 95% viewers

MRQE 89% rating from over 60 reviews.

Madison Public Library