The Lady Eve (1941)

The Lady Eve (1941)

[7] Barbara Stanwyck's a card shark and Henry Fonda's a naive millionaire. They meet and fall in love aboard an Atlantic cruise in Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve, a romantic comedy made tolerable with its sizzling sexual teasing and moderate…
Crocodile Dundee (1986)

Crocodile Dundee (1986)

[7] Formulaic romantic comedies don't usually fly with me, but when you place a genuine, sincere element into the formula, an element like Paul Hogan, it sometimes doesn't matter how old the story is. And I have to credit Hogan…
Four’s a Crowd (1938)

Four’s a Crowd (1938)

[7] It's surprising Errol Flynn didn't make more screwball comedies, because he's completely at home in this 'who's duping who' comedy, outrunning the guard dogs, shaking hands with people in side-by-side moving cars, and carrying on romantic telephone conversations with…
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)

[7] Richard Gere plays a navy cadet who falls in love with a factory worker played by Debra Winger. The romance part of the story doesn't work as well as Gere's combative relationship with his drill instructor, played by Louis…
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

[5] Claude Rains is gold in all his scenes as the god-like Mr. Jordan, but I find the movie's playfully fatalistic view of love and self-purpose too saccharine to swallow. Robert Montgomery is also good as the deceased boxer who,…
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

[8] Steve McQueen plays a millionaire who robs a bank just for shits and giggles, and Faye Dunaway plays the insurance investigator who will either turn him in... or fall in love with him. Director Norman Jewison embraces the French…
The Black Swan (1942)

The Black Swan (1942)

[4] Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara star in this seafaring tale of a plundering buccaneer who considers changing his ways once he becomes smitten with an aristocratic lady. At times a very beautiful film, The Black Swan fails on the…
Strange Cargo (1940)

Strange Cargo (1940)

[3] Clark Gable escapes the Devil's Island penal colony and takes floozie Joan Crawford along for the ride. Along with a handful of other fleeing criminals, they rough it through the jungle and long days at sea to reach the…
Dragonwyck (1946)

Dragonwyck (1946)

[6] Writer/producer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) made his directorial debut with Dragonwyck, a gothic romance with a dash of horror/suspense. Gene Tierney plays a farm girl summoned by a distant relative to help…
Red-Headed Woman (1932)

Red-Headed Woman (1932)

[5] Jean Harlow plays such a nasty little character in Red-Headed Woman, sleeping her way to the top of the workforce while ending marriages left and right. She's so cold and calculating, I almost wish the movie would have been…