Movies You Should See: The More the Merrier

Title: The More The Merrier

Director: George Stevens

Stars: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn

Synopsis:  In crowded World War II Washington DC, Mr. Dingle (Charles Coburn) arrives for a meeting a few days early and finds that there is no room at his hotel due to a wartime housing storage.  Doing her patriotic duty Ms. Milligan (Jean Arthur) places a ad to rent out the spare room of her apartment which eventually goes to Mr. Dingle (through some slight trickery on his part).  Mr. Dingle then rents out half of the spare room to Joe (Joel McCrea) a GI on his way out of the country for a war assignment.  Despite Ms. Milligan being engaged, Mr. Dingle is convinced that Joe is the perfect match for her.

Why Should You Watch This:  All three leads have great comedic timing and while most of their scenes together rely on physical comedy which can feel old after seeing it once, after repeated viewings these scene still feel fresh and natural.  McCrea and Arthur have really great romantic chemistry and their courtship feels realistic.  But beyond all this, the script and the direction are just really well done, the script is at time funny and touching and the directing is done with such a light hand.  I have a little extra enjoyment for the movie now that I have lived in DC for a few years now.

You Might Like This If You Enjoyed: The Women or The Shop Around the Corner

Refocus/Repurpose

In an attempt to encourage myself to write on this blog more often, I decided to give myself a focus/theme for most of the blog posts.  And since most of the posts I've written in recent months revolve about movies, I thought that movies would be the perfect focus for my blog.  I am going to try to write about classic movies that I think everyone should see, under-rated and underseen film from all time periods, actors that I enjoy, directors, and various other topics related to the cinema.  I will probably still blog a little bit about books that I am reading or other activities that I am doing in DC, but I am hoping this will make .  So anyone still reading this, I hope you like the new focus.

What will never be

I am in the middle of listening to this barn burner of a book called Going Clear by Lawrence Wright which is all about Scientology (and its ties to Hollywood).  I'm about a third of the way the book, so L. Ron Hubbard is still alive and Scientology is just starting to gain steam.  So far, there have been so many crazy stories in his life, like him kidnapping one of his own daughters, multiple marriage including as instance of bigamy, and the "mysterious" death of one of his sons (who was probably gay and probably committed suicide).  Basically, it would be an amazing biopic (starring I think Daniel Day Lewis or some other actor that can really embrace the weird).  But it will probably never happen (although I think Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master was supposed to be a fictionalized version of Scientology), which bums me out.