stateoftheunion

This film is pure joy. Back in the nineteen seventies I was a projectionist for several years and I remember my mother encouraging me to watch vintage movies to find out what real acting was about.

This one was one of the earliest I saw and I totally fell in love with it.

Set in London's west end, this is the tale of an impoverished Lord played with enormous charm and wit by Michael Wilding. He and Anna Neagle, his co-star, have great chemistry together, and really all the way through you can see they were made each other. The rest of the cast are all in top form and really this is a movie not to be missed if you love romantic comedies as I do.

This is a wonderful and inspirering film. I don't think I have enjoyed a movie so much in a long time. There wasn't a single weak scene in the film. I love and admire great acting, and Gary Oldman's Winston Churchill is truly one of the great performances. To say he totally owned the part would be an understatement. I really believed he was Churchill, that's how convincing he was.

The script is fantastic and there are so many fine performances by the rest of the cast. I understand that the tube station scene was fiction, but it was so well done, that one could have imagined Churchill actually doing it. Gary Oldman most thoroughly deserved to win the Oscar for best actor. His performance is utterly unforgettable. And I can recommend this film to anybody who loves to watch great movies and fine acting.

I must admit till last night while searching through a list of movies on line. I found this one that I had not heard of before. But, with a good looking cast in it, I thought I would give it a try. And I'm so glad I did because this movie from 1933 really is something of a forgotten treasure.

John Barrymore's larger than life portrayal of the banished Archduke Rudolf from Austria, now reduced to driving a taxi, is a scintillating performance by any standards.

I have seen quite a few of Barrymore's movies now and he has never disappointed me, and this one is definitely one of his most memorable.

Diana Wynyard is radiantly beautiful as Elena Krug, Rudolf's former love who is now married to a famous psychoanalyst played by Frank Morgan. Barrymore and Wynyard have great chemistry together. But the real surprise for me was Frank Morgan giving a wonderfully deft and understated performance.

The movie takes us through a variety of emotions all of which are played out beautifully. It really is a wonderful movie, and from somebody who is very hard please when it comes to films, I highly recommend this one as a glorious piece of old fashioned movie entertainment.