Roman Holiday - 1953

Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, 1953 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
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Rebecca - 1940

Rebecca, Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine on Belgian Poster Art, 1940 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
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Rebecca (1940) is the classic Hitchcock gothic thriller and a compelling mystery (and haunting ghost story) about a tortured romance. An expensively-produced film by David O. Selznick (following his recent success with Gone With The Wind (1939)), it was Hitchcock's first American/Hollywood film, although it retained distinctly British characteristics from his earlier murder mysteries. The somber film's screenplay (by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison) was based on a literal translation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 gothic novel of the same name, in the tradition of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. One of the film's posters asks the intriguing question: "What was the secret of Manderley?"

The film creates a brooding atmosphere surrounding the tragic courtship, marriage and relationship of a naive, plain and innocent young woman (Joan Fontaine) to a brooding and overburdened widower - an aristocratic, moody patriarch (Laurence Olivier) who lives in an estate named Manderley. The pathetic, bewildered and shy bride experiences fear, pain and guilt when psychologically dominated by the 'presence' (and memories) of the deceased first wife (named Rebecca but never seen on screen), and when she is tormented by Rebecca's blindly adoring, sinister and loyal housekeeper's (Judith Anderson) recollections of the dead woman.

Only by film's end, with the flaming destruction of the estate, do the real character and secrets of Rebecca's death become clear. Many well-known actresses tested for the part of the young woman - Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Anne Baxter and Vivien Leigh (her role in Gone With the Wind (1939) made her participation impossible), and Ronald Colman was also considered for the male lead role.

It Happened One Night - 1934

It Happened One Night Limited Edition
27 in. x 41 in.
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It Happened One Night (1934) is one of the greatest romantic comedies in film history, and a film that has endured in popularity. It is considered one of the pioneering "screwball" romantic comedies of its time, setting the pattern for many years afterwards along with another contemporary film, The Thin Man (1934).

The escapist theme of the film, appropriate during the Depression Era, is the story of the unlikely romantic pairing of a mis-matched couple - a gruff and indifferent, recently-fired newspaper man (Gable) and a snobbish, superior-acting heiress (Colbert) - a runaway on the lam. It is a reversal of the Cinderella story (the heroine rejects her wealthy lifestyle), a modern tale with light-hearted sex appeal in which courtship and love triumph over class conflicts, socio-economic differences, and verbal battles of wit.

The madcap film from Columbia Studios (one of the lesser studios) was an unexpected runaway box office sleeper hit (especially after it began to play in small-town theaters), and it garnered the top five Academy Awards (unrivaled until 1975, forty-one years later by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) - and then again by The Silence of the Lambs (1991).) It won all five of its nominated categories: Best Picture, Best Actor (Clark Gable), Best Actress (Claudette Colbert), Best Director (Frank Capra), and Best Adaptation (Robert Riskin).

The film, composed mostly of a road trip (by bus, car, foot, and by thumb in locales such as bus depots or interiors of buses, and the open road) by the social-class-unmatched couple, contains some of the most classic scenes ever made: the "Walls of Jericho" scene in an auto-camp bungalow so that they can sleep in the same room out of wedlock, the doughnuts-dunking lesson, the hitchhiking scene, the night-time scene on a haystack in a deserted barn, and the dramatic wedding scene. With his good-natured, street-smart, and breezy performance, Gable influenced the un-sale of undershirts by taking off his shirt and exposing his bare chest, and bus travel by women substantially increased as a result of the film.

Gone With The Wind - 1939

Gone with the Wind, Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, 1939 Giclee Print
12 in. x 9 in.
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Gone With The Wind (1939) is often considered the most beloved, enduring and popular film of all time. Sidney Howard's script was derived from Margaret Mitchell's first and only published, best-selling Civil War and Reconstruction Period novel of 1,037 pages that first appeared in 1936, but was mostly written in the late 1920s. Producer David O. Selznick had acquired the film rights to Mitchell's novel in July, 1936 for $50,000 - a record amount at the time to an unknown author for her first novel, causing some to label the film "Selznick's Folly." At the time of the film's release, the fictional book had surpassed 1.5 million copies sold. More records were set when the film was first aired on television in two parts in late 1976, and controversy arose when it was restored and released theatrically in 1998.

The famous film, shot in three-strip Technicolor, is cinema's greatest, star-studded, historical epic film of the Old South during wartime that boasts an immortal cast in a timeless, classic tale of a love-hate romance. The indomitable heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, struggles to find love during the chaotic Civil War years and afterwards, and ultimately must seek refuge for herself and her family back at the beloved plantation Tara. There, she takes charge, defends it against Union soldiers, carpetbaggers, and starvation itself. She finally marries her worldly admirer Rhett Butler, but her apathy toward him in their marriage dooms their battling relationship, and she again returns to Tara to find consolation - indomitable.

Authenticity is enhanced by the costuming, sets, and variations on Stephen Foster songs and other excerpts from Civil War martial airs. Its opening, only a few months after WWII began in Europe, helped American audiences to identify with the war story and its theme of survival.

Casablanca - 1942

Casablanca Art Print
Casaro, Renato
24.3 in. x 36.75 in.
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The classical and well-loved romantic melodrama Casablanca (1942), still on the top-ten lists of movies, is a masterful account of two men vying for the love of one woman in a love triangle. The story of political espionage and romantic backdrop of war conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. [The date given for the film is often given as 1942 and 1943. This is because its first was limited in 1942, but the movie does not play nationally, or in Los Angeles until 1943.]

With a rich atmosphere and smoke, propaganda anti-Nazi, Max Steiner score great music, suspense, characters unforgettable (supposedly 34 nationalities are included in its cast) and lines of memorable dialogue (eg, "Here's lookin 'at you, children, and misrepresentation of the city "Play It Again, Sam"), it is one of the most popular, magical (and flawless) films of all time - focused on themes of love lost, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world.

Play It Again Woody Allen, Sam (1972) reverential tribute to the film, like the movies less Cabo Blanco (1981) and Barb Wire (1996), and Bugs Bunny animated short Carrotblanca (1995). The line "Play it again, Sam" appeared in the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946). References to films or videos have been used in Play It Again, Sam (1972), Brazil (1985), My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988) and When Harry Met Sally (1989).

Bringing Up Baby - 1938

Bringing Up Baby, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, 1938 Giclee Print
12 in. x 9 in.
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Bringing Up Baby (1938) is a versatile director Howard Hawks comedy funny and more often regarded as the definitive movie crazy. It is also one of the funniest, oddest movies and most inspired of all time with its breathless pace characteristically zany antics and pratfalls, absurd situations and misunderstandings, the perfect sense of comic timing, cast completely screwball series of mishaps and wacky crazy, disasters, surprises and light romantic comedy. The non-stop, crackpot farce skewers many institutions, including psychiatry, the sterile field of science, the classes of the police and upper-class upper. At the time of its release, has failed miserably at the box office and was quickly forgotten until revived years later.

As is the case for many of Howard Hawks' finest films (including the movie Scarface Crime (1932) Twentieth Century (1934), His Girl Friday (1940), To Have or not (1944), the thriller The Big Sleep (1946), Monkey Business (1952) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)), this masterpiece has not been nominated for an Academy Award unique. Director Peter Bogdanovich has paid tribute to the Hollywood screwball comedy genre with a loose remake titled What's Up, Doc (1972) with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal.

The fast-paced film is about the relationship of two unlikely people, played by actress Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant actor playing against type in a classic "conflict" between the sexes: a madcap, scheming, aggressive, impulsive, prone to accidents and heir of the company Daffy, and a clumsy, awkward, distracted paleontologist, right, corny and stifling a natural history museum. This was the second of four films co-starring Hepburn and Grant [the others were Sylvia Scarlett (1936), Holiday (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940)]. Other characters are a sheriff in a small town, a drunken Irish gardener, a hunter of big game, and two leopards in Brazil.