Fuggedabout Romeo and Juliet

Screw tragic young love; the sadder but wiser pairing for me. In honour of St. Valentines Day, I offer my top ten favorite romantic couples.

1. Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. Thompson and Branagh were a gorgeous couple. Here's a fun fan vid with some clips from the film.


2. Will Shakespeare and Viola De Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love. Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow are sublime. Here's the wonderful trailer.



3. Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn as divorced couple Dexter and Tracy in Philadelphia Story. Check out this lovely clip of the two of them discussing their failed marriage.


4. Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal as Judy and Howard in the madcap comedy What's Up Doc? I love this scene so much! She is incredible. So high energy and funny.



5. Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson as Sam and Lucy in Maybe Baby. In this clip, he recites Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. Don't worry; he doesn't look like that throughout the whole movie. But his voice certainly is delightful no matter what.


I think I'll wait until tomorrow to share the other five. Now some ruminations:

When I was younger, I adored many different films for their romantic couplings, usually featuring much older men with a young actress. Christopher Plummer's Captain in Sound of Music, Rex Harrison's Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, Cary Grant as cat burglar John Robie in To Catch a Thief, and so forth. But as I've gotten older, it's less my ideal. Sure, I'm still nuts about 60-somethings Alan Rickman and Richard Thompson, but I think a maximum ten year difference is optimal.

What do you think? Who are your favorite film couples? More importantly, why?

No Matter What the Future Brings...

This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension
Yet we get a trifle weary
With Mr. Einstein's theory
So we must get down to earth at times
Relax relieve the tension
And no matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed
You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
And when two lovers woo
They still say, "I love you"
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by
Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny
Well, it's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by
Oh yes, the world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by


My favorite rendition of this timeless (sorry for the pun!) song was by Arthur "Dooley" Wilson, who played Sam in Casablanca.

Here's a second beautiful version by Barbra Streisand in one of the funniest screwball comedies ever, What's Up, Doc?

I'll bet you never heard of the composer, Herman Hupfeld. My informants at Wikipedia tell us

Herman Hupfeld (February 1, 1894–June 8, 1951) was an American songwriter. His most notable composition was "As Time Goes By" (from the film Casablanca but this song was written in 1931 for the Broadway show "Everybody's Welcome", which ran for 139 performances).

Hupfeld never wrote a whole Broadway score, but he became known as a composer who could write a song to fit a specific scene within a Broadway show.

His best known songs include "Sing Something Simple", "Let's Put Out The Lights (And Go To Sleep)", "When Yuba Plays The Rhumba On The Tuba", "Are You Making Any Money?", "Savage Serenade", "Down the Old Back Road", "A Hut in Hoboken", "Night Owl", "Honey Ma Love", "Baby's Blue", "Untitled" and "The Calinda".

Maybe you've heard of some of those songs, but I sure haven't. Despite his prowess in writing such romantic lyrics as Woman needs man And man must have his mate, poor Herman had no mate. He died a bachelor in 1951 at the age of 55.