ROMANCE FILMS
 
 Romance Films , love stories, or affairs of the heart center on passion, emotion, and the romantic, affectionate involvement of the main characters (usually a leading man and lady), and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story the main plot focus. Oftentimes, lovers in screen romances face obstacles and the hazards of hardship, finances, social class or status, occupation, or family that threaten to break their union. As in all romantic relationships, tensions of day-to-day life, temptations (of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romantic films.

Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first sight, young (and older) love, unrequited love, obsessive love, sentimental love, spiritual love, forbidden love, sexual and passionate love, sacrificial love, explosive and destructive love, and tragic love. Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers, especially if the two people finally overcome their difficulties and experience life "happily ever after" - implied by a reunion and final kiss. Many romantic films do not have fairy-tale, wistful-thinking stories or happy endings, although love serves as a shield against the harshness of the real world.

 Even films from the earliest days of cinema combined romance, fantasy, and sex, as in The Sheik (1921), starring Rudolph Valentino as a dashing Arabian sheik. Two of the earliest romantic screen couples in the silent era were the seductive Greta Garbo and her handsome screen counterpart John Gilbert, two MGM stars who first appeared together in The Flesh and the Devil (1927), and later in the tragic silent film A Woman of Affairs (1928) - a film that deliberately avoided a happy, romantic ending for the lovers.
 

The romantic teaming of Gilbert and Garbo was replaced by new superstars at MGM in the 1930s: Clark Gable and Joan Crawford (who were romancing each other off and on-screen in the early 30s). Their first films together were Laughing Sinners (1931), with Gable as a Salvation Army officer rescuing society girl Crawford after she was seduced by a traveling salesman, and Dance Fools Dance (1931) with Crawford as a determined crime reporter and Gable as a gangster, followed by The Lost Stooges (1933) (with The Three Stooges!) and the backstage musical drama Dancing Lady (1933) (with little-known Fred Astaire in his film debut), Chained (1934) a potboiler with the sexy stars caught in a love triangle, the screwball comedy Forsaking All Others (1935), the escapist romantic comedy Love on the Run (1936) co-starring Franchot Tone (Crawford's real-life husband at the time), and Frank Borzage's Strange Cargo (1940) with Gable as a convict on Devil's Island - the film was their eighth and final one together.

Two romance/noir films, taken from James M. Cain novels, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and "Double Indemnity" were seething with lustful, self-destructive romantic relationships, between a femme fatale and an entrapped male partner (Lana Turner-John Garfield, Barbara Stanwyck-Fred MacMurray). Platinum blonde Jean Harlow gave a salacious appearance in a number of lightweight romantic comedies, including Platinum Blonde (1931) and Bombshell (1933), or in her role as a wise-cracking, libidinous prostitute matched up with Indo-Chinese plantation overseer Clark Gable in Red Dust (1932)

 Love did not always conquer in the end, as in Letter from an unknow woman, Frank Borzage's classic dramatization of Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms (1932) was a World War I melodramatic story of doomed love in Italy between a wounded ambulance driver and a nurse. Sometimes love, becoming an all-consuming passion, suffered or ended disastrously as in the fallen-woman romantic melodrama Of Human Bondage (1934), or in the classic gothic romance Rebbeca (1940), or in the tragic wartime romance of Waterloo Bridge (1940), or in the classic love story of  Wuthering Heigths (1949) or in the tale of psychotic, compulsive love in Leave Her to Heaven (1945), or was finally found in the pathetic yearning of Katharine Hepburn's character, Alice Adams (1935) to name just a few. The Shakespearean romantic tragedy of star-crossed lovers has been filmed in many versions, including the first with teen stars - Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968) In the weepy An Affair to Remember (1957), a remake of director Leo McCarey's own Love Affair (1939), Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr fell in love on an ocean liner, and planned to meet on top of the Empire State Building six months later. [Sleepless in Seattle (1993) borrowed the same plot device.] And Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1955) told of the struggle surrounding the romance between a beautiful Eurasian doctor (Jennifer Jones) and a married American war correspondent (William Holden) in post-WWII Hong Kong.

 Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn were a popular screen team in the 1940s who continued their celluloid pairing for twenty-five years in nine films together, until their final appearance in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). Their romantic 'battle of the sexes' films included a number of gems. Their first pairing together was in Best Script-winning Woman of the Year (1942), with Tracy as a sports journalist and Hepburn as an uptight political journalist. They also appeared in Frank Capra's State of the Union (1948) as an estranged couple brought together during a political campaign. Probably their best film together was Adam`s Rib (1949) with the two as married, competing courtroom attorneys. They were also entertaining in the 'war of the sexes' comedy Pat and Mike (1952) with Tracy as a sports promoter/manager of golf/tennis athlete Hepburn, and in Desk Set (1957), another comedy highlighting their good-natured bickering and eventual love.

 Some love stories were told against a backdrop of important historical or epic events or war time. Gone with the wind (1939) although a Civil War epic, was also a melodramatic, romantic, but temptuous love story between Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. Similarly, Csablanca (1942) was a thrilling melodrama, a war film involving the Nazis, and the tragic love story of Rick (an apolitical club owner) and Ilsa (a lover from his past in Paris). The 'soap opera' An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) told a story of romance between an enrolled naval officer/candidate in training school and a working girl, memorable for its climax in which the protagonist swept his girlfriend off her feet.

 A classic tale of poor boy who met a rich girl in an obsessive, romantic, and doomed atmosphere was expressed in George Stevens' A place in the sun (1941). In the twisted tale of infidelity and mystery by Henry Hathaway titled Niagara (1953), a sexy, scheming Marilyn Monroe plotted the murder of her husband on their honeymoon at the falls. Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962) was controversial in its time - a black comedy about an obsession of a professor for a 15-year old girl. Clint Eastwood's directorial debut thriller film, Play Misty With me (1942),dramatized the murderous behavior of a scorned, psychotic, hysterical and suicidal woman/fan toward a California DJ who played her favorite song. Adrian Lyne's glossy, nail-biting Fatal Attraction (1987) presented the disturbing after-effects of a passionate weekend for a married New York lawyer with a sexy but wrathful blonde associate.

 The most famous of British romantic movies was David Lean's Brief Encounter (1946), a quintessential tale of unconsummated illicit love - set mostly in a railway station - between two mature adults (one of whom was married). And Marty (1955)was the realistic, poignant, lonely-hearts story of two little people who found each other. In Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), an adaptation of Truman Capote's story, Audrey Hepburn portrayed an eccentric, urban playgirl named Holly Golightly in a shaky relationship with a struggling writer. Moonstruck (1987), a late 80s popular romantic comedy starred Cher as a 38 year-old widow in a Brooklyn Italian-American family, engaged to marry her longtime boyfriend while falling passionately in love with the man's younger brother.

Romantic comedies have always proved popular with interesting pairings, such as the one between Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur in Frank Capra's Mr Deeds Gone to Toen (1935), or between mismatched street-smart reporter Clark Gable and heiress Claudette Colbert in Capra's classic screwball film It Happened one night (1939) (with Gable's famous undressing scene), or the witty romantic entanglements of The Philadelphia Story (1940), or in the anonymous romantic relationship between James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in Lubitsch's sentimental film, The Shop Around the Corner (1940), or in the puppy-love affairs of Mickey Rooney in the Andy Hardy films of the late 1930s and 1940s. One of the more obvious metaphors for making love was the sophisticated action of lighting someone else's cigarette (or sharing it), such as in the memorable Bette Davis film, Now, Voyager (1942).

 Classic screwball romantic comedies of the 30's and 40s, involving zany plots, unlikely romances, and rapid-fire dialogue included The Front Page (1931), My Man Godfrey (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Fruday (1940),  The Lady Eve (1941), and The Palm Beach Story (1942) among others.

 Supernatural romantic comedies have featured ghostly characters, in such films as the fantasy/romance Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) [remade as Heaven Can Wait (1978)] about a young boxer sent to heaven but because of a mix-up was returned to Earth in the body of a soon-to-be-murdered millionaire, Ernst Lubitsch's classic satire Heaven Can Wait (1943) in which a roguish dandy Henry Van Cleeve tried to convince the devil in Hell that he deserved eternal damnation, or Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) about a former sea captain ghost who fell in love with the widow/occupant of his seaside house.

 Squeaky-clean, formulaic, courtship romantic comedies populated the 50s, exemplified by the Rock Hudson/Doris Day films. Their best classic, witty and light-hearted 50's sex comedy was Pillow Talk (1959), a highly successful box-office hit that starred Rock Hudson as a womanizing, playboy/songwriter who was attempting to woo interior designer/career girl Doris Day. She positively loathes him, especially after over-hearing his conversations on their shared party line.
 
 

Selection of Greatest Romances:

Greatest Classic Romantic Films:
Way Down Fast (1920)
The Sheik (1921)
Flesh and the Devil (1927)
The Front Page (1931)
A Farewell to Arms (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Queen Christina (1933)
It Happened one night (1934)
Of Human Bondage (1934)
 Alice Adams (1935)
Camille (1936)
Dodsworth (1936)
Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
My man Godfrey (1936)
 The awful Truth (1937)
Algiers (1938)
 Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Jezebel (1938)
Three Comrades (1938)
 Dark Victory (1939)
Gone with the wind (1939)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Love Affair (1939)
Ninotchka (1939)
Wuthering Heights (1939)
All This and Heaven Too (1940)
His Girl Friday(1940)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Rebecca (1940)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
The Lady Eve (1941)
That Hamilton Woman (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
Now, Voyager (1942)
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Random Harvest (1942)
Woman of the Year (1942)
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
The More the Merrier (1944)
Double Indemnity (1944)
To Have and Have not (1944)
The Clock (1945)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Brief Encounter (1946)
Gilda (1946)
Humoresque (1946) Gilda (1946)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

          Letter froma an unknow woman (1948)
The Red Shoes (1948)
Adam`s Rib (1949)
Father of the Bride (1950)
The African Queen (1951)
A place in the sun (1951)
Pat and Mike (1952)
From here to eternity (1953)
Niagara (1953)
Roman Holiday (1954)
Sabrina (1954)
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
Marty (1955)
To Catch a Thief (1955
Picnic (1956)
An Affair to Remember (1957)
Pillow Talk (1959)
Other Recent Greatest Romantic Films:
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Lolita (1962)
West Side Story (1961)
Charade (1963)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967)
 Romeo and Juliet (1968)
Love Story (1970)
Harold and Maude (1971)
The Way We Were (1973)
Annie Hall (1977)
Manhattan (1979)
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
Baby, It's You (1983)
Lady Jane (1985)
Out of Africa (1985)
Witness (1985)
Pretty in Pink (1986)
Moonstruck (1987)
The Princess Bride (1987)
Roxanne (1987)
Say Anything (1989)
When Harry met Sally (1989)
Ghost (1990)
Pretty Woman (1990)
Frankie and Johnny (1991)
Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991)
The Cutting Edge (1992)
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Indecent Proposal (1993)
Like Water for Chocolate (1993)
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Untamed Heart (1993)
Shadowlands (1994)
Before Sunrise (1995)
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
A Walk in the Clouds (1995)
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
Beautiful Thing (1996)
The English Patient (1996)
Jerry Maguire (1996)
Jude (1996)
As Good As It Gets (1997)
Mrs. Brown (1997)
My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
Titanic (1997)
The Wings of the Dove (1997)
The Horse Whisperer (1998)
Out of Sight (1998)
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
What Dreams May Come (1998)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)

 
Created in 1999, © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved. tdirks@filmsite.org
     Esta lista de películas son sólo interpretaciones de cómo diversos directores y guionistas entienden
el Romanticismo. Algunas de ellas reflejan lo que el espectador desearía que le pasara y de esta forma éste
se identifica con los actores. Pero lo que una persona ve a través de la pantalla no coincidirá nunca con lo
que pueda leer en la obra literaria original de donde se ha podido sacar una versión cinematográfica.

   Lo único que he querido sacar a flote, o lo único que ha hecho posible que ofrezca esta lista elaborada por Tim Dirks, es dar a entender que el cine también es una forma de poder expresar el romanticismo, como cualquier arte, que el romanticismo es un movimiento que no sólo está escrito, sino que nos llega a nosotros en nuestra vida cotidiana de las mas diversas formas posibles, y eso lo ratifican y lo confirman los actos que en todos estos guiones están escritos e interpretados por los mas diversos actores y actrices que el mundo del espectáculo nos ha dejado y está por dejar. Aunque hay quien dice que hoy en día ya no hay nada romántico en la vida.

Javier Arteseros Valenzuela

IDEA O JUICIO PERSONAL

      Realizar una página sobre el Romanticismo es muy peligroso. Es seguro que el autor
reciba fuertes críticas de sus lectores y navegantes de la red y por ello quiero retratarme y
explicar cuáles son mis motivos para exponer los textos expuestos y no otros, así como los
links ofrecidos por cortesía.

   El Romanticismo surge a finales del siglo XVIII y como movimiento literario, se dice, que
finaliza a mediados del siglo XIX. Personalmente creo que es encuadrar un concepto muy