Skippity-doo-da--after taking an entire day away from my computer. Unprecedented. (plus venetian blinds got washed in the bathtub...it was an ordeal)

Magnolia grew on me like kudzu. I could not get it out of my mind for days and days. The themes, the visuals, the possibilities. It wasn't a love-based fascination, but an intoxication in the almost literal sense.

oops. gotta go. more later.

I saw A Farewell to Arms on TV. Rock Hudson pretty, and bonus points for a romantic lead named "Frederick." Also some good "war is hell" scenes.

But really, a love story where no chemistry appears until the last half hour? What's the point?

It's been so long since I read/watched A Farewell to Arms, I can't remember how the story ends. With a death, no doubt.

The thing about the wide-spread knowledge of Rock Hudson's sexuality is that I now find it difficult to look at the movies in which he plays a serious romantic lead without looking for slashy subtexts elsewhere. (The Doris Day movies, I've got no problem with thanks to their tongue-in-cheekness.) Which gets in the way of my appreciating the romance on its own merits. I don't recall Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones had much in the way of chemistry in Farewell to Arms.

Now, Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck in Duel in the Sun ... *that* was chemistry. I feel like I should have been put off by its egregious stereotyping and over-the-top melodrama, but no. I adore the movie, all the way to its operatic ending.

I don't recall Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones had much in the way of chemistry in Farewell to Arms.

Gotta admit, I almost fell off the couch when she suggested he go into town and find "a gay young playmate."

I'm thinking of a movie....

I thought Jennifer Jones but I can't find it on her iMDB so I'm thinking no. It's about a man who was wounded in the war and a disfigured woman. THey both end up in this cottage in the middle of the woods somewhere, both ashamed of their appearance to go into public. THey fall in love eventually and their disfigurements go away. Or so they think. It's really the eyes of love making them beautiful to each other. The rest of the world still sees the disfigurements. Called The Magic Cottage or something cheesy like that.

The Enchanted Cottage. Robert Young and, um. I forget. LOVE that movie.

ETA: Dorothy McGuire was the female lead.

Aimée, you're thinking of The Enchanted Cottage, with Dorothy Maguire and Robert Young. It's kind of gooey in its sentimentality, but I still like the film.

Difficult to buy Maguire as homey though, even in ill-fitting clothes.

There we go.

Thanks, babe. Knew I could count on the hivey-est mind EVAH!

I love that movie too.

Now, Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck in Duel in the Sun ... *that* was chemistry.

Whoa nelly. You aren't kidding. It was electric, even in the bad ways (and even in the stereotypical ways, although he always seemed to be the aggressor). Also, another "Joseph Cotten holds down the fort and gets to watch quietly while someone else chews the scenery" movie.

I find it hilarious that that movie is the one Martin Scorsese mentions as the first movie he remembers ever seeing (at age 4 or something).

Also, another "Joseph Cotten holds down the fort and gets to watch quietly while someone else chews the scenery" movie.

Which is ironic since that's the kind of role Peck usually plays. Although, for sheer whacko casting against type, nothing beats Peck as Dr. Mengele in BOYS FROM BRAZIL