Sam Wood

In Paris, a young woman runs away from a reform school, joins a pickpocket academy, and finds herself falling for the handsome diplomat she's been blackmailed into stealing from. A young female escapee from a reform school joins a pickpocket academy in Paris. She is caught red-handed on her first attempt at stealing by an upper class man. He recruits her to do him a favor at a society party where she meets and falls in love with a young, handsome, rich diplomat. Whether or not she can land him is another story. —Gary Jackson <garyjack5@cogeco.ca>

During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge. Spain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war going on and Jordan who has joined up on the side that appeals most to idealists of that era -- like Ernest Hemingway and his friends -- has been given a high-risk assignment up in the mountains. He awaits the right time to blow up a bridge in a cave. Pilar, who is in charge there, has an ability to foretell the future. And so that night she encourages Maria, a young girl ravished by enemy soldiers, to join Jordan who has decided to spend the night under the stars. —Dale O'Connor <daleoc@interaccess.com> Spanish Civil War, 1930s. Richard Jordan, an American, has joined up with the Republican side. He is given the tough assignment of blowing up a vitally important bridge. Things get complicated when he falls in love - Based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. —grantss

A tycoon goes undercover to ferret out agitators at a department store, but gets involved in their lives instead. Department store owner J.P. Merrick finds that several of his employees are unionizing to get more money and better working conditions. In order to find out who the organizers are, he gets a job at the store as a shoe salesman. Not realizing his true identity, he's befriended by Mary Jones and Joe O'Brien, the two ringleaders, and Elizabeth Ellis, a charming older woman with whom he develops a romance. —Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com> J.P. Merrick, a wealthy department store owner, uses a pseudonym and takes a job at his store in order to find out who organized a union of his employees. —Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com> Tycoon John P. Merrick is startled to see an effigy of himself hanging on the front page of the New York Times, courtesy of union organizers at Neeley's Department Store, which Merrick didn't even know he owned. On a sudden impulse, he goes undercover there as a shoe salesman. Soon he's so involved in the lives of his fellow employees (especially one young couple and a delightful single woman his own age) as to forget his original purpose. But his two lives are on a collision course... —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu> The wealthiest man in the world, John P. Merrick, is a private person who likes to stay anonymous. One of his many assets, and a minor one at that, is Neeley's Department Store. There is labor unrest at the store, most of the employees' anger directed at Merrick, who they hang in effigy outside the store despite not knowing what he looks like. Merrick, not happy at what he sees going on, decides to go undercover working at the store to mete out the rabble-rousers. Undercover as Thomas Higgins, Merrick gets assigned as a sales clerk in the shoe department, where he is taken under the caring wing of his colleague Mary Jones, who sees in Higgins a poor man needing the guidance of friends. One of those other friends is Elizabeth Ellis, who Mary sees as a possible "Mrs. Higgins". Mary's boyfriend is Joe O'Brien, the chief organizer of the employees, four hundred of whom are following Joe in the charge against the store and Merrick. At the store, Merrick not only wants the list of the four hundred, but also wants to change those things he doesn't like at the store, chief amongst those being his shoe department section manager, Mr. Hooper. But as Higgins, Merrick also begins to see things a little differently, specifically from an employee's point of view. —Huggo

The film uses a prologue, credited as Stage Manager, unusual for a movie. The Stage Manager (Frank Craven) walks in and out of scenes, narrating background and context, announcing flashbacks in time, or telling characters to start talking and be quiet. At one point, he solicits questions from the audience. The narrator first shows what the town of Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, looks like in 1940, then shows what it was like in 1901. He points out the various Protestant churches, the location of the railroad tracks, and mentions that the new Polish immigrants who work in the mill live on the other side of the railroad tracks, separate from the Anglo pioneer stock who constitute the establishment. He narrates facts and statistics, such as that the population is 2642, not counting about 500 Polish immigrants, and that 85 per cent of the voters vote Republican. The narrator shows us, in the graveyard, that the tombstone names are the same from generation to generation since about 1680. Just like the names, nothing much changes in this town, any change comes very very slowly. In the rest of the film, there is no conflict to be resolved, as the characters are not real people but nostalgic archetypes whose purpose is to represent everyone in a typical life and to make philosophical points that are enunciated at the end. The town is a nostalgic archetype also, a mythical place where people are born, grow up, work, fall in love, get married, and die. The external world, symbolized once in a while by the whistle of the train, intrudes on the myth only sporadically and mildly. Act 1 presents an ordinary day in 1901. Dr. Gibbs (Thomas Mitchell) is the town doctor, who lives with his wife (Fay Bainter) and their son George (William Holden), a high school student. Next door live the newspaper owner Mr. Webb with his wife (Beulah Bondi) and their daughter Emily (Martha Scott), also a high school student. Everybody knows everybody else, they all interact comfortably with each other, nobody locks their doors at night. White picket fences border the nicer homes. A young newspaper boy delivers the daily newspaper every morning. A milkman delivers milk to the families daily, entering into the kitchens directly and chatting with the housewives. The milkman uses a quaint tool to measure out the milk, a kind of tubular shovel that allows him to pour the measured milk into the customers own containers. The mother of Mrs. Gibbs has died, leaving her a small legacy. She discusses what to do with the money with her neighbor, telling her she has two goals, one, to finally have a relaxing vacation with her overworked husband, and two, and she wants to experience something of life outside of Grovers Corners, going to see Paris, France, saying It seems to me, once in your life, before you die, you ought to see a country where they don't speak any English and they don't even want to. The mothers morning routines in feeding their children warm breakfasts and sending them off to school even on cold winter days are quaintly over-typical, including the worries about wearing warm clothes so as not to catch colds. Archetypal also are the minor sibling rivalries within the families. The two neighbor ladies gossip about how the choirmaster at their church drinks too much. There are also over-typical conversations of the parents with their teenagers. At the Gibbs household, the father has to have a serious talk with George because he neglects to be helpful to his mother at home, as in chopping the wood for cooking. The way George responds is unreal, as he is an archetypal good boy: with just two sentences from his father he immediately reforms. Later on we see a church choir practice. It's axiomatic that in just about any church, the music director, organist or choirmaster is a gay man. Mr. Stinson (Philip Wood) is gay, no question about it. As the stage manager says, some are not cut out for small town life. That's why he drinks. There aren't any kindred spirits for him in tiny Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. Along the way we learn that George has a childless uncle who runs a nearby farm and wants George to help him and eventually take over the business, and that George likes farm work. In the last sequences of Act I the inevitable romance between the nice boy and the nice girl next door is foreshadowed. He needs hints on doing his math homework, and she is happy to give him hints but not to let him just copy. They set up a communication system from one upstairs bedroom window to another. Right after Emily and George have one of their awkward conversations on the sidewalk, The mother, is watching them through a window and there's a tiny moment where we can see on her face that she clearly approves of the match. When Emily comes in with questions about whether she's beautiful, her mother gets quickly flustered and throws up her hands. "You're pretty enough for all normal purposes," the mother huffs, and that's that. Act 2 starts three years later, after George and Emily have fallen in love and intend to marry, and there are preparations for their wedding. Things have changed a bit. There are cars on the road, and fewer horses. Townspeople complain about noise and traffic. The milkman still delivers milk, but in Act 2 he is using bottles instead of delivering and measuring bulk milk with his quaint measuring contraption. Mrs. Gibbs never made it to Paris. We learn also that George has been an outstanding baseball player for the town team, and that his marriage will interrupt that. The narrator announces that before we see the wedding, well have a flashback to the day when George and Emily decide they were meant for each other. The conversation is initiated by George on the way home from school, as he offers to carry Emilys books. She complains that he has changed, neglecting her in favor of a consuming interest in baseball, yet she has been watching him all year long, from a distance. He accepts the criticism, and assures her by saying that he, too, has watched her from a distance the whole year long. They are both sweet and innocent and halting and tentative, and struggle with their nerves. He invites her to go into the drugstore for an ice cream soda, she accepts, and there he discusses what he will do after graduation. He will take over his uncles farm, doesnt want to go to Agricultural school, as he prefers to start his work life right away and not spend years away from Emily. Finally, he hems and haws and never quite comes out with saying he loves Emily, until she gets so frustrated she blurts out that she knows he loves her, and she loves him back. Flash forward to the archetypal wedding day. George wants to see Emily but others insist that the groom must not see the bride on the wedding day until the ceremony. There are concerns about the wedding dress. Emily is scared about the finality of the decision. The parents reminisce about their own wedding days. Dr. Gibbs tells anecdotes about his fears and cold feet. There is a comical conversation between George and Mr. Webb about advice he had received from his own father in law about how the man should go about taking the upper hand in the matrimonial relationship. Like a proverbial mother in law, Mrs. Gibbs voices her concerns that Emily is too young to understand how she needs to take care of George, and just about predicts he will be dead of pneumonia by the end of the winter. At the church, the other townspeople comment on how nice the wedding is, how beautiful the bride looks, how weddings are so important, and how they always cry at weddings. And the wedding proceeds without a hitch. Act 3, taking place supposedly in 1913, is retrospective and philosophical. Birth, life and death flow on in Grovers Corners, like water on a river, always moving but the river stays the same or changes ever so slowly. We are shown images that tell us Emily has died after giving birth to her second child, and of her funeral. During and after her funeral, her ghost converses with other ghosts of dead persons in the Grovers Corners cemetery. Emily is the newcomer. The others ghosts mostly just sit there and watch and occasionally talk to each other. Her questions are answered ambiguously. The ghosts are unemotional observers, commenting on how old so and so looks now. Among the dead are Mr. Stimson the church organist, who committed suicide by hanging himself, and whose suicide was covered up. Also among the dead are cheery neighbors who attended Emilys wedding, and Mrs. Gibbs. A frequent phrase the ghosts say about the living is, They just don't understand, do they, the poor dears. The message they want understood by the living is that life, and every last minute, every precious breath is not to be wasted and squandered, regardless of how ordinary and unimportant it may seem. They have vague regrets about their relationships with others while they were alive, but arent that interested any more. Emily gets special permission to go back and re-live just one day of her life. She decides, after getting advice from the other dead folk, to re-live one quite ordinary day, and she re-lives her sixteenth birthday, She is very excited at experiencing that one day, but finds in the end it's not what she thought it would be. It goes too fast, and people don't have time to look at one another, they are impatient with one another. "This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying." The nostalgic, problem-free life of WASP America between the Spanish American War and the First World War was a flawed paradise. EPILOGUE: Emily wakes up from the temporary coma resulting from the birthing of her second child. She is not dead. Act 3 was all a dream.

In 1870, Mr. Charles Chipping (Robert Donat), an unsophisticated, very shy young man, starts a teaching career at Brookfield, an English boys school created in 1492. Chipping is a kindhearted man who takes pity on a homesick young boy he meets on his and the boy's first train ride to Brookfield. But his shyness, the new boy's sobbing response to his efforts cause the other boys in the compartment to think the new teacher has tormented the new boy. This sets the stage for the chaos that ensues in his first classroom meeting as a Brookfield teacher. Because the school's headmaster threatens Mr. Chippings with dismissal at his failure to control the boys, the new teacher goes too far in his discipline to the point that later in the year the school loses its traditional cricket rival match because he keeps his class, and the team's star, for extra work when the match is on. Mr. Chipping is now disliked by the boys and looked upon condescendingly by his fellow instructors. This hurts him because of his deep affection for teaching and the boys he works with. But his shyness keeps him from making changes in his life for many years even after he is greeted warmly by the grown man who was that frightened new boy on his first train ride to Brookfield. A change occurs when the headmaster passes over him (despite his seniority) for a post as the head of one of the "houses", the dormitories the boys live in, when the current head retires at the end of the year. Because of these two events Mr. Chipping allows his one friend, Max Staefel (Paul Henreid), a German master, to convince him to take a walking tour of Austria together. The terminally shy teacher skips his usual English beach summer "holiday" to climb some Alps. During a dense fog, Chipping encounters Katherine Ellis (Greer Garson), a modern young Englishwoman who is enchanted by his kindness and old-fashioned manners. Although Chipping falls in love with Kathy, he thinks that their different personalities and ages would make any relationship impossible. He forgoes the celebration at the local inn when he is seen as her rescuer, again showing his shyness, and she leaves the inn uncertain of his true feelings. When they meet again in Vienna, their love deepens, especially when he gets up the courage to ask her to dance a waltz during their last night, and they dance the night away. Just as Kathy is boarding the train to England with her friend Flora, she kisses him goodbye full on the lips. Startled, he runs after the departing train yelling out to Kathy, "Do you...?" and she responds, "Yes, I do..." and he ends by saying, "You will just have to marry me now, you know!" She agrees but more cannot be said between them as the train pulls away. Fearful that despite their new engagement he may never find Kathy again, Mr. Chipping is reassured by his friend, Max, who with Kathy's friend Flora have already picked out the wedding church. At the beginning of the new term at Brookfield, the students and staff read the newspaper's report of Chipping's marriage and believe the shy schoolmaster has found a similarly dour partner to share his life with. Then Chipping arrives with his wife in his new suit and are shocked to see how attractive and charming Kathy is. With her gentle guidance, "Chips," as she calls him, allows his kind nature to emerge and thereby gains the respect and affection of students and faculty. Although Kathy dies in childbirth, Chips's enduring love for her helps him to maintain his blossomed personality and advance his career. Years later, when an elderly Chips is given notice of his termination by a new headmaster who wants to "modernize" the school, the boys, along with their parents, many of whom as students had also grown to love Chips, demand that the headmaster ask Chips to stay on. Several years later, when Chips does retire, he maintains a cottage near the school and continues his closeness with the boys, entertaining them after school and listening to their troubles. When World War I begins and many of the masters enlist in the army, Chips is asked to return to the school and serve as its headmaster, the position for which he and Kathy had wished years before. After the war, Chips returns to retirement, but still stays in close contact with the boys. He dies dreaming of all his past students not long after young Peter Colley III, the youngest of a family of boys whom Chips had taught through the years, waves to him and says "Goodbye, Mr. Chips." [With much help from Turner Movie Classics website.]

A young woman marries an older millionaire and then falls in love with a handsome nobleman on her honeymoon. Love, duty, and the scent of narcissus. Theodora, a penniless young aristocrat, marries a much-older man, self-made millionaire grocer Josiah Brown, so that her father and spinster sisters can live comfortably. Soon after the wedding, she finds herself falling in love with Hector, the 10th Earl of Bracondale, a playboy she encounters on the social circuit of the very rich--in the Swiss Alps, Paris, London, and the English countryside. Hector is attracted to her as well. Theodora must choose between love and duty, then Josiah and Hector must make their own choices. —<jhailey@hotmail.com>