Back to Golden Days

When I saw this film for the first time a few days ago, I found out it was one of the ten Best Picture nominees at the 14th Academy Awards. Since all «Film Fridays» this month focus on an Oscar-winning or nominated picture, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about it. Directed by Alexander Hall, Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) tells the story of Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery), a boxer-pilot-musician who crashes his plane while flying to a match and is escorted to heaven by Messenger 7013 (Edward Everett Horton). Arriving at the Pearly Gates, the celestial registrar, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), discovers that Joe has been called to his death 50 years too soon. 7013 returns Joe to the crash site only to find out that his manager, Max «Pop» Corkle (James Gleason), has had the body cremated. Mr. Jordan orders 7013 to find Joe another body and they end up at the mansion of Bruce Farnsworth, a dishonest businessman who has just been drowned in the bath by his wife, Julia (Rita Johnson...

Original release poster Directed by Frank Capra, Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) tells the story of Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant), a Broadway critic and "symbol of bachelorhood," author of several anti-marriage books , who ironically weds Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane) on Halloween . On their way to their honeymoon, they stop in Brooklyn, where they grew up next door to each other. While Elaine drops in on her father, Reverend Harper (Grant Mitchell), Mortimer visits the eccentric but lovable relatives who raised him and who still live in his old family home: his spinster aunts Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair), and his derranged brother Teddy (John Alexander), who believes h imself to be Theodore Roosevelt. As he s earch es for the notes for his most re cent book , Mortimer discovers a dead body hidden in the window seat and is s hocked to find that his aunts were responsible for the murder. Abby and Martha calmly explain that they have been k...