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This week's «Film Friday« is a very special one: not only is it the first day of the year and the first «Film Friday» of the year, but it is also Dana Andrews' birthday. So, to celebrate all of this, I am bringing you what is arguably the most important film of Andrews' career, which also serves as a way to wish you a happy new year. May this be the best year of our lives. Directed by William Wyler, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) follows three World War II veterans — Army Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March), decorated Army Air Force Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), and sailor Homer Parish (Harold Russell) — as they try to readjust to civilian life after meeting and bonding while flying to their midwestern hometown of Boone City. Al is a bank loan officer with a comfortable home and a loving family: wife Milly (Myrna Loy), and teenage children Peggy (Teresa Wright) and Rob (Michael Hall). Fred is a former soda jerk from the wrong side of the tracks who married hi...

This week's "Film Friday" is a very special one. Since it i s Halloween, I thought it was only fitting if I told a little bit about what is considered to be one of the greatest horror films of all time (incidentally, this is the only classic horror picture I h ave seen so far). However, with the Universal Pictures Blogathon , I was not able to post this on time, so this week's "Film Friday" is actually a "Film Fri(Satur)day," which makes it even more appropriate. Theatrical release poster Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) tells the story of Dr. Henry Jekyll (Fredric March), a respected physician in Victorian London who is convinced that man lives with an eternal struggle between his good and evil sides. One evening, Jekyll attends a party at the home of his fiancé, Muriel (Rose Hobart), and asks her father, Brigadier General Sir Danver Carew (Halliwell Hobbes), permission to marry her earlier than they ha...

In honor of Clara Bow's 110th birthday, this week on "Film Friday" I bring you the only film I've seen with her so far, which also happens to be the first sound picture she made. Theatrical release poster Directed by Dorothy Arzner, The Wild Party (1929) rev olves around Winston College, an all-female school where the students seem to be more interested in having fun and partying than studying. When the young and attractive professor James "Gil" Gilmore (Fredric March) starts teaching Anthropology there, all the girls immediately feel attracted to him, especially Stella Ames (Clara Bow), the wildest and most popular student in the school. She recognizes Gil as the man with whom she once accidentally shared a berth on a train, thereby risking her reputation, but he does give any indication that he remembers Stella . After being thrown out of the school's traditional costume party for wearing revealing outfits, Stella and her friends go t...