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Showing posts with the label Mitchell Leisen

Film Friday: To Each His Own (1946)

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In honour of Olivia de Havilland's 100th birthday, which is today, this week on «Film Friday» I bring you the picture for which she won her first Academy Award for Best Actress. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, To Each His Own (1946) opens in London during World War II, where a middle-aged American woman named Jody Norris (Olivia de Havilland) is spending New Year's Eve with lonely Englishman Lord Desham (Roland Culver), whom she has just casually met. After Jody saves Desham's life, he invites her to supper, but she turns him down to meet a train. Onboard is Lieutenant Gregory Pierson (John Lund), the son of Jody's friends from her small hometown of Pierson Falls. While she waits, Jody recalls the story of her life, beginning in the summer just before the end of World War I, when she rejected a marriage proposal from Lieutenant Alex Pierson (Phillip Terry), who then weds Corinne Sturgess (Mary Anderson).   Olivia de Havilland with John Lund, Ronald Culver and Bill Goodwin...

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS FILMS | Day 2: «Remember the Night» (1940)

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Directed b y Mitchell Leisen, Remember the Night (1940) opens just before Christmas as assistant district attorney Jack Sargent (Fred MacMurray) is forced to delay his trip to his mother's home in Indiana in order to prosecute a young woman named Lee Leander (Barbara Stanwyck) for shoplifting. Since jurors are more likely to be compassionate to defendants during the festive season, Jack contrives to postpone the trial until after the beginning of the new year. Then, feeling guilty because he has condemned someone to a prison cell over the holidays, he arranges Lee's bail. However, she is not especially grateful; she has no money and nowhere to spend Christmas. Learning that she is also from Indiana, Jack offers to drop her off at her mother's house.   After a road trip filled with wrong turns and  adventures with small-town justice, they finally arrive at Lee's mother's farm. Lee finds that her embittered mother (Georgia Caine) has remarried and does not want any...