TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[voiceover]

Fans of Blazing Saddles (and I am one) -- you need to watch Dodge City (featured on Errol Flynn Day today).  In places it's practically shot-by-shot.

I knew about the saloon brawl, but just now, Alan Hale-at-the-town-meeting?  It's Howard Johnson & the Rock Ridge Johnsons!

[Milburn Stone]

6 hours ago, voiceover said:

Fans of Blazing Saddles (and I am one) -- you need to watch Dodge City (featured on Errol Flynn Day today).  In places it's practically shot-by-shot.

I knew about the saloon brawl, but just now, Alan Hale-at-the-town-meeting?  It's Howard Johnson & the Rock Ridge Johnsons!

Interesting. This would explain why Blazing Saddles was made at Warner Bros.

[Rinaldo]

It's always fascinating when I discover that a movie that I knew to be a satire of a genre... additionally turns out to contain very specific references to a particular previous movie. I will now add Dodge City to my "gotta see that someday" list that also includes

• Zero Hour (situations and some dialog literally recur in Airplane!, I'm told)
• argh, whatever movie Leonard Maltin said provided a direct model for Christopher Guest's portrayal of Count Rugen in The Princess Bride (my copy of Maltin isn't on the shelf where I thought it was, but I remember he named a particular title; obviously I'm going to have trouble putting this movie on my list right now!)

Can anyone name others like these?

[Schnickelfritz]

51 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

argh, whatever movie Leonard Maltin said provided a direct model for Christopher Guest's portrayal of Count Rugen in The Princess Bride (my copy of Maltin isn't on the shelf where I thought it was, but I remember he named a particular title; obviously I'm going to have trouble putting this movie on my list right now!)

I think you mean The Sea Hawk (specifically the character of Lord Wolfingham played by Henry Daniell)

[Milburn Stone]

In my film history readings, I'm always intrigued/amused by how often the studios would recycle plots they owned the rights to. Sometimes changing the period, sometimes changing it from a comedy to a musical, but basically remaking the same film over and over. It was more prevalent before television, home video, and streaming gave immortality to the originals; the studio could count on no one much remembering the originals.

Ownership of story/screenplay rights is why Blazing Saddles was made at the studio that made Dodge City (Warners) and Airplane! was made at the studio that made Zero Hour (Paramount).

[Sharpie66]

Last week, Jeopardy had a category about which of three listed films was made first. The last clue was You’ve Got Mail, In the Good Old Summertime, and The Shop Around the Corner. (I got it right away.)

Edited April 12, 2018 by Sharpie66

[Milburn Stone]

27 minutes ago, Sharpie66 said:

Last week, Jeopardy had a category about which of three listed films was made first. The last clue was You’ve Got Mail, In the Good Old Summertime, and The Shop Around the Corner. (I got it right away.)

Would have been tricky if the answer was A Star is Born, A Star is Born, and A Star is Born.

[Silver Raven]

5 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Would have been tricky if the answer was A Star is Born, A Star is Born, and A Star is Born.

And a Star is Born, the new version with Lady Gaga.

[Milburn Stone]

9 minutes ago, Silver Raven said:

And a Star is Born, the new version with Lady Gaga.

How do you know that wasn't one of my three? :)

[Silver Raven]

15 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

How do you know that wasn't one of my three? :)

Well, I didn't, but there are others. :)

[ratgirlagogo]

8 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Can anyone name others like these?

Young Frankenstein was not just shot on the old Universal sets, but huge swaths of it are taken pretty directly from Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein.

And then there's Quentin Tarrentino whose films involve a huge amount of sampling from earlier films.

for example Samuel L. Jackson's famous faux-Biblical speech in Pulp Fiction is lifted almost word for word from an old Sonny Chiba film(Karate Chiba) from 1976: https://www.shmoop.com/pulp-fiction/ezekiel-25-17-symbol.html

I think it might be the main reason he doesn't do commentaries on the DVD releases of his films.  He doesn't want to bother explaining all of the references.

Edited April 12, 2018 by ratgirlagogo

[prican58]

Henry Daniell, indeed. I remember when I saw Princess Bride in the movies when it came out and I just could not place Chris Guest's characterization until I read that Chris did it intentionally. That was it, I knew I needed to watch more Daniell.  

[Crisopera]

I was trying to figure out if The Greeks Had A Word For Them (1932) was the first of the "three girls find love" trope of which 20th Century Fox was so fond (Three Little Girls in Blue, Moon Over Miami, How to Marry a Millionaire, etc.). The girls were usually blondes (though not always), so I googled (or, rather, "bing"-ed from my tablet) , "three blondes movies from fox.". Not a good idea.

[voiceover]

On 4/12/2018 at 2:31 PM, ratgirlagogo said:

Young Frankenstein was not just shot on the old Universal sets, but huge swaths of it are taken pretty directly from Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein.

Which is why it was such a lovely, loving tribute, and the best Mel Brooks movie.

(ratgirl: Because of the weird indenting on my iPhone, I read that one line as "Frankenstein, Bride of" -- and thought at first you were indexing the films)

*******

On a sad note: 

Milos Forman died today.

[Padma]

I've been enjoying Wm Holden Star of Month, particularly the introductions with Stephanie Powers. Hard to accept that the only film he cared about of all the great ones he made was..... The Bridges at Toko-Ri.  Partly because of believing in the importance of the main character, who reminded him of his brother (killed in the war).

One thing that's surprised me is that Ben clearly hasn't even looked at her autobiography. That's hard to understand, when you'll be talking with someone about their life for over a month. She mentioned Ronald Reagan briefly, but his eyes kind of glazed over. I kind of wished he'd asked if Holden ever discussed Reagan as an actor.  On the surface they seem so similar, and were such good friends for a time, yet one was an excellent actor and the other was ... competent to pretty good, depending on the part.  I wonder if Holden ever thought about what the difference was as actor.  It's a bit OT, I guess, but she brought it up and it's something you probably couldn't hear about anywhere ekse.  She's 76 (Holden would have been 100 on Tuesday), and looked amazing.

[Sharpie66]

Sad about Milos Forman. He had a pretty amazing career. I have only seen three of his films (One Flew Over..., Hair, and Amadeus), but several more have been on my to-be-watched list for a while. I was 13 when Dad took sis and I to see Hair—I never did find out what his reaction was to the film’s language and nudity. He didn’t take us out of the film, so I am guessing he was being the indulgent divorced dad on a weekend with his kids. Amadeus is one of my favorite films; it is so gorgeous. 

[graybrown bird]

Has TCM shown Amadeus?

Edited April 16, 2018 by graybrown bird

[LilWharveyGal]

An ad for this free online TCM class about musicals just popped up in my Facebook feed.  Sounds intriguing, but they're sure covering a lot of ground in just a month.  Is anyone here planning on participating?

[Milburn Stone]

5 minutes ago, LilWharveyGal said:

An ad for this free online TCM class about musicals just popped up in my Facebook feed.  Sounds intriguing, but they're sure covering a lot of ground in just a month.  Is anyone here planning on participating?

I love that every Tuesday and Thursday in June its ALL MUSICALS ALL DAY.

[Rinaldo]

I'm not participating -- I tend to be the teacher for this sort of thing (though my course, which I've now taught for the last time, is on stage musicals -- I always find time for a look at Swing Time, though) -- but I'm pleased that they're doing this. I'm sure it'll be a big success for them.

It's fun programming to have nothing but musicals two days a week throughout the month, and there's certainly lots I'll enjoy there. With 48 hours for musicals of the 1930s, it does mystify me that they bypassed one of the best and most original of the decade, Love Me Tonight. And while they're (rightly) including stage adaptations, there's not a single Rodgers and Hammerstein, which gives a false picture of what people were seeing and talking about in those decades. Does our Ball State U professor not like Richard Rodgers?

Edited April 19, 2018 by Rinaldo

[LilWharveyGal]

Ooh, good catch!  I noticed the lack of R&H and West Side Story, but forgot about Love Me Tonight.  And now I'll be humming "Isn't it Romantic?" for the rest of the day...

[Bastet]

5 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

With 48 hours for musicals of the 1930s, it does mystify me that they bypassed one of the best and most original of the decade, Love Me Tonight.

As someone who, despite enjoying a good deal of musical theatre, only loves a handful of movie musicals (and likes only another handful or so more), I too am a bit baffled by this exclusion.  (It has the distinction of falling into my "love" category, and I even have it on DVD.)  It's not shown very often, and this would have been the ideal time to include it.

[mariah23]

20 hours ago, LilWharveyGal said:

An ad for this free online TCM class about musicals just popped up in my Facebook feed.  Sounds intriguing, but they're sure covering a lot of ground in just a month.  Is anyone here planning on participating?

I signed up yesterday.

[Sharpie66]

I saw Love Me Tonight for the first time last year, and really loved it! (And so did my cat—it was the first time something non-animal related on tv transfixed her. Now, she’ll watch anything from Rachel Maddow to the Great British Bake-Off.)

[Crisopera]

I'd like to make a heartfelt recommendation.  The exquisite Make Way for Tomorrow (1937; Leo McCarey) is showing tomorrow at 8:30 am.  If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it enough.  Don't be put off by the subject matter (elderly couple lose their house, have to split up to live with their children) nor the presence of Victor Moore as half of the couple (I know he's not a favorite around here).  The writing, direction, and the superb cast make this a genuine masterpiece.  I will warn you - the ending will just about rip the heart out of your chest.  

[Schnickelfritz]

Poem from Make Way for Tomorrow

 

A man and a maid stood hand in hand;

bound by a tiny wedding band.

Before them lay the uncertain years

that promised joy and, maybe tears.

"Is she afraid?" thought the man of the maid.

 

"Darling," he said in a tender voice,

"Tell me. Do you regret your choice?

'We know not where the road may wind,

'or what strange byways we may find.

'Are you afraid?" said the man to the maid.

 

She raised her eyes and spoke at last.

"My dear," she said, "the die is cast.

'The vows have been spoken. The rice has been thrown.

'Into the future we’ll travel alone.

'With you," said the maid, "I’m not afraid."

 

I have my Kleenex at the ready. One of my favorites.

[voiceover]

Tonight's foreign film selection reminded me how I have wished for a line-up of "Cuisine Cinema".  Rarely fails as a movie theme.  Food the Signifier: Food as family; food as tradition; food as love; food as sex.

Here's my Chef de Voiceover/Guest Programmer dream slate:

Taiwan: Eat Drink Man Woman

Japan: Tampopo (of course)

Denmark:  Babette's Feast

Mexico: Like Water for Chocolate

U.S.: Big Night

Germany: Bella Martha*

--the chef as auteur of his own table.   Such a powerful effect! the creation of the dish; the carrying-on of the traditions; the satisfaction of the diners; the expression on the faces of the chefs, throughout.

*Tough call, but the German film is my fave, because I so strongly relate to the heroine's neurosis over her cooking.
 

[Rinaldo]

I remember that at one point the NYC restaurant Petrossian (a high-end French-accented indulgence specializing in caviar and such) had on its menu the whole meal featured in Babette's Feast. It had to be ordered as a whole. I never went myself, mind you, but I enjoyed reading about it.

[Milburn Stone]

Thoroughly enjoyed A Song is Born last night, one of those movies I'd seen pieces of but never the whole thing in order. 

Obviously invaluable as a document of great jazz musicians of the time, the movie has so many other pleasures. All the writing I've seen this morning on the internet talks about how much Howard Hawks hated Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, and the whole experience of remaking his Ball of Fire. Well, I think he was wrong. It is peculiar that Kaye is so subdued and doesn't have a musical number in this musical, but the performance works in context and brings out the emotional undercurrent of the story beautifully. Mayo, for her part, is funny and fantastic. Again, the internet contains much writing to the effect that she was instructed (by Goldwyn or Hawks) to mimic Stanwyck's performance in the original, but she makes it work. If you hadn't seen Stanwyck, you wouldn't necessarily know. And, in her nightclub number--in which she's dubbed, naturally--she looks more like she's really delivering the song than any other dubbed singer I can think of!

And one final moment that brought tears to my eyes and goosebumps to my flesh. A sadly old-looking Hugh Herbert (he would die at 77 just four years later) has given a restrained, respectable performance devoid of his usual shtick. But in the final "clinch," as the professors quietly file out the door to give Kaye and Mayo their privacy, Herbert turns around to look at them and gives his patented fingertip-fluttering "Hoo hoo." And then proceeds out the door with the rest of them. The End. A beautiful valedictory moment (despite that he made a handful of films and shorts after this), and one you can tell Hawks had joy in holding in reserve.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Milburn Stone

[EtheltoTillie]

10 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Thoroughly enjoyed A Song is Born last night, one of those movies I'd seen pieces of but never the whole thing in order. 

Obviously invaluable as a document of great jazz musicians of the time, the movie has so many other pleasures. All the writing I've seen this morning on the internet talks about how much Howard Hawks hated Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, and the whole experience of remaking his Ball of Fire. Well, I think he was wrong. It is peculiar that Kaye is so subdued and doesn't have a musical number in this musical, but the performance works in context and brings out the emotional undercurrent of the story beautifully. Mayo, for her part, is funny and fantastic. Again, the internet contains much writing to the effect that she was instructed (by Goldwyn or Hawks) to mimic Stanwyck's performance in the original, but she makes it work. If you hadn't seen Stanwyck, you wouldn't necessarily know. And, in her nightclub number--in which she's dubbed, naturally--she looks more like she's really delivering the song than any other dubbed singer I can think of!

And one final moment that brought tears to my eyes and goosebumps to my flesh. A sadly old-looking Hugh Herbert (he would die at 77 just four years later) has given a restrained, respectable performance devoid of his usual shtick. But in the final "clinch," as the professors quietly file out the door to give Kaye and Mayo their privacy, Herbert turns around to look at them and gives his patented fingertip-fluttering "Hoo hoo." And then proceeds out the door with the rest of them. The End. A beautiful valedictory moment (despite that he made a handful of films and shorts after this), and one you can tell Hawks had joy in holding in reserve.

Never saw this and did not know it was a remake of Ball of Fire. Will have to catch it on the app. Thanks. 

On 4/22/2018 at 5:00 PM, Crisopera said:

I'd like to make a heartfelt recommendation.  The exquisite Make Way for Tomorrow (1937; Leo McCarey) is showing tomorrow at 8:30 am.  If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it enough.  Don't be put off by the subject matter (elderly couple lose their house, have to split up to live with their children) nor the presence of Victor Moore as half of the couple (I know he's not a favorite around here).  The writing, direction, and the superb cast make this a genuine masterpiece.  I will warn you - the ending will just about rip the heart out of your chest.  

Last time I tried to rewatch this, I couldn't make it all the way through. Too sad. 

[voiceover]

The Big Night menu was replicated more than a few times, too. Although the banquet was the film's jaw-dropper, my favorite scene was afterwards: the two brothers, alone in their kitchen, awash in their own thoughts,  preparing an omelet.  Perfect, and perfectly simple.  

It called to mind Nora Ephron's rant: "What I love about cooking is that after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick!...It’s a sure thing in a world where nothing is sure".

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, voiceover said:

Nora Ephron's rant: "What I love about cooking is that after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick!...It’s a sure thing in a world where nothing is sure".

Ephron was so proud of that thought that, after failing to get it into the movie of Heartburn (the novel that contains it), she put it into Julie and Julia, despite Julie Powell and Julia Child being real people who never said that.

[voiceover]

Ephron borrowed from herself all over the place.  Ex.: Horrible ex-wives or fiancées were "Kimberley", via Heartburn novel --> film --> ...Harry Met Sally. It's a movie tradition: Woody Allen's "polymorphously perverse" showed up in more than one script.

Edited April 24, 2018 by voiceover
bwah! using html edits

[Charlie Baker]

It's been a good while since I posted here--and I see almost two weeks since anyone has.  But I did catch a few things I wanted to note.

Amid the William Holden star of the month titles, shown in late hours due to the subject matter, language, and fleeting nudity, I would guess, was S.O.B., Blake Edwards' take down of Hollywood, which I hadn't seen since its theatrical release.  It was his reaction to his treatment by the industry after his Darling Lili starring his wife Julie Andrews flopped, badly.  In S.O.B.a movie producer has a similar flop starring his prim-imaged wife (Played by Ms. A.). First he tries suicide, then he has the inspiration to save the movie by retooling it into a sexually explicit drama.  There is much to do about the actress doing a topless scene--and it was mirrored in the real world publicity for the movie over Ms. A going topless.  Mr. Holden played, in one of his last roles, the debauched director.  And Robert Preston was really good as a sharp witted Dr. Feelgood (and would make more of a splash in the next Edwards/Andrews movie Victor/Victoria).  S.O.B.  is pretty dated now, in an age where many A-listers and their public have no problem with graphic material, and even when it was released, it didn't totally work.  But there are stretches of genuine black comedy and satire.

Today was Anne Baxter's birthday and TCM's daytime schedule had some of her obscure items. No All About Eve or Razor's Edge, here.  There was an oddity called Bedeviled, where Ms B. plays an American cabaret singer in Paris who's involved in a murder and a man studying for the priesthood, just passing through Paris, somehow gets caught up in trying to help her. It's not particularly convincing, but there is some very nicely photographed footage of Paris, and it was directed by Mitchell Leisen towards the end of his movie career.  Reportedly he got sick and the movie was finished by Richard Thorpe.

Edited May 8, 2018 by Charlie Baker

[Rinaldo]

I'm watching Bedeviled right now. I can't say it's an unappreciated gem. I can just tell that Steve Forrest is going to "save" Ms. Baxter in some way, and then probably resume his training for the priesthood. He's helping her out of sheer goodness, no romantic impulse. Which is an odd color to get in something that thinks it's a film noir. I'll have to check in my Leisen book later and see what it has to say.

I saw S.O.B. more than once when it was new (don't ask me why) and remember that Robert Preston was a shining sign of life and vitality when little else was working. (And Edwards got quite a crowd of names to populate his ensemble cast.) The satire of Hollywood is just sour, and not on target either -- especially now that I've seen Darling Lili. It didn't fail because it was wholesome when the audience wanted sex (in, fact, a big point is made of Andrews doing a striptease in it that's just about as salacious as the breast-baring in S.O.B.); it failed because it was an incoherent piece of garbage, and that was mostly Edwards's fault (the writer and actors take some blame too). 

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

Darling Lili...didn't fail because it was wholesome when the audience wanted sex (in, fact, a big point is made of Andrews doing a striptease in it that's just about as salacious as the breast-baring in S.O.B.); it failed because it was an incoherent piece of garbage, and that was mostly Edwards's fault (the writer and actors take some blame too). 

I do like the Mancini-Mercer title song, though. In fact, I like it so much that I assumed the movie must have redeeming facets--until I saw it.

[voiceover]

I've watched The Inn of the Sixth Happiness a number of times on FXM.   This (and my much-loved Cactus Flower) proves that Ingrid Bergman did Mature Love as well as anyone.  

And Curt Jurgens: YUM.

Even though the script takes liberties with the real-life Gladys Aylward's life, it gets a few things really right.  Namely, the perspective of the "I'm here to help!" foreigner, and how life in a culture not your own, can profoundly change you.  And *how* it profoundly changes you.  Bergman's goodbye moment with Robert Donat reminds me so much of a similar scene from my Peace Corps days, I can hardly bear to sit through it.

Would love to screen this back-to-back with Gregory Peck's Keys to the Kingdom.

[Rinaldo]

9 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I do like the Mancini-Mercer [Darling Lili] title song, though. In fact, I like it so much that I assumed the movie must have redeeming facets--until I saw it.

I like that song too, which I had heard occasionally on the radio way back when; which made me all the more surprised, when I finally saw the movie, that it's never sung within the film -- we hear it only as a choral rendition within the "overture" before the movie starts (which would have been while the audience is settling in before the theater lights go down).

Even more, I really like the song "Whistling Away the Dark," which for me is one of Mancini's top ballads, up there with "Moon River," "Days of Wine and Roses," "Two for the Road," and "Charade." He, at least, did his part for the movie. (I can't say as much for every line of the lyric; Johnny Mercer has so many claims to immortality, his reputation can survive a line like "walks bravely home through the park" as the ultimate sign of courage.) Although the first moments of the song's staging are great -- a pin spot on Julie Andrews's face in the far distance -- it gets risible later on, when just flailing her arms this way and that drives the music-hall audience mad with her amazing dancing skills.* Even its reprise at the very end is touching, as long as we can numb our brains enough to ignore the plot resolution: "OK, she spied for the Germans and got our boys killed, but hey, the war's over now so we adore her again!"

(*Julie Andrews was in fact a very good dancer, but this number manages to disguise that point.)

[Rinaldo]

I never imagined we'd have "Lesley-Anne Down Night" on TCM! For a while there around 1980, I was obsessed with her. She was so unearthly beautiful, and convincing in drama and comedy and romance, period and modern, film and TV. First up, The Great Train Robbery, which is (for the benefit of those who've never encountered it) a highly entertaining romp, costarring Sean Connery and written & directed by Michael Crichton (adapting his own book). Can't wait to see it again after all these years.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Rinaldo

[Milburn Stone]

14 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

I never imagined we'd have "Lesley-Anne Down Night" on TCM! For a while there around 1980, I was obsessed with her. She was so unearthly beautiful, and convincing in drama and comedy and romance, period and modern, film and TV. 

Are they showing The Pink Panther Strikes Again? Her slow-motion lovemaking scene with Peter Sellers is a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament.

[Crisopera]

This is a fascinating story from Smithsonian about tiny clips from mostly lost silent and early sound films, found as reel headers on other films.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rare-technicolor-snippets-lost-films-discovered-180969040/

Really worth a look.  (When I say snippets, I mean snippets - most of them are only seconds long, and they repeat them - to fill out the narration, I guess.)

[ratgirlagogo]

Margot Kidder has died:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/obituaries/margot-kidder-dead-superman.html

 

Very sad, especially since she suffered horrendously from mental illness in her later years - all the worse since because of her fame it was all very public and yet, of course. her fame didn't usually end up resulting in her getting appropriate help.  At least she's at peace, now.

 I know she's most famous for the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, but the one that I thought of right away was  a wonderful little oddball one they show sometimes on TCM - Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In the Bronx, with Gene Wilder.  Hope they show it for the memorial that I hope they do.

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, ratgirlagogo said:

I know she's most famous for the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, but the one that I thought of right away was  a wonderful little oddball one they show sometimes on TCM - Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In the Bronx, with Gene Wilder.  Hope they show it for the memorial that I hope they do.

Brian DePalma usually gets all the credit for Sisters, but I don't think it would have been nearly as insanely frightening with a different actress.

[Rinaldo]

I tend to be remiss about visiting the TCM website, so it's been sinking in only gradually that "the series" is a theme for the month (Tuesdays and Wednesdays). We've had or will have a massive number of Tarzans, also some Mexican Spitfire, Blondie, Maisie, 4 X's, Dr. Kildare. I know about all those and have sampled them. The one that floors me, that I never knew about, is Five Little Peppers, all four in the series coming this week. I read the whole series as a kid (they were part of my mother's youth too), and have even searched out and collected the books (out of print now) as an adult. So seeing the movies (and silently fuming at the changes, which of course there will be) will be a real kick.

[Crisopera]

I know we've debated the most beautiful woman and man in the movies, but have we ever talked about the most beautiful pair?  For me, it's got to the Olivia De Havilland and Errol Flynn.  They were so gorgeous, especially in Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood.  The last cheek-to-cheek two-shot of them in Captain Blood is almost supernaturally stunning.  There are other pairs who are better actors (Powell and Loy) but, hoo boy, nobody was more gorgeous.  (I might challenge them with the one-off pair of Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum in My Forbidden Past, but De Havilland and Flynn just pip them at the post.)

[Rinaldo]

That's an interesting question, and I fear you've picked the winner right at the start. I can think of one or two equally gorgeous pairings in the 1970s, but they're not set up and framed in that old-studio way, so they don't linger in memory as iconic. And my personal top two gorgeous women in classic movies, Vivien Leigh and Gene Tierney, never seemed to be featured in that kind of visually memorable romantic pairing. (Some might say that Clark Gable makes the cut in GWTW, but for me... more whatever the male equivalent of jolie laide is.)

[Inquisitionist]

29 minutes ago, Crisopera said:

I know we've debated the most beautiful woman and man in the movies, but have we ever talked about the most beautiful pair? 

 Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale in The Leopard.

[MissAlmond]

For years I thought I had seen Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte from the very beginning.  I was wrong!  I never knew there was a scene between Charlotte's father and John.  I have to know, what sort of cockamamie plan did John have anyway?  He was coming to Charlotte's party with his wife and then run away with Charlotte later that evening.    And do what afterward? Get a divorce and marry Charlotte or just live with her in sin (as they used to say)?     

[Rinaldo]

Man, I love The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella. I own the DVD, but I still DVR it when TCM shows it, just to see what they're going to say before and after. OK, and then I watch the opening credits, the scene where Cinderella is demoted to a servant (Margaret Lockwood: "Do not think to take shelter with the staff. The staff have been dismissed. You are now the staff."), the magical transformation scene, the waltz at the ball, and the final curtain calls. Because I can't get enough of them.

[voiceover]

12 hours ago, Crisopera said:

The last cheek-to-cheek two-shot of [Flynn & de Havilland] in Captain Blood is almost supernaturally stunning.  

Yes.  

And I'd add Cathy & Heathcliff -- Oberon & Olivier -- on Penistone Crag, looking towards a future that would never be.

AND.  John Gilbert & Lillian Gish in La Boheme.  Yes! even over Garbo.