Top Classic Films That Celebrate Love, Luck & Synchronicity

If you’ve had a great love, you’ve probably also pondered how precariously it came to be. If you’d turned left instead of right, or took one job instead of another, would you have still found each other? Or what if your parents had never moved all those times–would you have married the boy who sat behind you in fourth grade, whose senior picture looked like the senior picture of the man you eventually did marry? If so, would you have been as happy as you are now, or happier?

Perhaps some other-worldly force does look out for separated soulmates and wills them together. Well, that’s the unspoken premise, anyway, of this week’s three classic movie picks.

This may be No. 13 in the Classic Movie Buzz series, but (spoiler alert!) the couples in each of these movies is LUCKY in love, at least in the end, though they, too, nearly didn’t get together.

Call it chance, call it fate, but call it forth! That’s my motto, and I’m sticking with it.

PS: If you’re into movies themed for holidays, my second pick, The Luck of the Irish, is a perfect choice for St. Patrick’s Day.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan

RELEASE DATE: 1941 DIRECTOR: Alexander Hall STUDIO: Columbia HEADLINERS: Robert Montgomery, Claude Rains, Evelyn Keyes RUN TIME: 1 hour, 34 minutes FILMED IN: Black & White IMDb RANK: 7.5

SYNOPSIS: Boxer Joe Pendleton dies in a plane crash 50 years too soon, due to a heavenly mistake, and is given a new life as a millionaire playboy.

NOTES: Based on the play Heaven Can Wait by Harry Segall and remade under that title in 1978. This was Montgomery’s last film before serving in the Navy for four years during World War II. Montgomery and Keyes didn’t get along well during filming because he was always ribbing her about having an affair with a married man. During and between her four marriages, Keyes reportedly had affairs with a variety of leading men, including Anthony Quinn and Kirk Douglas, as well as with billionaire Howard Hughes. “I always took up with the man of the moment,” she said, “and there were many such moments.” Claude Rains, who plays the angel in this movie, would play an agent of the devil five years later in Angel on My Shoulder. See if you can spot a young Lloyd Bridges using a British accent in an uncredited role.

LINKS: Trailer | Full film | Rent/buy

The Luck of the Irish

RELEASE DATE: 1948 DIRECTOR: Henry Koster STUDIO: 20th Century Fox HEADLINERS: Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter, Cecil Kellaway, Lee J. Cobb, Jayne Meadows RUN TIME: 1 hour, 39 minutes FILMED IN: Black & White IMDb RANK: 6.6

SYNOPSIS: A grateful leprechaun follows American reporter Stephen Fitzgerald from Ireland to New York and acts as the newsman’s servant and conscience.

NOTES: Based on the 1948 novel There Was a Little Man by Guy Pearce Jones and Constance Bridges Jones. In the original release, the Irish sequences were tinted green. Meadows plays Cobb’s daughter but in real life she was only eight years younger. Kellaway was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar and was the only person ever nominated for playing a leprechaun. Power’s character notes he is a bit large for a leprechaun, to which he replies he’d rather not discuss that, that it’s a sore subject. Even so, he has a leprechaun’s hoppity gait and mischievous ways down perfectly.

LINKS: Trailer | Full film | Rent/buy

Brigadoon

RELEASE DATE: 1954 DIRECTOR: Vincente Minnelli STUDIO: MGM HEADLINERS: Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Van Johnson RUN TIME: 1 hour, 48 minutes FILMED IN: Color IMDb RANK: 6.8

SYNOPSIS: Two Americans on a hunting trip in Scotland become lost. They encounter a small village, not on the map, called Brigadoon, in which people harbor a mysterious secret, and behave as if they were still living 200 years in the past.

NOTES: Based on a 1947 Lerner & Lowe Broadway musical. Actor Gene Kelly and director Vincente Minnelli both wanted to film Brigadoon on location in Scotland but MGM insisted it be shot within studio confines to save money. Minnelli later said this drained his enthusiasm for the project, which led to a cursory, paint-by-numbers transcription of the Broadway show. Indeed, when it was released, critics noted the staged, studio feel of the movie. Highland backdrops were more than 600 feet long, 60 feet high, and cost $382,280. The background set was realistic enough that some birds from outside flew into it. To get the effect of Brigadoon emerging from the mist, Minnelli filmed the sets with fog being pumped in, then reversed the shot to show mist moving away. Most of the heather used in the film was sumac spray-painted purple. Howard Keel and Jane Powell were originally slated to play the leads, but when other commitments left them unavailable (they co-starred in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers that same year), Kelly and Charisse were cast instead. Dancing subsequently took precedence over singing, with many of the vocals (except Kelly’s) being dubbed. Charisse reportedly didn’t get along with Kelly and later stated she preferred working with the more affable Fred Astaire. Still, the dancing is superb. Several musical numbers from the stage musical were cut from the film, but remaining numbers are still memorable, whoever sang them.

LINKS: Trailer | Full film | Rent/buy