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The other late night,  I watched again a 67 year old black-and-white movie on wide screen TV entitled “DEVOTION (魂牽夢

瑩)”starring  Ida Lupino, Oliver DeHavilland, and Paul Henried which I first saw in Shanghai in the Majestic theater (美琪大戲院) in 1947. The movie is a fictional biographical account of the 19^th century  Bronte sisters who each wrote respectively and arguably the two greatest  love novels in the English literature, Jane Eyre (簡愛自傳)and Wuthering Heights (咆哮山莊). At that time,  I was just 13 year old and beginning to take interest in the opposite sex and love stories. I thought the movie DEVOTION about un-requited love was the greatest movie  I have seen and the tragic heroine, Emily Bronte played by Ida Lupino, was the most beautiful actress on the silver screen. More than half a century later, with the benefit of age and life experience, the movie of course appeared somewhat naïve and out-dated in story-telling and in screen techniques.  However, I still enjoyed watching it since it brought back memories of youth and bygone times. This brings up the subject of love stories in movies. While we all have our favorites, these few movies below that I enjoy watching over and over again through the years are:

·        RANDOMHARVEST (1947) 鴛夢重溫 starring Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman  

·       AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957)*starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant

·       WHEN HARRY MEETS SALLY (1989) starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal

·       SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993) starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks (this movie could be entitled “An Affair to Remember II” since the plot involved heavily the 1957 movie)

It is also interesting to observe the story lines of these movies which reflect  the changing nature of love as prevailing at the times and yet eternal in the essence of love between a man and a woman. I am often inspired when watching these movies to want to kiss my wife of 54 years spontaneously and tell her“how lucky I was to have married her”. She will sometimes respond pragmatically and less romantically “I love you too. Now go back to watch that old movie since I have work to do”

It is also interesting that no love movie of the last 20 years readily  comes to my mind not because there were no great movie on the subject but probably because of my changing taste and life experiences. Real life love stories are not like movies. They involve 24/7/365 disagreements, compromises, hardships, and of course happiness and bliss. Love between old partners is different from idealistic young couples unmindful of the future. With the benefit of hindsight, our bonds are more relaxed yet enduring with understated intensity**.My blog article in 2008 approximates my feelings http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-15663.html and http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-15979.html.

Our best wishes to all lovers, young and old!

*My apologies for not knowing the Chinese titles of these movies below  after 1950.Perhaps some ScienceNet reader can supply them.

**Note added 7/3/2013. I am also reminded of the award winning TV-movie of the title "LOVE AMONG THE RUINS" starring Laurence Oliver and Kathleen Hepburn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Among_the_Ruins and other references about love between old couple.