Acteurist oeuvre-view – Jean Arthur – Part 12: THE IMPATIENT YEARS (1944); A FOREIGN AFFAIR (1948) and SHANE (1953) + Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO + JULIET (1996)

There's Sometimes a Buggy says hello to 2023 and goodbye to Acteur Jean Arthur with three movies by three auteurs (Virginia Van Upp, Billy Wilder, and George Stevens): The Impatient Years (1944), A Foreign Affair (1948), and Shane (1953). Elise decides in real time that The Impatient Years, a sour mid-40s comedy of remarriage, is a great comedy because it's not very funny (using another Shakespeare reference to get there). We discuss the geopolitical context of Wilder's remarkable A Foreign Affair, agreeing that Arthur's persona in it has nothing to do with Capra; and George Stevens' leftist de-bunking of certain myths of the Western genre in Shane. And speaking of Shakespeare, in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we revisit a Gen X classic that neither of us had seen in about 20 years, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juilet, which prompts Elise to perceive the resemblance between Leonardo DiCaprio and Joan Crawford.  Time Codes: 0h 1m 00s:        THE IMPATIENT YEARS (1944) [dir. Irving Cummings] 0h 26m 45s:      A FOREIGN AFFAIR (1948) [dir. Billy Wilder] 1h 03m 45s:      SHANE (1953) [dir. George Stevens] 1h 20m 56s:      Elise & Dave's Top 10 Jean Arthur films 1h 24m 09s:      Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO + JULIET (1996) [dir. Baz Luhrmann]   +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again" * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at [email protected] We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!