Pollyanna (1960)

In the interest of coping with a dark time, I picked the most famously optimistic movie I could think of. OK, all I really knew about it was the reputation of the title character.

The movie deviates a little from the book's setting and doesn't indicate the state or year, but it appears to be New England in the early 1900s. Preteen Pollyanna Whittier (Hayley Mills in her Disney debut) is moderately fortunate for an orphan in that she gets to live in the mansion of her Aunt Polly Harrington (Jane Wyman), but lest you think it a dream come true, the aunt is bigger on making sure the niece acts like a lady than on loving or spoiling her. Furthermore, Polly is effectively the town matriarch, which may explain the local prevalence of bitterness and hostility. But Pollyanna has embraced her late father's insistence on looking on the bright side, and she shows it to everyone she meets.

Show Boat (1951)

I wanted to see the 1936 movie adapted from the Kern and Hammerstein musical adapted from the Edna Ferber book, as it's the most popular movie version. Alas, like many old works, it has yet to become available through Netflix, even tho the DVD evidently exists. So I settled for what I took to be the next best thing.

The boat in question, the Cotton Blossom under Cap'n Andy (Joe E. Brown) and wife Parthy (Agnes Moorehead), travels the southern portion of the Mississippi River in the late 19th century, with performers putting on skits and musical sequences. Gambler Gaylord (Howard Keel), having no other ticket to ride, charms his way into the heart of Andy's daughter, Magnolia (Kathryn Grayson), and then into the cast, which has an opening once a sheriff orders the dismissal of part-Black performer Julie (Ava Gardner) and her hubby, Steve (Robert Sterling). After many popular shows, against Parthy's wishes, Gaylord and Magnolia get married and leave the business. As unpleasant as Parthy is, she has a valid point about the gamble of marrying a gambler....

Fourteen Hours (1951)

This is the first movie I know to lie about lying. Specifically, it begins with a disclaimer that any resemblance to real events is purely coincidental, yet all my sources indicate inspiration from a real event in the '30s. I still won't use the "true story" tag due to fundamental differences, including the resolution and the stated length of time.

On a warm St. Patrick's Day morning, a 20-something man (Richard Basehart) steps onto the ledge outside his 15th-floor New York City hotel room. Traffic cop Charlie Dunnigan (Paul Douglas) reports this and then goes up to have a few words with the potential jumper, eventually identified as Robert Cosick, before the pros show up. Oddly enough, Robert doesn't want to hear from anyone but Charlie at that point -- something about the officer's rough, relatively earnest air, I suppose. Of course, as the title implies, Robert takes quite a while to make up his mind.

Since You Went Away (1944)

It had been a while since I last saw a movie with an overture and an entr'acte. This one has the courtesy to change the stills during the overture, the entr'acte being shorter. Alas, the soundtrack, tho Oscar-winning, is far from Lawrence of Arabia, so I opted to skip.

We never meet the "you" of the title: Tim Hilton, a U.S. Army volunteer, leaves his unidentified Midwestern town for war right before the first scene. His wife, Anne (Claudette Colbert), rents out a room to retired Col. Smollett (Monty Woolley) to make ends meet. Their elder daughter, Jane (Jennifer Jones), falls for the colonel's visiting yet half-estranged grandson, Bill (Robert Walker), knowing that he as a corporal may have to leave soon as well. She and sister Brig (Shirley Temple) do their own parts to contribute to the war effort on U.S. soil. From time to time, Anne's ex-boyfriend, naval lieutenant Tony (Joseph Cotten), shows up with a familial atmosphere, to the consternation of the maid, Fidelia (Hattie McDaniel).