Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

I was only tentatively planning to see this someday and hadn't expected to right after another Disney movie about kids and non-evil witchcraft. But people have been bringing it up with the passing of Angela Lansbury, so I thought it a fitting way to honor her.

In World War II, Eglantine Price (Lansbury) is legally compelled to host three evacuated siblings in her rural English mansion, however unwillingly and temporarily (a scenario I hope never happens in the U.S.). She has been studing magic via mail-order instructions to help the war effort, but the course ends abruptly before she can learn a key spell. Since youngest child Paul (Roy Snart) has a habit of collecting random things and Miss Price wants to enchant a turnable object, he supplies a bedknob. From then on, he can make a certain large bed travel to any destination, which allows the party to hunt for the needed information.

Death on the Nile (1978)

Only after watching did I become aware that another adaptation of the Agatha Christie book is coming out this year. This information does not make me regret my choice; if anything, it makes me gladder. If the remake is reputedly good, I'll be in a fine position to compare both versions.

I was particularly interested in seeing how, besides the exact setting and vehicle, the story differs from Murder on the Orient Express, which I both read and saw the 1974 movie of. Once again, famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov herein) must figure out which of many passengers committed murder in transit. The first obvious difference is that DotN, at least in this version, doesn't have any death until about halfway in. Before that, we get pretty well acquainted with the guests, whose actors include Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, David Niven, Maggie Smith, and Angela Lansbury. Poirot does, too, observing them slyly as if he fully expects a murder. Hey, detectives should pick up on patterns in their own lives.

State of the Union (1948)

I didn't think I'd care to see a political comedy-drama on screen after getting so much of it in reality lately. But when Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, and 22-year-old Angela Lansbury are being directed by Frank Capra, the subject hardly matters to me.

There appears to be a double meaning to the title. The marriage of airplane industrialist Grant (Tracy) and Mary (Hepburn) Matthews is on the rocks, with Grant having a paramour in newspaper magnate heiress Kay Thorndyke (Lansbury). But Kay is willing to sacrifice her extramarital relationship for political sway as she taps Grant to run for president, which pretty much requires the apparent support of his wife. He warms up to the idea in light of his strong convictions, and so does Mary, despite his continual business-related proximity to Kay. The real trouble arises when his backers talk him into compromises to maximize his chance at election.