Solva Saal (a 1958 romantic classic)

Starring a very young Waheeda Rehman and a charmingly boyish Dev Anand, who had not yet cast himself into a rigid stereotype, Solva Saal is one of my favourite movies of the black and white era!

The King's Speech

You can hate the movie but you can't- I guarantee- hate Colin Firth as King George VI! I don't say that you will like the man- I frowned quite consistently through certain parts of the movie at him- silently reproving the man- but as an actor- Oh, man!- he was the shiniest penny in the room and he would NOT be ignored.

The movie began with a speech in Wembley stadium at the close of the British Empire Exhibition in 1925.

Guess who was supposed to give it?

Oh, you're brilliant! Yes, it was Prince Bertie. In his middle age and very used to his inability to speak in public or even to his family without long pauses and tripping over words.

But his father wouldn't give up trying to cure him of it through forced exposure. King George V believed in tough love and the dutiful Bertie obliged to embarrassing effects. 

He stood in front of a thousand men and women of his kingdom and couldn't utter the word 'king'.

His brother Edward fell in love with a Mrs Simpson. It was nothing unusual, the heir-apparent liked married women.

The Winslow Boy

I'll leave off the summary. You can get that on wikipedia. 
It's based on a 1946 play by Terence Rattigan who got his inspiration from an actual incident in the early 1900s. It has been dramatised many times and indeed watching the movie was not unlike watching a play on the stage. I haven't read the original play yet but I doubt the director changed much by way of scene or setting.

According to Greta

Reminded me a lot of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Only Greta's drama leans more towards the morbid and the girl has serious issues. Her issues revolve around her father's death which happened when she was five. He committed suicide and little Greta walked in to see him dying.
She's seventeen now and her mother is on her third husband. Still some-what a child herself, Greta's mother can't handle her dark cynicism and obsession with suicides. She sends her to psychologists and then off to her grandparents' house in New Jersey for the summer.

I can't think straight

It was the first movie centred on a homosexual relationship that I saw. I'm not sure what I expected. Fun poked at how relatives react when you come out of the closet, maybe? I certainly didn't think that I would watch it with the same half silly smile I have when I watch movies like 'Someone like you', 'Love actually', or 'The Holiday'. 

The Young Victoria

I just finished watching this movie. 

Here's what it's about: 

  Princess Victoria is turning eighteen and is the only heir to the English throne, so everyone wants to have some influence over her before she even ascends the throne.

Her mom wants to be the regent (a ruler in place of the monarch in cases where the monarch is incapable or too young to rule) and so keeps her away from the throne. She is treated like a golden bird in a cage and her mom's advisor threatens her and tries to force her to sign the regency papers. She meets Prince Albert, who is a distant cousin and nephew to the King of Belgium. He's been brought up to one day marry her.