Year 18, Day 58 - 2/27/26 - Movie #5,258
BEFORE: It was a bit of a long road getting here, and I'm not even talking about this year's chain. This is one of the films that was on my old DVR, the one that crashed that I had to turn back in to the cable company, even though it was 75% full of movies. I lost over 45 movies that way, and some were easy to replace because they were still running on premium channels, but others were a bit rare and don't run very often, I think now there are maybe just 17 or 18 of those that I'm hoping get re-aired at some point. So I've been keeping an eye out for this one in the on-screen guide, but it hasn't popped up in the last year. I programmed it anyway, because it turned out this February to be one of those films that can serve as a valuable link to keep the chain going and make the connections between other films. So Ben Miles carries over from "Imagine Me & You" and this gets me one step closer to the end of the month.
I got lucky with "Much Ado About Nothing", PBS aired it on a Saturday night about five days before I had it programmed - but I couldn't expect to get lucky like that twice this month. So I relegated myself to watching this on YouTube or iTunes and paying $1.99 or $2.99 for that, but I did get "lucky" of a sort in that this was available on Pluto TV, so I could watch it without paying for it, I just had to endure a few commercials and the occasional unexplained sudden jump to the middle of the movie "Mo' Money" or an episode of "NCIS". (Jeez, this movie is really hard to follow, this Victorian romance has suddenly turned into a crime show...). Anyway, I soldiered through and now I can move this film from the list of films I lost that need to be replaced to the list of films I've seen, but don't have a digital copy of. So I'm still on the hunt for it, but there's no pressure or urgency to find it.
Let's get to the Day 16 line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, this is for Saturday, February 28 and the theme is "Oscar Goes West". Well, I've seen a lot of Westerns, so here's hoping:
I think I've only seen four of these - "Stagecoach", "Shane", "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "The Wild Bunch", I guess that makes me a poser, I haven't seen most of the older ones. But I think I need to record "How the West Was Won", I've been putting it off for years and it's overdue. Now I just have to remember to set the DVR. This brings me up to 71 seen out of 178, which is 39.8% and I'm back down below the 40% benchmark.
THE PLOT: A woman who has been forced to choose between a privileged life with her wealthy aunt and her journalist lover befriends an American heiress. When she learns the heiress is attracted to her own lover and is dying, she sees a chance to have both the life she cannot give up and the lover she cannot live without.
AFTER: The topic of relationships and romances is a hefty one - February is coming to an end but my chain is scheduled to drag into March, past St. Patrick's Day even. That's fine, the list of romance-themed films is so long that the more movies I can take off the list, the better. At the same time, I need to leave enough films ON the list, and the RIGHT films, so I can still put a chain together next year, God willing. Hey, if I can't, I can just do a short one and devote half of February to Black History films, there's always that option. But usually enough films that fit the theme come on the list between April and December, giving me enough to work with. But this year I also took care to choose some films that have been taking up space for a LONG time, like "Cousins", "Roger Dodger", and today's film. Films from the 1990's, they've got to GO, I can't put them off another year, this is like clearance sale time.
With "The Wings of the Dove", there was this bit of a feeling, and it's not uncommon for me, to think, "Well, this film came out in 1997, surely I must have seen it then, or shortly thereafter, right? Well, I had no proof of that, because I only started rating films on IMDB in 2009, and so anything that's rated there when I sign in, I can confirm I've seen. Before that some things get a little hazy, because I'm 57 now, I can't be expected to remember every film I saw when I was in my 20's or 30's - my memory can't really be trusted, but you know, I might have seen "Much Ado About Nothing" before, but if I did, the plot sure didn't stick in my memory, and when I started watching it this week, I did NOT get that feeling of "Oh, wait, I've seen this one..." and I have to trust my gut sometimes. I also bought a lot of DVDs in the 1990's and a bunch of VHS tapes before that, so if I don't OWN a copy, that's another good sign that I haven't seen that film. Then once I started burning my own DVDs in 2004, I kept a database of everything I dubbed and burned, so if a film's not on that spreadsheet, chances are I haven't seen it.
I double-checked and triple-checked, so I'm 99% sure I have not seen "The Wings of the Dove" before. I didn't know one thing about the plot, I didn't get that deja vu feeling when I started watching it, and it's not in the database, it's not rated on IMDB, and I don't have a copy on the shelf. Great, because it's exactly the film I need to connect to the next film and close out the month. What a relief, I don't have to scramble at the last minute and find something to replace it. Also, it kind of fits in with the other films this week, going back to "Love Again" there's been a bit of a common thread about deception, like Rob not telling Mira he's been getting the texts she was sending to her dead boyfriend, or the couple in "Love Punch" pretending to be Texan-Americans in order to steal a diamond. Don John causing Claudio to think that Hero was being unfaithful, or Rachel not telling her husband that she had feelings for Luce. That all works for me, having a theme for the week is always great. I mean, it can't be "Classics Week" if we only have one Shakespeare play and one Henry James novel, even if tomorrow is based on another classic book, that doesn't fill up the week.
Anyway, the deception here in today's film involves Kate Croy setting up a rich American heiress with her own boyfriend, with the idea that if they should marry, he will inherit her money when she dies, and apparently she's got some kind of fatal illness that they couldn't cure back then. The film is set in 1910, when apparently everyone in London was hurting for money and desperate to not lose their castles or estates. To be fair, the wartime economy wouldn't hit for another couple of years, and larger families were still the norm, so if you weren't the first-born son you probably didn't inherit much, and you had to live in the smaller castle or (god forbid) the guest house on the manor. And that's it you were a man, for women it was even tougher, because it's not like a woman could hold a JOB or anything, heaven forbid, they were much too fragile then. JK, down with the patriarchy.
Kate lives with her aunt Maud, who controls the family fortune, so Kate can't marry her lover Merton, a lowly journalist, because he doesn't meet Maud's standards. Maud would rather set Kate up with Lord Mark. Kate keeps seeing Merton secretly, however, and Merton begs her to leave her aunt and move in with him, but then she'd be cut off and they'd both be poor. Kate also learns that Maud is supporting her father by sending him a few shillings each week, and if she were to run off with Merton, Maud would also stop doing that, so for the sake of her father and to not be poor herself, Kate breaks up with Merton.
A few months later, American heiress Milly comes through town, and forms a friendship with Kate, she even suggests that Kate come with her to her next stop, Venice. Lord Mark turns his attention to Milly because he's also running out of money, and if he were to marry Milly, that would vastly improve his situation. Lord Mark also reveals to Kate that Milly is very sick, and at this point Kate's gotten back together with Merton, so she hatches a plan to go to Venice with Milly, and since Milly seems to enjoy Merton's company, bring him along so that Milly will fall in love with him and leave her money to him when she passes.
However, Kate didn't plan on becoming jealous when watching Milly and Merton together. Kate lures Merton away one night to have sex with him, but Milly somehow suspects something, so Kate decides she needs to leave them together in Venice but return to London herself. The plan is going well until Lord Mark shows up and reveals the scheme to Milly - Kate must have told Lord Mark, but why? Milly still prefers Merton to Lord Mark, even after she knows about the plan, so it seems that without Kate around, the love between Merton and Milly became much more real, and you know, that can happen. But still Milly dies and leaves her money to Merton, so the plan worked, at least at first glance.
It all gets wrecked after the funeral, when Kate comes back to Merton's apartment and confirms that Milly did leave him a large amount of money. But Merton says he won't take the money, and if Kate wants to be with him, she must marry him without the money. Kate agrees to this, but only if Merton can tell her that he's not still in love with the memory of Milly. Which of course he is, the fake love became real love and so Kate learns that her scheme has completely backfired. Now she can't have the money and she can't have Merton, not the way she wants him, anyway. I think we can assume Kate thought that once Milly died and Merton had some money, either he'd be a more respectable husband that Maud would approve of, or at least he could support Kate if Maud didn't approve.
This is sort of reminiscent of that O. Henry story where the man buys his wife beautiful combs and she busy him a beautiful chain for his watch - only he sold his watch to buy her the combs and she sold her hair to buy him the chain. Nobody gets what they want - but at least here this happens to people who deserve it, it's bad karma coming back at them for trying to swindle Milly out of her money.
Well, I guess it's not a total loss, I mean Merton still has his newspaper job, he'll probably be very busy once World War I breaks out - and Kate has still got a chance at getting money from her Aunt Maud, if she's willing to marry the right man and make his life miserable and very long. And maybe they both learned a lesson about not swindling Americans out of their money, it only leads to everybody being unhappy.
Directed by Iain Softley (director of "Hackers" and "Inkheart")
Also starring Helena Bonham Carter (last seen in "Enola Holmes 2"), Alison Elliott (last seen in "The Phenom"), Linus Roache (last seen in "The Namesake"), Elizabeth McGovern (last seen in "A Shock to the System"), Charlotte Rampling (last seen in "Cleanskin"), Michael Gambon (last seen in "King of Thieves"), Alex Jennings (last seen in "The Phoenician Scheme"), Philip Wright, Alexander John (last seen in "Sense and Sensibility"), Shirley Chantrell (last seen in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life"), Diana Kent (last seen in "Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker"), Georgio Serafini, Rachele Crisafulli,
RATING: 6 out of 10 pornographic etchings in the back of the bookstore
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