Come Fly With Me ( 1963 )

"A Romantic Round the World Manhunt!" 

Three airline hostesses jet-set across Europe searching for handsome rich men to marry in the engaging 1963 MGM romantic comedy Come Fly With Me. Like How to Marry a Millionaire, all three women find themselves attached to men who are very much different than what they had in mind but they nevertheless have fun hunting and the audience has fun watching them on the prowl. 

Dolores Hart stars as pretty Donna Stuart, a cynical girl who has her heart set on wearing sable. She meets the dashing Baron Franz von Elzingen ( Karl Boehm ) and believes she found her Prince Charming....until she realizes that he is using her to smuggle stolen diamonds between Paris and Vienna. 

Carol Brewster ( Pamela Tiffin ) is more sensible and sets her eyes on the pilot ( Hugh O'Brian ). She thinks he is her knight in shining armor until she discovers he is having an affair with a married woman ( Dawn Addams ). 

It's the lovely Hilda Bergstrom ( Lois Nettleton ) who ends up with the cream of the crop: Texas millionaire Walter Lucas ( Karl Malden ). She's a thrifty girl who wants her man to be saving his pennies as well, little does she know that he has $40 million dollars to spare. Like most good comedies of the 1960s, the film ends with each of the girls happy with their romantic choices. 

Come Fly With Me is light-hearted entertainment that will take you back to an era when jet travel was oh-so-glamorous ( and when airlines gave you room to stretch your legs ). The script seems like it was penned directly for the film but it was actually based on a chick-lit novel called "Girl on a Wing" by Bernard Glemser. The working title was The Friendliest Girls in the World but was later changed to Come Fly With Me to capitalize on the popularity of the Frank Sinatra hit. In the opening of the film, the song is swingingly rendered by Frankie Avalon.

Director Henry Levin keeps the pace of the film moving swiftly and the location scenery throughout Paris and Vienna is beautifully filmed by cinematographer Oswald Morris ( Moby Dick, Scrooge ). Interiors were shot at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Boreham Wood, England. 

The movie is notable for being Dolores Hart's final picture before she retired from acting and entered the Abbey of Regina Laudis. She looks particularly beautiful in this film and gives a wonderful farewell performance. Lois Nettleton also gives a good performance as the level-headed "Bergie" and Karl Malden is excellent as usual. Richard Wattis, James Dobson and Lois Maxwell, who was filming Dr. No in England that same year, are also in the cast. 

Love is Forever ( 1954 ) aka Und Ewig Bleibt die Liebe

Some films have a way of drawing you into the story within the first ten minutes. Perhaps it is a practice that screenwriters learned from newspaper journalists who knew how to "hook" the audience with the first lead line. Hollywood productions had this act down pat. German productions were not so good at this technique, and it usually takes twenty minutes before you find yourself attached to the characters. But there were some exceptions. 

Une Ewig Bleibt die Liebe ( "Love is Forever" ) is one of those exceptions. The plot is rather simple and there is never anything exciting going on in the film and yet it has a lot of drama, and it is presented in such a soapy fashion to make it irresistible. 

The Swedish beauty, Ulla Jacobssen, who made a name for herself in Arne Mattsson's One Summer of Happiness ( 1951 ), stars as Marieke, a young woman who was adopted by the Vogelreuther family as a baby. She recently discovered that her birth mother is none other than "die Elster" - "the Magpie" - ( Hilde von Stolz ), the village thief and drunkard. She was recently released from prison after serving eight years in jail. This shames Marieke to no end. She loves her adopted parents and sister more than anyone else but feels she ought to publicly acknowledge her birth mother. 

This angst over her mother is ruining her love life, too. Georg ( Karlheinz Böhm ), her cousin, has loved her for years but she never returned his love because she knows he feels bound in gratitude to the Vogelreuther's as well and they want to see him marry Trude, Marieke's little sister. Georg does show affection for Trude ( Ingrid Andree ) and at the beginning of the film we learn they are to be wed in less than a week's time. Georg would still rather marry Marieke but she would never marry him now because she knows how much her sister loves him and her sister's happiness is more important to her than her own. So, as you can see, there is quite a bit of drama going on in the film.... And it is played out really well, especially by the principal leads. 

Paul Dahlke and Magda Schneider ( Romy Schneider's mother ) also star in the film as Marieke's adopted parents. 

Love is Forever was based on the play "Johannisfeuer/Fires of St. John" by Hermann Sudermann. In Germany, where the film takes place, the celebration of the midsummer solstice on St. John's Eve ( June 23/24 ) is extremely popular. People light huge bonfires which they dance around well into the night. The festival is featured in the film and also in Johannisnacht, released in 1956, which features this celebration near the climax.

The story of Und Ewig Bleibt die Liebe is a good example of how gratitude, when taken too far, can ruin people's lives. Instead of being honest with their feelings to those they love, both Marieke and George would rather sacrifice their own happiness for the family that raised them. 

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