Valentine’s Day… Massacred!
Oh, hello. Got any plans for Valentine’s Day? No? Yes, it is a bit vacuous and overly commercialised, isn’t it? And what’s that? You don’t have a girlfriend/boyfriend (cross off where apropriate)? What a shame! So you were thinking of watching 500 Days of Summer? Because it says in the trailer that it’s “not a love story”?
Well, don’t bother! Because a) It’s a pile o’ shite and b) It is a fucking love story, with a moronically contrived happy ending and everything. He meets another girl. She’s called, wait for it… Autumn. No shit.
So if you are really miserable this Valentine’s Day, and you want to watch something genuinely depressing, authentically despairing and 100% down on all that lovey-dovey stuff, steer well clear of that clap-trap and check out one of these ten gloomy films about failed affairs of the heart. Enjoy!
The Red Shoes (Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
Young Vicky wants to dance, and ballet-master Lermontov sees no reason why she shouldn’t achieve her dream. But, he warns her, there is no time for hanky-panky, as dancing is a serious business which requires all of one’s attention. When Vicky falls for a young composer, Lermontov mercilessly wrenches them apart, and it all ends up with Vicky dancing her way off a hotel balcony and getting squished by a train. Ouch!
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Penniless Hollywood scribbler William Holden accepts a desperate gig as the in-house writer for mad, monkey-burying, washed-up silent screen star Gloria Swanson. Appalled to discover she has fallen in love with him, he runs away and attempts a nibble at his best mate’s bird instead. It’s not long before Swanson finds out and our hero finds himself floating face down in her swimming pool. Ouch again!
La Peau Douce (Francois Truffaut, 1964)
That’s French for “silken skin”… Oh-la-la! Truffaut delved into his own real-life experiences for this tale of a brainy writer who embarks on an affair with a naive young air hostess before his wife shoots him dead in a crowded Parisian cafe. Truffaut DID have an affair, but he DIDN’T get shot in a cafe. In case you were wondering.
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (Roger Corman, 1967)
Nothing much about romance here, but this cracking gangster film recounts the events of the bloodiest day of Al Capone’s tenure as America’s most notorious mob boss. However bad your Valentine’s day may be, at least you’re not being gunned to death in a mafia turf-war, eh? Jason Robards cackles his head off as Capone, and Dick Miller, Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern fulfill the obligatory ”ooohhh! It’s him!” Corman quota.
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (Robert Fuest, 1971)
“Love means never having to say you’re ugly” - This is worthy of inclusion on the grounds of that tagline alone, which is of course a nice, tongue-in-cheek twist on 70s weepie phenomena Love Story’s “Love means never having to say you’re sorry“. The legend that is Vincent Price is on over-the-top form here as the deformed Doc of the title, despatching those he holds responsible for the death of his wife in jaw-droppingly grisly and grandoise fashion. Basil Kirchin’s score is an absolute belter, too.
Innocents with Dirty Hands (Claude Chabrol, 1975)
I’ll be straight with you, this is far from Chabrol at his best. But, if you’re in a suitably sour mood, you may well enjoy watching a dangerous menage-a-trois unfold as Romy Schneider and her hunky bad boy lover plot to do away with hubby Rod Steiger and make off with his fortune. If not, at least you’ll always remember said bad boy lover first encountering la Schneider by mistakenly landing a kite on her arse in one of cinema’s most bizarre opening sequences!
Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
Lots of witless critics caused me no end of irritation last year by continually comparing the dire 500 Days of Summer (no, I don’t care for it much) to the sublime Annie Hall. A tried and true testament to Woody Allen’s bittersweet genius (which he apparently misplaced the moment filming wrapped on this), nothing beats the scene in which our unlucky-in-love hero approaches a beamingly happy couple in the street and asks for the secret of their success. “I’m very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say”, says the lady, before her male companion adds; “And I’m exactly the same way!”
From the Life of the Marionettes (Ingmar Bergman, 1980)
The miserable old Swede was bound to turn up at some point, wasn’t he? And, boy-oh-boy, had he jumped the shark by this stage! Still, this is a rather touching love story that should be just right for Valentine’s Day. It’s the age-old tale of boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy and girl grow to resent one another, girl takes on multiple lovers, boy finds prostitute with same name as girl, boy murders prostitute, boy has sex with prostitute’s dead boy. Lovely!
My Bloody Valentine (George Mihalka, 1981)
A slasher film that uses Valentine’s Day as the seasonal backdrop to a series of gory murders? There simply had to be, after (Black) Christmas, Halloween, and Friday the 13th had all been taken. Like those other three, this has been remade (in grossly inferior fashion) in recent years, and it has often amused me to imagine that a horde of trendy youngsters who are none too clued up on their horror history may well have pondered; “Why did they name this horror film after a seminal early-90s indie band?” Let’s make a slasher film called Shonen Knife and confuse ‘em even more!
Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996)
“The Greatest Love Story of All Time”? No it’s not! If Romeo and Juliet were around today, they’d be a pair of moping, sad-sack emos, not the funky gang kids that Baz Luhrmann reimagines them as here. Take Romeo, he’s obsessed with that Rosalind bird at the start; who’s to say Juliet wasn’t just another passing fancy? And as for her, she’s prepared to abandon her mother and father for a bloke she’s only just met! Bloody kids!
Well, that’s your lot. Hope you have an UNhappy Valentine’s Day, if that’s what you’re after. If not, why not watch Dirty Dancing or something? Or Eyes Wide Shut?
x.
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