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During their weeklong courtship, they hide their secrets from each other as long as they can. On a train, Zach meets Mary (Ginger Rogers), who he doesn’t realize is a prisoner convicted of involuntary manslaughter, on a holiday furlough to visit her family. His superiors think the time off will help him readjust to civilian life. In the 1944 romance I’ll Be Seeing You, Joseph Cotten plays a shell-shocked soldier named Zach on leave from a military hospital during the holidays. New Year’s Eve films often feature these kinds of lost souls who find comfort and solace in each other.
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As the film ends, it’s clear they’ll never meet up in Mexico on New Year’s Eve as they plan to, but the audience is meant to hope that someday we’ll all similarly find love that powerful. Neither knows the other’s secret, but their romance makes Dan long for redemption for his past wrongs, while Joan feels hope for the first time since her diagnosis. William Powell plays Dan, an escaped murderer, who falls in love with terminally ill Joan (Kay Francis) aboard an ocean liner.
#MONTAGE HOTEL NEW YEARS EVE CODE#
Similar themes play out explored in the pre- Hays Code romance One Way Passage. It’s a story of new beginnings, both in life and in death.
#MONTAGE HOTEL NEW YEARS EVE SERIES#
Through a series of flashbacks within flashbacks, Sjöström uses this legend to paint a story of two men gone astray, and the power of goodness to bring one of them back. The film tells of an old legend: the first person to die in the new year must drive Death’s carriage. Victor Sjöström’s silent 1921 film The Phantom Carriage suggests hope and despair are two sides of the same coin. Like the endless covers of “Auld Lang Syne” over the years, there’s more than one poignant way to use New Year’s Eve to push characters forward into new lives.įrequently, New Year’s Eve is a symbolic setting where redemption seems possible. And sometimes, New Year’s Eve stories are as simple as the anticipation of a rockin’ year-end party, like in the ensemble comedies 200 Cigarettes and New Year’s Eve. Movies set on this most auspicious of nights explore these emotions in so many ways: There’s the hope of redemption in classic films like The Phantom Carriage and One Way Passage, or the prospect of a new life and new love, like in the romantic comedies When Harry Met Sally… or While You Were Sleeping. Because of the heightened emotions of the transition between one year and the next, New Year’s Eve has been used as a dramatic backdrop in movies since the birth of cinema. Another new year is about to begin, and for a moment, at least, New Year’s Eve represents all the new year’s potential for hope, love, and even despair.
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