What classics did you see last week, Feb 28 to Mar 6?

Pinky (1949)-Jeanne Crain plays a nurse who returns to her hometown to care for an ailing Southern dowager (Ethel Barrymore). When the townspeople realize that she's the biracial granddaughter of Barrymore's employee (Ethel Waters), they change their attitude about her and treat her with contempt and suspicion. While the casting of the fair-skinned Crain may seem odd today, it was probably necessary back in 1949,
when it would have been unthinkable to have a genuinely biracial performer in a romance depicted in a major theatrical film (Crain has a white boyfriend). But besides that, this is a bold film for the era in which it was made, and Crain gives a decent performance.

Four Weddings and a Funeral(1949)--Romantic comedy about a series of weddings among a coterie of goofy, romance-starved, upper-class English twits. It's all great fun until a sinister, sociopathic femme fatale shows up and threatens to destroy the male lead through manipulation and emotional abuse. Well, not really...but the (mis)casting of Andie MacDowell as the elusive American woman who turns up at every function almost seems to suggest that the story is not going to end well. Hugh Grant is the main character, a single guy who wonders why virtually
everyone he knows is getting married except him. Well, maybe it's because he is a bit of a jerk, with a tendency to badmouth every ex-girlfriend he has to the succeeding one. One problem with the film is that he's the least interesting of all the main characters--it might have been more fun to follow his quirky female roommate and her romantic disappointments, or the sweetly klutzy rich guy, or the gay couple who, despite having the most committed relationship of the main group, were prohibited at the time from getting married. But instead, we have to follow Hugh Grant, who does his usual Hugh Grant act--stuttering and playing with his unkempt hair. Despite not being able to maintain a relationship with any of his long line of exes, he immediately and inexplicably is infatuated with Cassie (MacDowell), the woman he meets at Wedding #1 in the film. Although labeled (accurately) a "slut" by his female friend (Kristin Scott Thomas, who secretly loves him), Grant has a one-nighter with Cassie and thinks she's the one, until she shows up at Wedding #2 to tell him she's engaged to some wealthy guy, breaking Hugh's heart (but they sleep together again the night before Wedding #3--Cassie's). This all sounds contrived and illogical, but there are some actresses who could have pulled this off--Marisa Tomei and Melanie Griffith, two actresses who were considered for the Cassie role, could have managed to bring some exuberant charm to the character. They at least could have worn that awful hat that Cassie wears to Wedding #1 and made it look attractive; on the wooden MacDowell, it looks like she's balancing a manhole cover on her head.
Instead of making her character funny and weird, she just comes off as cold and calculating, with all the soullessness of Jane Greer in
Out of the Past or Jean Simmons in Angel Face. Like those characters, she seems to be playing her male victim to see how far he will go, almost as if she were trying to get revenge for something. Is it coincidence that she happens to show up at the upscale store where she's registered for wedding gifts at the exact same time that Grant is shopping for her gift? (Yes, she invites him to her wedding).
And when she mentions how great it is to get so many gifts and how she wishes she'd married sooner just to get presents--an actress who can do comedy could make that line seem cute, but from her it just seems as avaricious as it sounds on paper. Then she makes Grant accompany her to the bridal shop to help her choose a gown--this is usually something a bride-to-be does with her female friends, but she insists on Grant helping her. Why? Well, she probably doesn't have any female friends (no surprise there), but she seems to be doing it also to dig the knife into Grant. And then she sleeps with him. Then she gets married to the rich guy--and divorces him months later (she complains that she shouldn't have married someone "three times" her age; he's not that old, but the meanspiritedness of that remark is in character for her). She leaves such a sour taste on the film that the ending seems illogical; the closing shots of what happens to the main characters at the end of the movie (everybody gets paired off, with the exception of one character) hopefully suggest that Grant eventually ditches the annoying Cassie for a more worthy character--no spoilers, though.

My Cousin Vinny (1992)-Genuinely funny comedy, with Joe Pesci as a woefully inexperienced attorney who has to defend his cousin and his friend when they are wrongfully on trial for murder. Fred Gwynne is great as the dignified judge at the trial who has to constantly keep Pesci in his place; Marisa Tomei, as Pesci's girlfriend, steals the movie. There was a nasty rumor, spread by self-important movie critic Rex Reed, that Tomei was awarded an Academy Award by mistake for her role in this movie (Reed was probably just feeling extra-bitchy that day), but it was well-earned for her comic performance here.

All Creatures Great and Small, Season 1 (2020)--I loved reading James Herriot's books in the 1970s, and I enjoyed the TV adaptation back then as well, so I was wary about watching this new adaptation. While I don't think it is as good as the original (it does take some liberties with the original story, and it draws out the romance between Herriot and his love interest), it was a fairly decent adaptation. The late Diana Rigg is featured in several episodes, and the scenery is beautiful.