A Single Man - 2009

Fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut and financed by himself, this is a film with beautiful cinematography and an oscar worthy cast.

It's November 30, 1962. Native Brit George Falconer, an English professor at a Los Angeles area college, is finding it difficult to cope with life. Jim, his personal partner of sixteen years, died in a car accident eight months earlier when he was visiting with family. Jim's family were not going to tell George of the death or accident let alone allow him to attend the funeral. This day, George has decided to get his affairs in order before he will commit suicide that evening. As he routinely and fastidiously prepares for the suicide and post suicide, George reminisces about his life with Jim. But George spends this day with various people, who see a man sadder than usual and who affect his own thoughts about what he is going to do. Those people include Carlos, a Spanish immigrant/aspiring actor/gigolo recently arrived in Los Angeles; Charley, his best friend who he knew from England, she who is a drama queen of a woman who romantically desires her best friend despite his sexual orientation; and Kenny Potter, one of his students, who seems to be curious about his professor beyond English class

Gigot - 1962

This is a personal favorite film that I discovered during my own childhood. It always remained with me as my own personal classic film. Gigot was released in 1962 by 20th Century Fox. The film starred Jackie Gleason and was directed by Gene Kelly.


Gigot (Gleason) is a mute Frenchman living in the Montmartre district of Paris in the 1920s. He makes a hand-to-mouth living as a janitor at his landlady's apartment building. Though treated with condescension by most of his neighbors (and often the butt of practical jokes), he is much loved by the local children and by animals, whom he often feeds. He seems content with his life, though he has one strange passion: he attends every local funeral, whether or not he knew the departed, marching and crying along with the other mourners.


One can currently watch this entire film via YOUTUBE.com over 11 separate segments. Gleason had conceived the story himself years earlier and had long dreamed of making the film. He wanted Orson Welles as director, and Paddy Chayefsky as screenwriter. Though Welles was an old friend, the board at Fox rejected him as being an overspender. Gene Kelly was selected as a compromise. Chayefsky was not interested and John Patrick, writer of Teahouse of the August Moon was signed instead.


The film was shot on location in Paris. Most of the production crew and cast were French, some spoke no English. Gleason bore with this in two ways: Kelly spoke French, and Gleason's character had no lines, being mute.


Gleason was extremely proud of the film, which earned one Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Score. Gleason received a story credit and a music credit. On the other hand, according to the book, The Films of Gene Kelly, by Tony Thomas, Kelly himself said that the movie "had been so drastically cut and reedited that it had little to do with my version".


Gigot bears many similarities to the short story "Gimpel the Fool" written by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Goodnight Mister Tom - 1998

This film is based on the 1981 novel by Michelle Magorian.  It follows a young boy, William Beech, who is evacuated from London during the air-raids of World War II, and put into the care of Tom Oakley, an elderly recluse.  Thanks to Tom, William Beech is able to experience a new life of loving and care.

Two musicals based on the book have been written and this 1998 film was made.  There is also a new play of Goodnight Mister Tom, adapted for the stage by national children's dramatist David Wood, opening in early 2011 in London, England.  I really enjoyed this one as it depicts two broken souls at very different ends of the age scale.