I Don’t Want to Say Good-Bye: American Dreamer (1984)

Romantic Moment #5

American Dreamer (1984) 

So one weekend, my roommate Elaine went home to visit her parents. When she came back to college, she brought back a bunch of things and movies. She started showing me the different films and telling me about them, stopping at American Dreamer, and said that we had to watch it-that I would love it. She told me it was like Romancing the Stone, but better.

What?

I was like, I love Romancing the Stone. How could this be better? How could I possibly love it more?

Yeah right.

So we watched it. And I loved it! I watched it…

It is amazing!

Cathy Palmer is a bored housewife, dissatisfied with her life and marriage. Her husband pays no attention to her, doesn’t romance her, and only cares about his work.

She spends her days in the romance thrillers starring the spy and detective Rebecca Ryan.

The author of the Rebecca Ryan series is having a contest in which anyone can write a Rebecca Ryan story and the best one will win a week trip to Paris. Cathy enters the contest and wins!

She wants her and her husband to go, but he refuses and forbids her to travel. They fight, but Cathy decides to go anyway. When she gets there, she gets hit by a car, and when she wakes up thinks she is Rebecca Ryan!

Something is not right.

She takes off, goes on a shopping spree, and heads to Rebecca Ryan’s hotel. There she meets the author of the series’ son, Alan McMan, who she believes to be Rebecca Ryan’s sidekick Dimitri . She sets out to solve the “case” of who is trying to kill her, taking Alan along for the ride. The two get caught up in an actual mystery as they go to an embassy dinner, track down a political leader, get shot at, have to hide from sight, get in car chases, etc-trying to solve the crime.

Will Cathy ever gain her memory back? Will she and Alan survive this adventure? And will they solve this case of who is trying to kill them, before “the book ends”?

Most Romantic Moment: I Don’t Want to Say Goodbye

***Spoiler Alert***

So this comes near the end of the film. Alan and Cathy/Rebecca have gone on this wild adventure-with Cathy/Rebecca fainting and waking up to realize who she really is and what has happened-remembering everything.

She and Alan have a moment and it is time for them to separate, back to their daily lives. But even though this whole time he thought she was crazy, she had to drag him along, and all he wanted was for her to stop-he realizes how gray and lonely his life was before her and now he doesn’t want their time to end.

Alan McMan: [To Cathy] I don’t want to say good-bye

Swoon!

So romantic!

To start Romance is in the Air: Part V, go to Who Says I Have to Stop: Fireproof (2008)

For the previous post, go to Work Will Always Be There But You Might Not Be: The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

 

Your Secret is Safe With Me: Roman Holiday (1953)

Romantic Moment #5

Roman Holiday (1953)

This film stars Audrey Hepburn (I looooooooooove her!) and gorgeous Gregory Peck. Roman Holiday is Audrey’s first film, and it is such an amazing one! Here we go.

Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) is visiting Rome on her tour of European capitals to spread goodwill. While in Rome, she has a nervous breakdown; she can’t continue appointment after appointment after appointment. She is given a sedative, but before she knocks out she escapes, in hopes of having a fun night out.

Meanwhile, American journalist (and gambler) Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) is looking for a break, anything to get out of Rome and back to the U.S.

The two cross paths when Ann’s sedative knocks her out on a bench and Joe discovers her while walking to get a cab. He tries to send her off in a cab, just thinking she is drunk but she says she lives in the Colosseum so he feels he can’t just leave her (besides the cabbie wants nothing to do with her). He brings her home where he puts her on his couch and he gets on the bed. The next day, Ann’s advisors put out a story about her being “sick” to the papers and cancel all appointments while they are looking for her. Bradley overslept, but hurries over to the newspaper office and realizes that the girl in his apartment is Princess Ann. He decides that he is going to get an exclusive interview and his one way ticket back to NY. He makes a bet with his boss that he will get the exclusive. He and Ann spend the day together, with Joe’s friend and photographer Irving Radovich. Irving takes tons of photographs, most of them of Ann not depicting the most princess-y behavior, such as getting in a fight at a dance. Its one great holiday and the two fall in love; but both realize that it could never work out, and Ann returns to the embassy.

Most Romantic Moment:

So Irving and Joe get all kinds of footage of Ann doing stuff. Her new haircut, at the Mouth of Truth, and the crazy, memorable fight at the dance. Even more than that, Ann tells him she wishes she could have a normal life. This is some good stuff, probably worth a LOOOT of money. I mean an EXCLUSIVE interview with a royal that has just been out of her country for the first time and never been interviewed by anyone. But instead of keeping it and selling it, making a bunch of money he refuses.

That’s right! Joe waves good-bye to the chance of a lifetime! To the big bucks!

Goodbye now!

Irving thinks he’s stupid to even consider not taking this chance:

Irving Radovich: She’s fair game, Joe. It’s always open season on princesses.

But because he loves her, he decides that he will throw the chance out the window. He will lose his bet and be in further debt to not only his boss but landlord. He will stay in Rome, the city that he has grown to despise.

Ann doesn’t know this decision, she doesn’t even know that Joe was a photogrspher, he had lied so she would be real with him. When she sees him at the press conference she is upset, but covers, and Joe makes sure that she knows that he will keep her secret.

Reporter: And what, in the opinion of Your Highness, is the outlook for friendship among nations?

Princess Ann: I have every faith in it… as I have faith in relations between people.

Joe Bradley: May I say, speaking for my own… press service: we believe Your Highness’s faith will not be unjustified.

Princess Ann: I am so glad to hear you say it.

 In the end, even Irving comes around and gives her the photographs, intending on destroying the negatives and being done.

He’s so romantic

It is just so sweet and romantic!

Awwwwwww!!!!