Ask the Movie Mom

Thanks for the great questions!

I’m trying to find out the name of a movie I saw back in the sixties, i’m not sure what year it was made. It was about a girl that just wants a simple married life but everytime she gets married her husbands end up getting rich and at the end she ends up back with her first boyfriend that was already rich but when they meet in the end he has lost his fortune.

One of my favorites! Shirley MacLaine in What a Way to Go! starring Paul Newman, Dick Van Dyke, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, and Gene Kelly and some of the wildest costumes ever!

I remember a children’s movie from probably the early to mid 80’s about children who invent a flying ‘bubble’ with their computer in the basement of their house.  They then make it large enough to ride in and have some fantastic adventures. Do you have any idea what this movie is?

That’s Explorers with Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix.

A father and son wind up toy mouses that are connected together. I believe the story takes place during Christmas holidays. Their adventures are on city streets and in a sewer with rats. A crow trying to catch them. I remember the movie from HBO as a kid. It was late 70’s or early 80’s. The movie starts with a scene of a snow falling and looking thru a toy store window from outside. The toy father and son mouse were on display.

A lovely movie: “The Mouse and His Child.”

I’m searching for a film title for a friend. they only know the plot and saw it a few years back on Sundance. A boy and girl are friends and play a game involving a box. the game consisits of dares. Whoever has the box dares the other to do something and if they do they in turn get the box. they grow older and apart but still continue the game. This person thinks the film is European. possibly French or Italian. would love an answer to this. Thanks.

That’s a Belgian film released in 2003, Love Me If You Dare originally titled “Jeux D’Enfants.”

A man and woman meet as they are both planning their weddings while their future partners are busy elsewhere. They spend time together and start to fall in love but in the end go their own way. Later they both cancel their wedding but don’t know this of each other. The man then writes a book about the whole experience. Upon hearing about the book the woman realizes it’s not too late and looks up the man. Happy ending.

That’s It Had to Be You with Michael Vartan and Natasha Henstridge.

The movie was in black & white and I believe it was made in the 40s, maybe 50s… I’ve seen it when I was young. A woman living in a big house near the sea thinks that the ghost who is haunting her house is her mother’s, and she feels protected but she is in danger. Another ghost, “the nurse” I think, is her real mother and protects her, but she doesn’t trust her. At the end she knows the truth…

One of my favorite spooky movies! Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey in The Uninvited, which introduced the classic song, “Stella By Starlight.”

Do you know a movie, I think an American one, in which at one point a shady psycho/hitman who wants something from our hero, gives a pet cat a drop of LSD at an apartment, which kills it? At the end the stand off involves the bad guy unwittingly drinking the LSD overdose which the girl friend of leading man has swapped for drink.

Great one! That is Dollars with Goldie Hawn and Warren Beatty.

When I was young (I was born in 1962), I remember watching a movie about a single party guy that drowned, maybe he was drunk and wandered into the ocean behind his house. Anyway, he came out of the situation as a woman. He freaked out when he saw himself in his bathroom mirror as a woman. His buddy knew, but he did not want anyone else to know until he figured out what was going on. He/ she pretended to be a female relative of himself and through his/her relationships with females he had dated in the past, he found out what the women really thought of him. I would like to find the movie and watch it again, as it apparently left a lasting impression on me. I do not know the names of any of the actors as I was so young, andam having a hard time finding any information. It seems like the name of the movie was something like “Sorry Charlie”, but then again, maybe I related that to the tuna commercial that was popular at the time.

You almost had it! That is the Debbie Reynolds film, Goodbye Charlie. A later film with the same theme is “Switch” with Ellen Barkin.

I have parts of this black and white thriller in mind, but I can’t remember the name of the movie. I remember seeing this movie when I was a teenager which would have been somewhere around 14 to 18 years ago. I remember it took place in an old house and the only death scene I remember was a woman went to the bathroom and went to go wash up and for some reason the water was like acid and starting melting her away. I remember the end of the movie because apparently all the deaths that happened that night in that house were all a dream and the guy woke up. I don’t remember who was in it or anything else really, but it has been driving me crazy for years. If you can help I would appreciate it. Thanks.

I consulted my favorite expert on scary movies, movie critic Dustin Putman, who tells me that is “Slaughter High.”

This man is a lawyer and I think he is not in his home town. He was supposed to be in court for something but missed the date and so he gets a friend to play being him and he has microphones set up in the briefcase so he can hear what’s going on in the courtroom. He sits outside in his car listening and giving his friend clues what to say by honking his horn. He falls in love with a girl and then his ex comes to the town where he is trying to get back with him. I might have some details wrong — it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it.

That’s Trial and Error with Jeff Daniels and Michael Richards.

I vaguely remember a movie I saw on HBO in the late ’70’s-early ’80’s. The plot goes like this: A group of elderly people who live in a high-rise are being evicted so the building can be demolished. Every person who comes by to kick them out gets killed.

That’s a 1994 film called “Homebodies.”

What is the name of the movie 1950’s to 1960’s or around then about a husband and wife that go to Europe. I think it’s Italy. They have a daughter 18+ years old that is slightly mentally deficient. The girl meets a nice guy and they fall in love. The parents’ quandary is whether to stop the wedding and/or tell the groom. At the wedding, they do NOT throw rice, they throw candies. As the couple is leaving the church the girl stops to pick up a candy. Somewhat unusual to do. Everyone stops . . . then the groom TOO picks up a candy like his wife. He really loves her. At that point the parents know the girl has found a good man to care for her.

That is Light in the Piazza with Olivia de Havilland, Rossano Brazzi, Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton and Barry Sullivan, a script by “Casablanca’s” Julius J. Epstein, gowns by Christian Dior, and gorgeous Italian scenery. It was adapted into a Broadway musical in 2005.

I’m looking for the name of a movie…a love story starts off when the two are kids in a tropical place. The write/draw on a turtle’s back. They get older, fall in love. He dives for pearls. The turtle appears later in movie.

That’s The Bermuda Depths.

Audrey Hepburn was the daughter of a “high class” thief. I don’t remember the actor who was the leading man. i think there was a scene where Ms. Hepburn and the leading man were hiding and she told him about her father. Can you help?

I love that movie! It’s How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole.