N.Y.E. on Film

Should you forgo all the hoopla and stay home and watch a movie this New Year's Eve, you can vicariously experience everything from an overturned ship to poignant friends turned lovers. Here are a few memorable New Year's Eve scenes on film:

New Year's Eve

Pick a holiday, add an all star ensemble cast and a series of romantic vignettes and you have the formula for director Gary Marshall's film New Year's Eve in what is truly a trend in Hollywood these days. (If this sounds familiar, you probably saw Valentine's Day back in February and if you are a baby boomer, you remember the Love Boat as well). The film stars Hilary Swank, Ashton Kutcher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sarah Jessica Parker, and yes, Robert De Niro. The critics have not been kind so enter at your own risk (although it's got a great cast and looks like a good "rom-com").

Sunset Boulevard

Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) lures young screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) to her NYE bash only to find he is the only guest in her decrepit, memory filled Sunset Boulevard mansion. Often campy yet a true window on aging in Hollywood, the film is a classic and gets better with every viewing. I remember hearing a film was in the works with Glenn Close years ago, too bad it didn't work out.

Ocean's Eleven 

Danny Ocean and Company - that would be Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop - pull off a heist in Las Vegas on the busiest night of the year. Ocean's Eleven is the original and better than the sequel (in my humble opinion).

Connery and Zeta Jones

Another heist takes place before the ball drops in the year 2000 in the stylish caper Entrapment with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones.

Winslet and Black in The Holiday

Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Jude Law and Cameron Diaz celebrate New Year's Eve in a little Surrey town in director Nancy Meyer's holiday classic (aptly called) The Holiday.

Bissett and Bergen in Rich and Famous

Rich and Famous is an often forgotten gem of a film directed by George Cukor and stars Jacqueline Bissett and Candice Bergen as old friends who are at varying stages of their career. The film takes place over several decades of their friendship (complete with competition, jealousy and envy) and culminates on New Year's Eve. Look for a young Meg Ryan and Bergen's daughter.

When Harry Met Sally's Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan

Harry's proclamation of love to Sally is a scene stealing moment in When Harry Met 

Sally. "And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of our life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible" was just one of the many memorable quotes from writer Nora Ephron.

The Poseidon Adventure

"There's got to be a morning after" was not the case for the tourists on this love boat in the seventies disaster flick The Poseiden Adventure. Gene Hackman, Red Buttons, Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters were among the fatalities as I recall. Great special effects as the boat capsizes on the big night.

Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City

Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) spend a depressing NYE together after having a year of being left at the altar and separated respectively in the film Sex and the City. Or skip the film and rent the set of seasons one through eight and have a marathon.

And if you didn't watch it over Christmas, here is your chance...Holiday Inn. Enough said.

And here's to a prosperous, healthy and reasonably stress free 2012. Happy New Year!

Holiday Inn

The House as Character: Iconic Cinema Houses

“It was a great big white elephant of a place. The kind crazy movie people built in the crazy twenties. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades.” 

--William Holden as screenwriter Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard, 1950

Scarlett's Tara, Rebecca's  Manderlay, Citizen Kane's Xanadu and Mr. Blanding's Dream House. All houses that shared billing with the actors and played an integral part of a film. The following a are a few iconic images of famous cinema homes...

The real star of Sunset Boulevard (1950) is the mansion itself. Aging, decrepit and filled with despair, much like Norma Desmond herself. 

The Manderlay estate is a constant reminder of the deceased ex-wife in the Hitchcock thriller Rebecca (1940).  The film's producer David O. Selznick searched all over for an appropriate mansion and was finally convinced a miniature version and matte shots would do the trick.





Frank Lloyd Wright's cantilevered Falling Water house in Pennsylvania became the influence for the villian Phillip Van Damm's (James Mason) residence  in Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959).

Art Director Robert Boyle designed the set as a jungle gym for Cary Grant's action sequence.



A symbol of vast wealth, Charles Kane's house was influenced by the Hearst mansion San Simeon and Mont St. Michel in Citizen Kane (1941). Director Orson Welles was overextended on his budget and oversize elements from the RKO prop house were used to fill the space.



Perhaps one of the most iconic houses was the Connecticut home of the Blandings in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), a film that chronicles the frustration of home renovation. Fleeing the city, the couple, played by Cary Grant and Myrna Loy,  search for a house with rolling hills, a fireplace and a patio for barbeques - a sign of the times in the late forties.

Gone With the Wind's (1930)  Tara was built on the studio backlot at a cost of $12.059.00


Dr. Zhivago's (1965) famed "ice palace"/dacha where the doctor and his lover Lara made their refuge was filmed in the middle of summer in Soria, Spain. The sets were dressed in hot wax and sprayed with cold water to resemble the look of frost and ice. 

The Victorian mansion on the sprawling Benedict ranch in Giant (1956). With no landscaping or neighbors for miles, the house was designed to represent the lonely marriage of the Benedicts played by Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor.

Photo Credits: Rex Features, MGM, Warner Brothers, Margaret Herrick Library