All fair's in love and war?

[skimpole]

This topic may have occured before, and even more likely the title.  Last week I saw a sitcom where a character tried to get a former girlfriend back by subtly undermining her current boyfriend.  As one might expect this blew up in his face, but it led me to wonder about the techniques movie characters use to get their lovers.  Now some romantic comedies have unhappy endings (Annie Hall, Manhattan), others have gheir lovers already happily connected (The Thin Man), while in others the plot isn't so much winning the other as having them fall in love in the first place (It Happened One Night)  There are romances where the couple faces serious exernal obstacles, such as the malevolent prince in The Princess Bride or the unlucky scientist who reveals that Daryl Hannah is a mermaid in Splash.  Of course in movies that are not romantic comedies lovers can act rather violently--Teresa Clare murders Alec D'Urbeville in Tess and is hanged for it at the end of the movie.  But what are the most amoral measures in the movies that people have successfully used to win their lovers?  I'm inclined to think of Cary Grant's ruthless persuction of Ralph Bellamy in His Girl Friday and Lee Tracy's manipulations in Bombshell.  Any other ideas?

[EugeniaH]

This topic may have occured before

 

If that's true I don't remember it...  Anyway, this is a great thread!

 

Your mention of Grant and Bellamy reminded me that the film The Awful Truth has a whole lot of deliberate undermining going on.  Lucy and Jerry Warriner (Irene Dunne and Cary Grant) are almost finally divorced, and each of them try to sabotage the others' newly-found romances.  Lucy Warriner probably uses the most extreme tactic, pretending she's Jerry's sister and dancing flamboyantly / acting outrageously in front of Jerry's finacee's family.  As all of this is going on they don't yet realize they still love each other, but that's exactly what's going on.  One of the best screwball comedies, imo.