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New Years Eve in the Movies

© K Cruver

Those giddy moments when one year ends and another begins provide the perfect opportunity for all sorts of strong emotions and dramatic situations. The combination of hope and fear for the year to come and nostalgia and relief that another year has passed is rarely as strong as it is when the noisemakers buzz and the champagne corks are ready to pop. Hollywood movies have often used the ready-made excitement of New Years Eve to intensifying the drama in decisive movie moments.

New Year's Eve can be the most depressing night of the year if you feel alone or unloved. In Sunset Blvd (1950), Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) throws a party for two in her ballroom only to be rejected after a turn around the dance floor. She attempts suicide--and nearly doesn't live to see another year. Charlie Chaplin's Tramp in The Gold Rush (1925) is stood up by a trio of bar hostesses after working for weeks to prepare a party for them, and his loneliness is nearly unbearable to witness. When the object of his affection, sees the elaborate party room, she is saddened to realize how much the tramp had done to prepare for her presence.

But New Year's Eve can also mark the beginning of better times. In Show Boat (1936), Irene Dunne struggles to perform a song over a rowdy celebration in a club. She is far from her family and on the verge of tears, when her father, who by coincidence is in town, sees her on stage and shouts to her to smile; she remembers that she is loved and wows the crowd. In The Divorcee (1930) and Made For Each Other (1939) a pair of couples begin the evening estranged, but the events of the night bring them closer than they have ever been. As a painter in An American in Paris (1951), Gene Kelly believes he has lost the love of his life, young Lise (Leslie Caron). He sits on a balcony, oblivious to the wild celebration inside, and dreams of being with her again. Before the night is over, she is back in his arms.

However, this dramatic evening most frequently sets the scene for new love. After all, what more perfect time is there to kiss someone than when the clock strikes midnight? In Penny Serenade (1941) Cary Grant proposes to Irene Dunne just as the New Year arrives and to top it off, a light snow begins to fall. When the New Year arrives in Holiday (1938), Grant realizes he is engaged to the wrong woman as he gazes at his fiancée's sister (Katharine Hepburn).