Que Sera Sara?

We’ve had a crazy few months.

What with all the travel we’ve been doing and then spending our spare moments beavering away at Homemade Christmas.

We’ve hardly had a minute to breathe.

So, in an effort to reclaim our lives, last night was Date Night.

No chores. No Christmas. No planning or futures or budgets.

Just us. And the duvet. And my new favourite thing.

Now, lots of people use GoogleBooks or Project Gutenburg for free book reading.

But did you know there are film equivalents for an evening’s entertainment?

With a bit of digging, there is all sorts of free cinema to be found online. Google and YouTube are obviously a good start. Archive.org and libraries too. If you’re in America, Hulu has quite a bit of archival content as well.

Some of it is truly wonderful.

Sure, some are pretty low-quality digitisations. But I’d recognise Cary Grant’s chin, even in pixellated form [though I still don’t know how he shaves in there].

Regardless, whether you are art house, indie, romcom or thriller, there are films to be found which suit every taste.

How about a space documentary narrated by Captain Kirk? Or some Fred Astaire? Why yes, and thank you.

Here are some of my personal haul from the digital jungle:

• The genre defining screwball banter of His Girl Friday
• Bruce Lee’s iconic Fists of Fury
• A night of cult zombie horror
• The absurd pleasures of Monty Python

• The Sex Pistols
• A psychedelic opera in uber-60s stylings with a young Catherine Deneuve. [Seriously, it’s about umbrellas. And french romance. But oh, the fashion. It looks like a Barbie house. It’s insane.
  

  A celebratory photomontage from 365 Things I Love About France

Last night however, we opted for something even better.

Bean introduced me to It Happened One Night.

How modern! How saucy! How fun!

Quite possibly the best Date Night film ever, even 78 years after it was released.

I am utterly in love.

Spread the joy.

PS ~ There are hundreds of titles on Open Culture for you to peruse [including some iconic festive ones if you’re stuck this holiday season]. Happy hunting!