It Happened One Night (1934), La Belle et la bete (1946), Escape from Crime (1942)

You can tell I'm a film studies major/cinephile when I watch three movies in a span of 24 hours. It's true, I confess.

It Happened One Night (1934) Directed by Frank Capra
I watched this for my film history class and will be writing a paper on it.
If I remember correctly, there was an excessive use of wipes, with some fades and enough intercuts to keep the audience in on the action. But if you're not film studies, you don't care. Fact is, a friend or two had raved about this movie, and now I know why. Romantic comedy at its finest. The main characters are involved in a love-hate relationship with each other and both undergo changes as they fall in love. As far as I'm concerned, this was a classier version of Spaceballs (1987).

Belle et la bête, La (1946) aka "Beauty and the Beast" Directed by Jean Cocteau
I watched this one because it played for another class.
Excessively dramatic but that was perhaps to correlate with the enchanted theme of the movie. At the beginning of the movie, the director puts a note that children will believe whatever we tell them, so please return to a child-like state of mind for this movie. And one has to, or the movie becomes laughable and overly-romantic. The costuming, as far as Belle or her sisters are concerned, is very intriguing. The Beast, well, he's a beast, and a furry one at that. The enchanted elements of the castle were at first-sight very creepy and definitely fit. When one compare it to the Disney version, this one is a nice change.

Escape from Crime (1942) Directed by D. Ross Lederman
in class viewing for film history.
This film is notable for it's super-fast-paced editing and mile-a-minute montages. One just has to accept the inconsistencies that may appear in the film between plot and real-life, as it is obvious that some of the action isn't really likely to occur in real life, such as the fact that our main character is released on parole for no reason. The film is completed in about an hour. Professor said it was a B pic. One minute walk-on by Jackie Gleason at the very beginning.