We’re going a little off track with this one, but it’s worth it - so make room for today’s guest, Miss Catriona Potts, with a Very Special Past Attraction, And We Do Mean Past…

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I’m way too romantic for crying at movies (I’ve cried once, during the “Mau! Mau!” scene of The Deer Hunter, but that’s another story). But I’m a sucker for romantic comedies and, yes, they don’t  make them as they used to, so I’m always  in desperate search of a new/old one. And it’s getting hard, because I’ve seen most of them, even a flick called Expensive Husbands (don’t even bother: it’s a 1937 C-movie plagued by an awful script, a non-existent direction, bad acting and bad editing).

But I’m rambling.

A romantic comedy should deliver open, unabashed feelings, the strongest being the erotic attraction between two characters everybody thinks should stick together (but they don’t know it yet). And it must turn that attraction into an exciting game, making you laugh and cry (well, sort of) and play with the characters.

Here’s a challenge: name the last romantic comedy you saw and you could say those things about.

For me, it’s I Know Where I’m Going! (affectionately known as IKWIG), a 1945 movie by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Okay, I worship Powell & Pressburger and Martin Scorsese (who said “I reached the point of thinking there were no more masterpieces to discover, until I saw IKWIG”) but let’s forget that.

The thing is IKWIG has everything: a stubborn, materialist young woman and a romantic, Scottish young men; blinding mists and deafening gales; harsh reality and fascinating legends; a long-lost and unattainable love and a new and possibly ever-lasting love; a deadly whirlpool and a sparkling diamond ring; a tooting hat and a wedding gown; a tamed eagle and a skinned rabbit (off screen); a phone booth under a waterfall, men in kilts, cursed castles, tartan-covered hills…

You can’t get any better than that.

Actually, you can.

You can watch the whole movie on Youtube.