That Hamilton Woman

Vivien Leigh, playing the same role she played in Gone with the Wind and many other films -- bad girl with a cute smile and knowing eyes. Fiddle-dee-dee. Anyway, the movie, released in 1941, sets Scarlet -- sorry, Lady Hamilton -- against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Really, however, it's about resistence to dictators, wherever they are, and the need to fight on, despite all odds. Unsurprisingly, this was one of Churchill's favorite movies.

The real Lady Hamilton, painted by George Romney

Vivien and real life husband Laurence Olivier smoke up the screen in retelling the adulterous affair between Lady Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson, the admiral who finally beat Napoleon's navy at Trafalgar. This film followed Korda's Thief of Bagdhad and was filmed on a limited budget. It did not, however, prevent Vivien from wearing amazing dresses.

Vivien Leigh as Lady Hamilton

Thief of Bagdhad

A deviation from the plan of watching the films of Pressburger-Powell, the Archers. The Thief of Bagdhad, released in 1940, was produced by Alexander Korda, who left what is now Hungary in 1919. After working in the film industry in Vienna, Berlin and Hollywood, he began producing movies in England. His first, The Private Life of Henry VIII, was a big hit and has been credited with turning the moribund British film industry around.

The designers of the 1992 Disney film Aladdin watched the Thief of Bagdhad very carefully. The thief is cute and cunning, the Princess'father is a fat, dithering fool who nevertheless loves his daughter deeply, and Jaffar has very long fingers. The genie is not as benign as Robin Williams, and the Prince and the thief are two different characters, but both differences seem inconsequential. Chases through the market, playing hide and seek with the guards and stealing food were shamelessly copied by the 1992 version, and a good thing, too. They are funny.