Latest news with #GentlemenPreferBlondes
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Maj Gen Sir Christopher Airy, eminent Guards officer appointed Private Secretary to Prince Charles
Major General Sir Christopher Airy, who has died aged 91, had a distinguished career in the Army; after he retired, he accepted an invitation to become Private Secretary and Treasurer to Prince Charles and Princess Diana. In 1974, after serving with the Grenadier Guards for 20 years, Airy transferred to the Scots Guards and assumed command of the 1st Battalion. Regiments are by their nature tribal, and a commanding officer from a different regiment is always going to be viewed with a certain amount of misgiving. While never disavowing his pride at having been a Grenadier, Airy launched himself into his new assignment. Having swiftly absorbed the regimental history, he assembled the warrant officers in the sergeants' mess and asked them to help him become a Scots Guardsman. He then summoned the Pipe Major and invited him to play a different company march each day in the Orderly Room until he recognised them all. With his natural charm and courtesy, Airy soon earned the loyalty and respect of his battalion. He was a shrewd observer of individuals, and when necessary he could be tough with those who did not live up to his high standards of behaviour and performance. He ran a very successful and happy battalion and his wife, Judy, was a great support. Christopher John Airy was born at the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital, Woolwich, on March 8 1934. His father, Lieutenant-Colonel Eustace Airy, served in the RAF in the 1920s, gaining his wings before transferring to the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment). In the late 1930s he and his family were stationed in Gibraltar, and during the Second World War Eustace Airy was involved in intelligence work in the Far East. Soon after the outbreak of war, the family returned to England by ship. Young Christopher enjoyed going up on deck; he was fascinated by ripples on the surface of the sea which kept appearing, until it was explained to him that they were actually torpedoes. Airy was educated at Marlborough and became fluent in French after attending a course at the Sorbonne in Paris. After RMA Sandhurst, in 1954 he was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards and was posted to the 3rd Battalion. He was stationed at Windsor, and one day while he was on guard, he received a telephone call inviting him to join the Queen and the Royal family for dinner that evening in the Castle. There were about 20 guests present, and after the meal, they played charades; Airy was in a team with Princess Margaret. The Queen drew all the cards, and he had to mime Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a rather daunting role under the circumstances for the 21-year-old. After two years in Cyprus during the Eoka Emergency, followed by an appointment as military assistant to the Secretary of State for War, Jack Profumo, in 1970 he commanded the Queen's Company of the 1st Battalion during a period of increasing inter-communal strife in Northern Ireland. He served as brigade major of 4th Guards Brigade in Munster, West Germany, before transferring to the Scots Guards. After relinquishing command of their 1st Battalion, he commanded 5 Field Force in Germany. In 1982 he was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff of UK Land Forces and played a key part in the decision to deploy the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards and 1st Battalion Welsh Guards in 5 Air Portable Brigade for the conflict in the Falklands. He was promoted to major general in 1983 and posted to the Royal College of Defence Studies. The appointments of Major General Commanding the Household Division and that of GOC London District followed. One day, when he was taking the salute at the first rehearsal of the Queen's Birthday parade on Horse Guards, he invited his family to watch from his office immediately above the saluting base. His four-year-old grandson was so excited when he saw his grandfather appear beneath him on his horse and wearing his plumed hat, that he decided to sprinkle him with a colourful selection of canapés from the office window. One of Airy's duties as GOC was to inspect the regiments under his command. On one such inspection with his ADC, they pulled into a lay-by a few minutes early so that he could put on his Sam Browne belt and emerge at the saluting base exactly on time and immaculately turned out. On their arrival, the whole regiment was formed up on the square. A guardsman lent forward, opened the car door and saluted, but the great man did not appear. He was tethered to the back seat of the car by the entangled Sam Browne and the seatbelt. Airy retired from the Army after 35 years' service, in 1989. The following year he was offered the job of chief executive of the British Heart Foundation. Out of a sense of duty, however, when he was invited by Prince Charles to be his Private Secretary, he accepted. The Queen and Prince Charles knew him well from his time in command of the Household Division, and he got on well with Princess Diana. It was thought that what was needed was a man of Airy's integrity, background and experience to re-organise the administration of the office, ensure that it could manage the workload efficiently and see that there was a smooth flow of correspondence. The Prince's interests and activities, however, were growing fast and the Princess was showing an increasing readiness for high-profile public engagements of her own. For Airy, it was a difficult time and he resigned after only a year. The Queen received him on his departure, a mark of her respect for him. He was one of the multitude that lined the route at her Coronation in 1953. In 1995, Airy and his wife moved to a farmhouse near Wiveliscombe in Somerset, and lived there happily for the next 30 years. He raised funds for a number of charities including the Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance, the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal and the Society of Martha and Mary. He was also chairman of the Not Forgotten Association for eight years. He cycled some 1,500 miles by himself along the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and raised £50,000 for the Association. Holidays with young families, travel, parties and shared celebrations played a large part in their lives, as did a menagerie of dogs, cats, ponies, donkeys and some rather temperamental alpacas. In retirement, he was a great supporter of the Scots Guards and regularly attended commemoration dinners and the Regimental Remembrance Sunday Service and Parade. He was appointed CBE in 1984 and KCVO in 1989. A friend of the family wrote: 'I can think of nobody who so embodied the principles of honour, decency and respect for others in the unassuming way that Christopher Airy did.' Christopher Airy married, in 1959, Judith (Judy) Stephenson. She predeceased him by three months to the day and he is survived by two daughters and a son. Sir Christopher Airy, born March 8 1934, died April 8 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Age
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘I've travelled the world and seen nothing like this': The man behind Brisbane's most beautiful station
At the start of 2024, Queensland Rail closed Morningside Station on the Cleveland line for an upgrade, and I was obliged to shift my morning commute to Norman Park. So one morning I marched down the long pathway, past a colourful mural of blue skies and fruit bats, and crossed under the tunnel to Platform 2. Poking my head into the station's waiting room, something caught my eye immediately. It was a poster for the old Marilyn Monroe movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – in German (Blondinen bevorzugt). The entire wallspace of the room, in fact, was covered in curiosities: historical photos of trains and trams in Brisbane; a poster for the 1988 Bathurst 1000; a retro ad for Kellogg's Banana Flakes. Artificial flowers sat in vases, cheering the space up. Part railway museum, part garage rumpus room, it was unexpected, and utterly delightful. The next day I noticed the care with which the garden along the station's southern slope had been tended: with bromeliads, aloe, succulents and elkhorn nailed to palm trees. An old bike and several old lawnmowers were positioned as sculptural items. It's safe to say that no other train station in Brisbane is so decorated and well looked after. But then, no other station has Anthony Vethecan as station master. Today Vethecan, who celebrates ten years with Queensland Rail in June, points out to me the waiting room's latest addition. It's a photograph of a cable tram in Kew, Melbourne, circa 1880. Vethecan lived in Kew when he first came to Australia in 1972. 'A lady gave it to me, saying her husband passed away, she found it under the house and she doesn't know where to put it,' he says. Customers give him things all the time. 'The problem is, if I don't put it up in here, they get offended!' Nearby is the photo of a train guard's kit bag of the kind first issued in the 1930s. 'I used to have that kit bag! It has a lamp, you've got flags, you've got detonators.' Detonators? 'In the old days, you didn't have [two-way] radio. So if a train is stopped at the platform, the guard walks back 100 metres, drops three detonators on the track. The next train coming behind, if the driver runs over them, he knows there's a train in front of him.' The station's spacious toilet is adorned with art prints, and it is immaculate. A notice tells people not to steal the rolls of toilet paper: if they are in need of takeaways, they only have to ask at the office. (They never do.) Murals decorating the pedestrian tunnel, like the one on the fence, were created by the local state school. If they are vandalised, Anthony sends in a report, and a retoucher comes to fix it. But the station's main claim to fame is its garden. It featured in a 2018 episode of Gardening Australia, and got Vethecan a nomination for a Queensland Day Award that year. Anthony tends it before and after his shifts, and sometimes during. 'When I work on a Sunday, it's half an hour between trains, so I come down here.' 'He's rostered every second Sunday,' Queensland Rail's Group Station Master, David Sturgess, explains. 'But there's many occasions where he'll notify me that he's going to be in on the weekend anyway, to tidy up the garden.' Ten years ago the garden was just dirt and a couple of boulders. 'I was getting the train early in the morning every Friday and noticed that he was making this nice garden,' recalls local resident Ruth Blair. 'I said, 'would you like some plants?'' Two of Blair's pink frangipanis now live in the garden in pots. It was originally lush with flowers, but Vethecan has focused on drought-proofing the garden lately, with self-watering bromeliads. 'It's a lovely old station, and he's made it a beautiful space,' Blair says. 'I hope to God they're not going to upgrade it.' Vethecan is a dapper little man, fit and well groomed, white hair stylishly cut. You can imagine him in the role of Agatha Christie's Poirot. He has performed, in fact, in amateur productions of The Full Monty and The Mikado, and his quickstep has won him ballroom dancing prizes. He grew up the son of an engine driver in Kandy, the once-royal city in what used to be called Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). 'I had a privileged childhood because my dad worked in the railways. We had servants. My mother didn't work at all, I was a boarder in a private school.' Thousands died as a result of the 1971 insurgency in Sri Lanka, fuelling a diaspora. Vethecan decamped for Melbourne; his entire family would follow. It was quite the culture shock. 'I didn't even know how to fry an egg. I told my mum I wanted to come back,' he laughs. He got a job as a tram driver, then a conductor. He worked alongside Greek immigrants at the Ford Motor Company in Broadmeadows, and in payroll for government road construction, before joining VicRail as a guard and signalman. On relocating to Brisbane he managed a supermarket in Woodridge for 13 years before joining QR as a porter on June 1, 2015. He became station master of Norman Park within a year. 'What I always try to do is encourage the station masters, and especially when they're new, to take ownership of their station,' Sturgess says. 'When I mentioned that to Anthony, well, he took that to a whole new level.' 'I don't like to be idle,' Vethecan says. Loading Over in the station's office, one of the porters, Luka Ruckels, has good news. 'Someone left us a good review yesterday,' he says. We gather around the computer to have a look. '[Vethecan] was so kind and helpful in his information on travel,' the satisfied customer wrote, 'and I was so, so, so super impressed with his artistic train station presentation. 'I've travelled the world and I've seen nothing like this at any train station … has already made my day this early in the day.' Customer numbers have increased dramatically since 50¢ fares came in, Vethecan says. 'A while back I had a platform packed with people. This guy was riding his bike in between them. I said, 'you can't ride your bike because you could knock someone off'. He told me to 'eff off' and said 'you coloured bastard', things like that. It's rare, but occasionally you get that.' In the garden, facing the ramp, Vethecan has installed a sign. It says Smile and Have a Great Day. 'Whenever I don't see anyone smiling – because they never smile – I say 'you haven't seen my sign.'' When I tell Vethecan that I discovered his station by accident, he says he's heard that a lot. 'Customers from Morningside said, 'From now on, I'm coming here. Because it's a good feeling, walking up the ramp to see your garden. It's very relaxing.''
Sydney Morning Herald
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘I've travelled the world and seen nothing like this': The man behind Brisbane's most beautiful station
At the start of 2024, Queensland Rail closed Morningside Station on the Cleveland line for an upgrade, and I was obliged to shift my morning commute to Norman Park. So one morning I marched down the long pathway, past a colourful mural of blue skies and fruit bats, and crossed under the tunnel to Platform 2. Poking my head into the station's waiting room, something caught my eye immediately. It was a poster for the old Marilyn Monroe movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – in German (Blondinen bevorzugt). The entire wallspace of the room, in fact, was covered in curiosities: historical photos of trains and trams in Brisbane; a poster for the 1988 Bathurst 1000; a retro ad for Kellogg's Banana Flakes. Artificial flowers sat in vases, cheering the space up. Part railway museum, part garage rumpus room, it was unexpected, and utterly delightful. The next day I noticed the care with which the garden along the station's southern slope had been tended: with bromeliads, aloe, succulents and elkhorn nailed to palm trees. An old bike and several old lawnmowers were positioned as sculptural items. It's safe to say that no other train station in Brisbane is so decorated and well looked after. But then, no other station has Anthony Vethecan as station master. Today Vethecan, who celebrates ten years with Queensland Rail in June, points out to me the waiting room's latest addition. It's a photograph of a cable tram in Kew, Melbourne, circa 1880. Vethecan lived in Kew when he first came to Australia in 1972. 'A lady gave it to me, saying her husband passed away, she found it under the house and she doesn't know where to put it,' he says. Customers give him things all the time. 'The problem is, if I don't put it up in here, they get offended!' Nearby is the photo of a train guard's kit bag of the kind first issued in the 1930s. 'I used to have that kit bag! It has a lamp, you've got flags, you've got detonators.' Detonators? 'In the old days, you didn't have [two-way] radio. So if a train is stopped at the platform, the guard walks back 100 metres, drops three detonators on the track. The next train coming behind, if the driver runs over them, he knows there's a train in front of him.' The station's spacious toilet is adorned with art prints, and it is immaculate. A notice tells people not to steal the rolls of toilet paper: if they are in need of takeaways, they only have to ask at the office. (They never do.) Murals decorating the pedestrian tunnel, like the one on the fence, were created by the local state school. If they are vandalised, Anthony sends in a report, and a retoucher comes to fix it. But the station's main claim to fame is its garden. It featured in a 2018 episode of Gardening Australia, and got Vethecan a nomination for a Queensland Day Award that year. Anthony tends it before and after his shifts, and sometimes during. 'When I work on a Sunday, it's half an hour between trains, so I come down here.' 'He's rostered every second Sunday,' Queensland Rail's Group Station Master, David Sturgess, explains. 'But there's many occasions where he'll notify me that he's going to be in on the weekend anyway, to tidy up the garden.' Ten years ago the garden was just dirt and a couple of boulders. 'I was getting the train early in the morning every Friday and noticed that he was making this nice garden,' recalls local resident Ruth Blair. 'I said, 'would you like some plants?'' Two of Blair's pink frangipanis now live in the garden in pots. It was originally lush with flowers, but Vethecan has focused on drought-proofing the garden lately, with self-watering bromeliads. 'It's a lovely old station, and he's made it a beautiful space,' Blair says. 'I hope to God they're not going to upgrade it.' Vethecan is a dapper little man, fit and well groomed, white hair stylishly cut. You can imagine him in the role of Agatha Christie's Poirot. He has performed, in fact, in amateur productions of The Full Monty and The Mikado, and his quickstep has won him ballroom dancing prizes. He grew up the son of an engine driver in Kandy, the once-royal city in what used to be called Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). 'I had a privileged childhood because my dad worked in the railways. We had servants. My mother didn't work at all, I was a boarder in a private school.' Thousands died as a result of the 1971 insurgency in Sri Lanka, fuelling a diaspora. Vethecan decamped for Melbourne; his entire family would follow. It was quite the culture shock. 'I didn't even know how to fry an egg. I told my mum I wanted to come back,' he laughs. He got a job as a tram driver, then a conductor. He worked alongside Greek immigrants at the Ford Motor Company in Broadmeadows, and in payroll for government road construction, before joining VicRail as a guard and signalman. On relocating to Brisbane he managed a supermarket in Woodridge for 13 years before joining QR as a porter on June 1, 2015. He became station master of Norman Park within a year. 'What I always try to do is encourage the station masters, and especially when they're new, to take ownership of their station,' Sturgess says. 'When I mentioned that to Anthony, well, he took that to a whole new level.' 'I don't like to be idle,' Vethecan says. Loading Over in the station's office, one of the porters, Luka Ruckels, has good news. 'Someone left us a good review yesterday,' he says. We gather around the computer to have a look. '[Vethecan] was so kind and helpful in his information on travel,' the satisfied customer wrote, 'and I was so, so, so super impressed with his artistic train station presentation. 'I've travelled the world and I've seen nothing like this at any train station … has already made my day this early in the day.' Customer numbers have increased dramatically since 50¢ fares came in, Vethecan says. 'A while back I had a platform packed with people. This guy was riding his bike in between them. I said, 'you can't ride your bike because you could knock someone off'. He told me to 'eff off' and said 'you coloured bastard', things like that. It's rare, but occasionally you get that.' In the garden, facing the ramp, Vethecan has installed a sign. It says Smile and Have a Great Day. 'Whenever I don't see anyone smiling – because they never smile – I say 'you haven't seen my sign.'' When I tell Vethecan that I discovered his station by accident, he says he's heard that a lot. 'Customers from Morningside said, 'From now on, I'm coming here. Because it's a good feeling, walking up the ramp to see your garden. It's very relaxing.''
Scotsman
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Gertude Stein: An Afterlife, by Francesca Wade review: 'tremendous'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... When I had finished reading this tremendous biography, I was so exhilarated and intrigued that I started to look for archive footage of Gertrude Stein. Although I found some, far more gobsmacking was a clip from a 1978 Swedish film (in ten languages) with none other than Bernard Cribbins as Gertude Stein and Wilfrid Brambell (Steptoe Snr.) as her life-partner, gatekeeper and muse, Alice B Toklas. It is absurd, unsettling, wry and provocative, much like the real Stein. In the actual film of her, there is a twinkle that can be discerned in the prose which is often absent from the images created of her by Picasso, Picabia, Lipchitz, Davidson and Cecil Beaton, where she tends to be, frankly, monumental. Nevertheless, the peculiar film, and this book, captures something of the antic incredulity of Stein's life. One of my favourite anecdotes here is when, on her tour of America, after the success of The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas and the opera with Virgil Thomson, Four Saints in Three Acts, Stein is invited to dinner with Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Hellman, Anita Loos (of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and Dashiell Hammett, the writer she was most keen to meet. Hammett (we are told in a footnote) nearly did not attend as he thought the invitation must be an April Fools' Day prank. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad At her apartment in Paris, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) poses in front of the portrait of her painted by Pablo Picasso in 1906 | AFP via Getty Images There are many reasons why I think Wade's book is especially impressive (and I would hope to see it on non-fiction prize shortlists). The first is the structure, which had a salient link to Stein's most famous work. The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas is, in Wade's words, 'a joke, a myth, an audacious act of knowing artifice. It contravenes every rule of autobiography'. Stein ventriloquises her life via her lover in a bravura act of self-regard and self-erasure. Wade, in a similar way, writes a biography and a book about the act of writing a biography, divided into 'Life' and 'Afterlife' (or should that be 'The Life'?). This is not dry academia, but an insightful examination of how lives are protected, memorialised and canonised. One puzzle can stand for the whole: what were Stein's last words? ''What is the question?' – a pause – 'What is thn this e answer?'' or 'If there is no question there is no answer' or ''What is the answer' – silence – 'In that case, what is the question?'' Carl van Vechten, who was almost as possessive of Stein's legacy as Toklas, wrote to her for clarification; but the source for all three was Toklas. In a way readers of Stein appreciate, the different nuances of seemingly similar arrangements have vast consequences. Another layer of complexity is introduced by Toklas being one of the very few people who could decipher Stein's handwriting. Stein's papers, sent to Yale, were in little discernible order; not so much a curated archive as a slab of life or avant-garde artwork in itself. Wade also engages, critically, creatively and respectfully with Stein's work. I was still reliant on an old hardback of van Vechten's selection of Stein (apart from the paperback of the Autobiography and Three Lives); and Wade is illuminating about the sheer extent of Stein's output. Particular attention is paid to Q.E.D., a lesbian bildungsroman written before Stein met Toklas, the fractious textual history of which gives a clear insight into the depth of their feelings for each other. Stein is a difficult writer, but not in the same vein as the polyglot James Joyce or the esoteric Ezra Pound. Her modernism is not outré in the same way; and Wade does help the reader in tuning into Stein's frequency. Her syntax and repetition have unique pleasures, which (personally) I would associate more with musical pioneers like Cage, Glass and Reich. The Stein that emerges in these pages is more than just an iconoclast of the sentence. Her very early work on brain modelling with William James did have an impact, even if she denied it. Likewise, the war reportage and crime fiction are not often associated with Stein; nor the substitute and replace technique in the notebooks which align her with writers in the OuLiPo group and with almost Situationist derangement. It is difficult to deny some of the more acerbic taunts, like the famous New York Times headline 'Gertrude Stein Arrives and Baffles Reporters by Making Herself Clear'. Although Stein was naïve about Petain, her war record is far more creditable that that of, say, Ezra Pound or Wyndham Lewis, both of whom seem to relish, distastefully, their anti-Semitic and misogynistic jibes against Stein. It seems typical: I was disappointed to learn Don Marquis joined in the baiting, as his 'Archy and Mehitabel' poems have long been a joy of mine. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Is Gertrude Stein serious?' asked the novelist James Branch Cabell (the question might equally be posed to the author of the 26-ish volume Biography of the Life of Manuel. Yes, yes, yes; and thank goodness Wade takes Stein seriously. At her best, she (and the equally eccentric e e cummings) write most joyously about love.
The Independent
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The 25 best romantic comedies ever, from Pretty Woman to Bridget Jones, ranked
The metaphorical birthplace of Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan and tubs of ice cream eaten sadly on the sofa, the romantic comedy has survived cliche, shifting cultural mores and Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney. It remains one of the most important and emotionally essential film genres in existence. And that's despite almost all of them being exactly the same. And a staggering amount of them being awful. To compile the genre's 25 best, it was important to maintain strict criteria: a romantic comedy must build to a final rush of feeling and close on a kiss (that means no Working Girl, people!), and the central romance must be the primary hook for the entire film (that means no Clueless or Legally Blonde, nerds!). The usual rules of 'good filmmaking' don't necessarily need to apply, either. The best romcoms are an immaculate fusion of perceptive storytelling, great humour and chemistry in spades. Sometimes, though, you just want to watch pretty actors flirting in immaculate surroundings. Because, truthfully, we're all just a bunch of lovesick romantics, standing in front of a television set and/or cinema screen, asking to watch beautiful people fall in love. Did your favourite make the list? 25. Pretty Woman (1990) Let's get the obvious out of the way first: Pretty Woman sports a sleaziness so disquieting that it's no real surprise to learn the film was originally planned to be a gritty sex work drama that ended in tragedy. Thank Cupid for the rewrites, then. The Disney-fied Pretty Woman features Julia Roberts in pure star-is-born mode, her joyous pluck overpowering the film's murkier elements. That the film's ostensibly heroic leading man (Richard Gere) is an LA suit who hires an escort for the week is slightly maddening. That Pretty Woman somehow makes all of this ickiness romantic? Even more so. 24. There's Something About Mary (1998) The gross-out comedy boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s is one of the more fascinating minor genre trends in recent decades. The Farrelly brothers launched a cottage industry of films driven by cloying sentimentality and bodily functions. Most have aged poorly, butCameron Diaz's sunny dream-girl radiance in There's Something About Mary rescues the film from comic oblivion. She gives a daffy, entirely committed performance as the object of affection for a series of men each landing somewhere along a spectrum of depravity. It's no wonder she became one of Hollywood's biggest names in the aftermath. 23. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) Individual scenes from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes exist in cultural memory far more than the film does as a whole. There's also a reason for that. Marilyn Monroe's rendition of 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend' is frothy, classic-Hollywood gorgeousness at its most primal, while her double act with Jane Russell is almost unfairly chic. But there's additionally lovely sparkage to the film itself, its DNA found in many of the female-led comedies of the later 20th century. Monroe and Russell are scrappy, ambitious women desperate to marry rich, and the film has a surprisingly sex-positive and self-aware quality to it that feels quietly radical for 1953. Casting dullards as the pair's respective love interests makes total sense – these are women who could eat stupid men for breakfast, and the film knows it. 22. Get Over It (2001) The most under-the-radar masterpiece of the US teen-movie boom that kicked off in the late Nineties – and drew to a close shortly around Get Over It 's release – this is essentially a 'greatest hits' movie pulling from all that was popular back then. You've got a Shakespeare parody (the plot here is inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream), a sexually excitable animal (it's very Farrelly brothers), and a host of cameos from celebs of the moment (Sisqó! Carmen Electra! Short-lived pop queen Vitamin C!). Ben Foster is the recently dumped high-school basketball player who signs up for the school play to woo back his ex, only to fall for the adorable younger sister (Kirsten Dunst) of his best friend. Stealing the show is Martin Short as a flamboyant drama teacher. More people should know this film! 21. Boomerang (1992) The first Black, mainstream romantic comedy to possess the same aspirational sheen as its white counterparts, Boomerang is a lively battle-of-the-sexes comedy with Eddie Murphy as a womanising advertising executive spurned by his female doppelganger (Robin Givens). Grace Jones, Eartha Kitt and a young Halle Berry make for wonderful supporting players, but Boomerang 's secret weapon is Givens, who gives a performance with so much spark that it's enraging her volatile marriage to Mike Tyson overshadowed much of her acting career. 20. Love Actually (2003) Most great romcoms are lucky enough to have one standout set piece that becomes embedded in the cultural landscape. Love Actually, the annually inescapable Christmas romcom behemoth from Richard Curtis, has about six or seven. Because it's as famous as it is, Love Actually oddly has a tendency to be underrated, dismissed as too cutesy or misogynist, too awkwardly Blairite in its politics. And all of that, in fairness, is true. But it's also a real classic of the form – masterfully structured, endlessly watchable, and filled with familiar faces, sweet romances and heartache. It's love in all its colours, often cringeworthy, sometimes monstrous, but always compelling to watch unfold. 19. But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) This satirical comedy set at a gay conversion camp has, quite clearly, a lot more than romance on its mind. But Jamie Babbit's pink satin-coloured debut is most memorable for the brewing relationship between Clea DuVall's Graham and Natasha Lyonne's Megan. One is more in denial about their sexuality than the other, but they discover a mutual attraction while being held under the thumb of Cathy Moriarty's conversion camp den mother – who, it should be said, is somehow more of a drag queen than her colleague (played by a de-glammed RuPaul). 18. Groundhog Day (1993) It's easy to forget that Groundhog Day is unashamedly romantic. At its heart is that incredible concept: Bill Murray's obnoxious weatherman is stuck in a time loop, so takes the time to better himself. Surrounding said concept is a love story between Murray's character and the TV producer who initially can't stand him (Andie MacDowell), and how personal betterment makes every trial and tribulation somehow worthwhile. 17. Bull Durham (1988) Romcoms don't typically depict sex – preferring either morning-after giggles or absolutely nothing carnal whatsoever. Then there's Bull Durham, starring Susan Sarandon as a ludicrously sexy and free-spirited baseball groupie who picks one player to sleep with every game season. Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins are the two men Sarandon gets involved with, sparking a shaggy yet erotically charged tete-a-tete. 16. Say Anything… (1989) Sometimes all it takes to forgive a romcom of its creepy undercurrent is a pair of beautiful movie stars with impeccable chemistry. In fairness, that occurs throughout the romantic comedy genre, but it's especially noticeable in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything... This is a story about fixation and co-dependency and poor Ione Skye stuck in the middle of two incredibly needy men, but Crowe somehow makes Say Anything... strikingly romantic anyway. Skye and John Cusack are wonderful together; the film takes its time allowing us to fall in love with them just as they're falling in love with each other. And that boombox scene is iconic for a reason. 15. Modern Romance (1981) Sick of beautiful people falling in love in movies? Why not watch two beautiful people fall in love and then endlessly dissect their relationship to death? Modern Romance is practically an anti-romcom, writer, director and star Albert Brooks swimming in such narcissistic neurosis as a Los Angeles film editor that he makes Woody Allen look comparatively content. His film recognises love as completely toxic and unbearable when cast in a particular light, and few dark comedies have come close to matching its gnarly wit ever since. 14. The Wedding Singer (1998) On paper, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore shouldn't work so well together. They're not quite opposites, with their comic zing not sourced from anything combative – as in most romcoms. Oddly, it's their shared sensibilities that make them so transfixing on screen. Both are unabashedly sweet-natured, earnest and goofy movie stars who radiate heart. More than their middling reunion movie 50 First Dates or their woeful third go-around Blended, The Wedding Singer best captures their mutual affability. Soundtracked by an A to Z of 1980s pop classics, this is nostalgic, adorable and endlessly rewatchable. 13. Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) It is funny in hindsight that there was such a stink over the casting of the Texan Renée Zellweger as the very English Bridget Jones. Because could you now imagine anyone else playing her? Her accent flawless (in that very prim, written-by-Richard-Curtis way), Zellweger similarly nails the spirited, neurotic melancholy that makes Bridget such a likeable character, despite all the reasons we probably wouldn't be able to stand her in reality. Like most of Curtis's work, there is a lovely comfort to Bridget Jones, full as it is of slapstick, silly jumpers and new-millennium London, featuring Colin Firth and Hugh Grant (as 'adorable dork' and 'magnificent bastard', respectively), and a perfect Christmas finale. 12. Moonstruck (1987) Cher won a surprising yet entirely deserved Oscar for her work here, playing a dowdy Brooklyn widow engaged to an incredibly boring man, who decides to transform herself after falling for her soon-to-be brother-in-law (Nicolas Cage). Moonstruck is a love story and a traditional romcom, but it's also the story of a woman throwing herself into the unknown and abandoning the kind of life she once felt resigned to. It is big, broad and richly romantic, with a touch of magical whimsy thrown in too. 11. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) An underwritten female lead in the form of Andie MacDowell's Carrie is the only fly in the ointment here. Revolving around a group of friends as they attend – you guessed it – four weddings and a funeral, this 1994 sleeper hit marked the first of many collaborations between Hugh Grant and screenwriter Richard Curtis. We can probably all agree that the hopeless, stuttering Charlie should have ended up with his best friend Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas), but without his devastating indifference towards her, we would never have been blessed with one of the most magnanimous displays of unrequited love ever committed to film. The film's worth your time, too, for its quietly progressive, heart-wrenching gay subplot. 10. Roman Holiday (1953) A perfect encapsulation of the Fifties, specifically the allure of the European jet set, the idealised rat-a-tat-tat magic of big-city journalists, and the otherworldly regality of Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday is more of a time machine than most of the films here. But it's also a true-blue classic, its 'famous woman paired with ordinary man' plot inspiring everything from Notting Hill to The Lizzie McGuire Movie, and appropriately beloved as a result. There's no Hilary Duff, obviously, but we won't hold that against it. 9. My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) Considering how many people adore My Best Friend's Wedding, it's always surprising to rediscover how monstrous its apparent heroine is. Julia Roberts has had better-received roles before and since, but there's something fascinatingly daring about her work here, playing a single woman in love with her best friend and determined to destroy his wedding to a lovely if naive rich girl she has decided is evil. Cameron Diaz, as the bride-to-be, is an adorable revelation, Rupert Everett a hoot as Roberts's then-radical 'gay best friend'. And the sheer darkness on display here, mixed with that funny and expensive Nineties sheen, makes it one of the most intriguing romcoms in history, and secretly one of its very best. 8. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) Gut-wrenching to watch in the wake of Heath Ledger's death, but still one of the smartest, most heartwarming comedies of the last 30 years. Ledger and Julia Stiles are a pair of 'unappealing' high schoolers whose romance is engineered by Stiles's younger sister, who can only date once she does. There is much to love here, from the film's feminist politics (10 Things remains the holy grail of its era, in that regard) to its delightful supporting cast. But it's Ledger and Stiles that burn the screen. Their chemistry is so authentic, charming and sexy that it's almost uncomfortable to watch, with only the fact that they're both ridiculously beautiful encouraging you to not once look away. 7. Annie Hall (1977) We know. Where you stand onWoody Allen's work, particularly the stuff not revolving around the apparent inability of young women to resist the allure of a scrawny, bespectacled middle-aged neurotic, is one of those endless pop culture conundrums we've attempted to decipher in recent years. If anything, though, watch Annie Hall for Diane Keaton at her most Diane Keatonish – daffy, stylish and impossibly cool, she becomes so much more than an idealised fantasy figure through sheer force of will. 6. The Apartment (1960) Christmas has never been better presented in all its melancholy splendour than in Billy Wilder's The Apartment, in which two lonely souls left dispirited by the holiday season find one another. Jack Lemmon is unsurprisingly wonderful as one half of the film's central twosome, who loans out his apartment to his lecherous bosses so they can conduct their affairs, but it is Shirley MacLaine who provides the film with its heart – she is bruised and brittle but eager for connection, and perfectly embodies the dizzying emotions of the winter season. 5. The Philadelphia Story (1940) A fizzy treasure of a comedy that set the tone for much of what came after it, The Philadelphia Story casts a never-more-haughty Katharine Hepburn as an heiress stuck between three men: her dull fiance (John Howard), a prickly journalist (James Stewart) and the ex (Cary Grant) still hopelessly in love with her. Everyone speaks incredibly fast, romantic tribulations occur in elegant mansion estates, and the film's central trio embody a vintage movie-star glamour you can't help but begin to long for as soon as they appear on screen. 4. Notting Hill (1999) Oh, isn't this just perfect? The on-location filming. Rhys Ifans in his pants. Emma Chambers as a sweet-natured flibbertigibbet. That immaculate swoosh of Hugh Grant's hair. Julia Roberts being so Julia Roberts that I feel as if I ought to write her name in capital letters here just to accurately capture the scale and power of her presence. Notting Hill, about a bookseller who falls in love with an A-list movie star who might as well be called Schmoolia Schmoberts, is the real apex of British romantic comedy, isn't it? Incredibly funny, irresistibly gentle, and just burning with confidence, expense and Nineties, produced-by-Working-Title charm. You'd live in it if you could. Damn you, gentrification! 3. You've Got Mail (1998) While Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan's most famous prior romcom collaboration, 1993's Sleepless in Seattle, has a dark melancholy that makes it less immediately pleasurable to watch, their 1998 reunion in You've Got Mail is the kind of movie built for comforting rewatches beneath a blanket. Or at least once every year at Christmas. The pair play sworn enemies waged in a war over the future of Ryan's ludicrously serene independent bookshop, who simultaneously fall in love with one another when interacting anonymously online. Despite the dial-up modems and archaic dialogue ('What's email?' everyone seems on the verge of asking), You've Got Mail hasn't aged poorly, proving how timeless chemistry-driven love stories between beautiful movie stars can be. And considering how brilliant Ryan is here, oscillating between tough strength and soft vulnerability, it is no surprise that she is still regarded as the star most associated with the genre. 2. What's Up, Doc? (1972) This Peter Bogdanovich blockbuster is a full-speed collision of slapstick, romance and shocking sex appeal – has any couple been more attractive on screen than Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal, before or since? The pair play unlikely allies who smash into one another at a San Francisco hotel – he's an uptight businessman with a steady girlfriend, she's a manic pixie dream woman who upends his life professionally, personally and psychologically. But, like, in a romantic way. Much like number one on this list, What's Up, Doc? is more or less the blueprint for every madcap action-romance that came after it. 1. When Harry Met Sally… (1989) Truthfully, it couldn't be anything else. Not only did When Harry Met Sally… kickstart the romcom boom that dominated the Nineties, it also invented much of what we recognise today as cliches: from the sardonic best friend (played to perfection by Carrie Fisher), to the late-night phone calls while watching old movies, the Christmas/New Year's climax, the 'neurotic Jew'/'Shiksa goddess' pairing at its centre, and the hilarious honesty when it comes to sex – never bettered than in the film's standout diner-orgasm scene. Romantic comedies are only cliched because When Harry Met Sally… set such a glorious benchmark for why these films work in the modern era, assisted by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan at their most golden, and a gorgeously structured script that leaps through time, written by the queen of the genre herself, Nora Ephron. Nothing will ever better this.
