Customer Reviews

Love Is Better Than Ever [VHS]

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This film cannot be separated from its history. It was filmed several years before it was finally released, and originally titled "The Light Fantastic." The reason for the delay was the sad fact that, coming from his big hits in the two films on Al Jolson, soon after this film was completed, its star, Larry Parks, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was blacklisted. He never made another film, but became a businessman.

Elizabeth Taylor is touted as leaving teenage-hood behind and becoming a romantic ingenue in this movie, despite the fact that she filed for her first divorce (from Nicky Hilton) during the filming.

As for the film itself, Parks plays an almost Runyanesque Broadway character, a theatrical agent whose greatest thrill in life is hanging out at a Broadway saloon with his buddies. Enters a chance meeting with a Connecticut dance instructor (Taylor), never been kissed yet sure this is the one she wants to spend her life with, and the film is off with tricks galore by Taylor and her ally, her father (played admirably by Tom Tully), to snatch the desired husband.

This is light, and this is froth. The children of the dancing school are fun, and the film moves rapidly. It is also an early directorial task by the revered director, Staney Donen, and a chance to say goodbye to Parks, whose young and convincing talent we never should have lost.

this movie was wonderfully romantic. Often people only associate Elizabeth Taylor with bigger box office winners, but this movie was surprisingly good. It's a very funny movie, I especially love the scenes with Liz teaching the children to dance. If you havent seen this movie, see it.

In "The Big Hangover," Liz is the boss' beautiful daughter; in "Conspirator," she's an immature young wife in love; in "The Girl Who Had Everything," she's the daughter of a wealthy criminal lawyer, but in "Love Is Better Than Ever," she is a young dance school teacher from New Haven who comes to the big city for a convention and falls for a smart talent agent...

In these four films, Taylor is cast as the innocent who selects the wrong guy and the unlucky beauty in a classic mismatch...

In both "Love Is Better Than Ever" and "The Girl Who Had Everything," she's a spirited young lady with a mind of her own... In the former, she defies her small-town upbringing as she romances a city swindler... In the latter, she challenges her father in order to run off with a bon vivant with underworld connections... In "Conspirator," the misfortune girl marries a Communist... In "The Big Hangover," she's engaged to a man with a drinking problem... And in "Elephant Walk," her husband is a wealthy and potent planter with a really bad temper...

These five ladies are variations on the young innocent star who thinks she knows more than she does... In each movie, she has to be educated... The wildly careless spirit has to be limited and corrected...

In "Love Is Better Than Ever," Liz is even more provincial, an innocent tempted but never corrupted by big city frivolous amusement, a teasing beauty who falls for a cheerful bachelor... Liz is once again the determined pursuer, setting her sights on a man who does not want to marry... Shameless and stubborn, she decides to announce her engagement, hoping that fiction may stimulate fact...

The star's idicated i.e. Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Martha Vickers (also features Dolores Moran) are from the film "The Man I Love".