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A major subplot involves Andras’s haunting composition, which becomes his (and the café’s) signature tune. Although customers insist that he play it nightly, it gains unexpected notoriety throughout Europe as “the suicide song” because it is found playing on gramophones as scores of people do themselves in. (In real life, it didn’t have the same effect here in America, where it was made popular by Billie Holiday.)

The melancholy song becomes a perfect accompaniment for a bittersweet story of love and fate that unfolds against the tumultuous backdrop of Europe during the 1930s and ’40s.

I don’t think anyone would make a case for this being a great movie, but there is something about its old-world milieu, its unabashed romanticism, and its appealing cast that makes it hard to resist. At a time when most movies are cool and ironic, this one dares to be warm and direct. Perhaps that’s why people who were raised on old Hollywood movies (like me) find this one so agreeable.

41. GO TIGERS!

(2001)

Directed by Kenneth A. Carlson

I’m not a sports fan, so I didn’t expect to find a film about high school football terribly interesting. But Go Tigers! turns out to be something more: a revealing look at small-town America.

The setting is working-class Massillon, Ohio, where for 106 years the town has cheered, coddled, and generally gone crazy for its championship high school football team. The residents eat, sleep, and breathe football. In fact, in the movie’s opening moments, we bear witness to a unique ritual: when a baby is born, a representative from the chamber of commerce comes to the hospital and presents the newborn with a tiny football!

The 1999 team feels particular pressure, for several reasons. Their last season was an embarrassment and they’re in need of a comeback. Even more important, the school district itself is on the rocks, subject to severe budget cuts. The city wants to impose a tax levy and citizens will be loath to vote for that in the upcoming referendum unless the Massillon Tigers deliver the goods. Without a winning season, the team may have to go into hibernation.

Filmmaker Carlson becomes a fly on the wall as we get to know key members of the team, some of whom have academic challenges to meet, and at least one of whom has been in trouble with the law.

Go Tigers! is a fascinating look at traditional small-town values, as embodied by a cast of real-life characters that would do any novelist proud. Carlson grew up in Massillon, so he paints an empathetic—but not whitewashed—picture of star athletes, coaches, teachers, parents, boosters, and even naysayers in town.

This is less a film about sports than it is about pride, tradition, values, and the American way. That’s why I like it.

42. GOING IN STYLE

(1979)

Directed by Martin Brest

Screenplay by Martin Brest

Based on the story by Edward Cannon

Actors:

GEORGE BURNS

ART CARNEY

LEE STRASBERG

CHARLES HALLAHAN

PAMELA PAYTON-WRIGHT

MARK MARGOLIS

I’d like to think that filmmaker Martin Brest won’t go down in the history books as the man who made the notorious high-profile flop Gigli, or the bloated remake of Death Takes a Holiday called Meet Joe Black. I remember with fondness his antic, award-winning student film Hot Dogs for Gaugin and his early Hollywood efforts like Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, and the lesser-known film from 1979 called Going in Style, which he wrote and directed, from a story by Edward Cannon.

It takes a certain sensibility for a young man (then twenty-eight years old) to make a movie about old people and show empathy and respect as well as a sense of humor. Going in Style is a comedy, but not, as its wacky poster (and DVD) artwork would imply, a parade of belly laughs. It’s the story of three senior citizens who live together in Astoria in Queens, New York. They barely get by on social security and pass the time feeding pigeons in the park. Then Joe (George Burns), who’s bored with their sedentary lives, hatches a scheme that will spice things up and give them some spending