Because I could no t stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality” – Emily Dickin son If D eath took a holi day, the gun s would go silent in I raq, the slaughter on our n ation’s highways would cease, a nd the news media would be compelled to cover positive events in the humanities, a rts, and sc ienc es. Unfortu nately, Death has not had a vacation in rec orded histor y, but Mitchell Leisen’s 1934 fantasy, Dea th Takes a Holiday, allows us to con sider the possibility. Co-writt en by Maxwell Anderson and Glad ys Lehman and based on the p lay La Morte in Vacanza by Albe rto Casella, Death Takes a Holiday stars Fr eder ic March as the Grim Reaper who takes on huma n form in a n attempt to di scover why men f ear him so much . Why he has waited 5,00 0 years to satisfy this curiosi ty is not expl ained. [Spoiler] After a brief tr yout as a shadowy figure who scares the daylights out of tho se that c ross his pa th, Death shows up at, of all places, an upsc ale party at an Italian villa, posing as the m ysterio us Prin ce Sirki. O nly one person know s who he rea lly is, the host Duke Lambert (Guy St anding) , and he i s swo rn to sec recy. Sirki proceeds to fascinate the guests. Given to bursts of wit an d poetry, he can just as quic kly turn sull en and thre atening, and som e soo n fi nd out that it is better not to look too deeply into his eyes. During the three days in which the Prince is at the villa, however, people all over the w orld miraculo usly esc ape death and potential s uicides are doo med to frustra tion. To se e what’s b ehind all the conversation about lo ve, th e suave but naïve Princ e Sirki falls for t he irresis tibl e Graz ia (Evelyn Ve nable), the daughter o f one of Duke’s friends. G razia knows who Dea th is but doe s not fear him, much to the chagrin of her fianc é, Cor rado (Kent Taylor) who h as developed a strong disdain for Prince Ch armi ng. More sinister than Br ad Pitt in the 1998 remake Meet Joe Black, March tu rns in a very convincing performance as the creepy y et str angely appealing guest. Altho ugh the ending is melodrama tic, the emotions are v ery real and the s uggestion that Dea th may in reality b e a friend disguised as a foe is quite touching. (Howar d Schumann, talkingpix.co.uk) In this wearisome an d pr edictable plot line, Death falls in love and bores u s to death talking about it. (De nnis Schwartz, hom epages.sover.net) I've heard DRACULA was advertised with the tag l ine The Weirdest Love Story ev er told! (t his is prob ably a paraphrase), but at heart, I've neve r felt that you could ho nest ly call that movie a love story. The tag line woul d be muc h more appropriat e for this one, sin ce it ultimately boils down to what amounts t o a lov e story. Th is movie is very good indeed, particular ly if yo u consider that it is built arou nd a concept that co uld hav e easily been handled in a c ute or facile mann er. Instead, it is handled as seriously as possible, wi th som e real thought put into how death would try t o come to terms with a life and an outlook that was to that point totally unfa miliar to him; much of the credit d oes go to Fredr ic M arch in the title role . It's quit e scary when it needs to be, partic ularly during the first twenty m inutes. From then on, it de als with its themes with subtle ty, a quie t wit, an enduring sadness , and an everpresent tension on how Death mig ht react if c rossed. It's not perfect; s ome of the dialogue is self-conscious and artificial, as i f the writers knew they were deal ing with weighty issues and were tryin g to be profound. But I am certai nly glad they didn't try to tu rn it int o a mus ical comedy o f sort s. (Dave Si ndelar, scifilm.org ) See also the remake Dea th Take s A Holiday (1971)
精彩剧情/对白：“以前呢，宁伯候府 的规矩是，生琳长的便立世 子，你娘有了你，南府和西府，一起针 对我们，目的就 是要了你的命，后来 我们不得已才把你送出去，可是把你 送出去之后，事 情依然没有解 决，南府和西府呢，一 直以来争的僵持不 下。西府能耐更强一些，让南府落了不少的孩子，因为如此，南府 更是不会让西
“当初的确是 好冰铺你们苏家管，若是生意上有什么 差池，也是两家共同 承担的。我 边家不是不愿意承 担，而是这事情，是你们苏家非要要惹那个农女，这才会有今日这样的局面，和我边 家可没有什么关系的，这件事情，你们苏家要给我们边家交代吧？”
“我奶虽然对我 们一家人不好，也 亏待我了，我是不承认她的 。但是她对你和大伯，可是真心实意的为你们好，这些年，但凡是有点好东西，都是直接扒拉到你们那 里去了，她已经 做到这样了，你竟然还想要为了一点好处，连亲娘都不认。”
“我以为咱大队出 现两只狼是有人不小心放出来的，没想到背后有个这么可怕阴谋，阿铮啊，叔对不住你们，我大哥那闺女就是傻，从小就傻，这回要是能回去，我跟他爹妈商量了一下，直 接打发嫁人，管她愿不愿 意，反正再 也不让她回来了。”
“是二嫂跟你说的吧，我的天，顾嘉叶，你能不能不要这么天真，别人说什么你就信什么，她是嫉妒我怀孕了，而她命薄福浅，好不容易怀一 个又给她自己给 整没了，平日里闷不吭声的，现在想借着你的手来打击我，你怎么就想不明白呢？”
