Best Romance Movies of 1961

In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, New York, a gang of Polish-American teenagers called the Jets compete with a rival gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, the Sharks, to "own" the neighborhood streets. Tensions are high between the gangs but two romantics, one from each gang, fall in love leading to tragedy.

Fast Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match.

A private school for young girls is scandalized when one spiteful student accuses the two young women who run the school of being in a relationship.

A fragile Kansas girl's unrequited and forbidden love for a handsome young man from the town's most powerful family drives her to heartbreak and madness.

While filing for a divorce, beautiful ex-stripper Roslyn Taber ends up meeting aging cowboy-turned-gambler Gay Langland and former World War II aviator Guido Racanelli. The two men instantly become infatuated with Roslyn and, on a whim, the three decide to move into Guido's half-finished desert home together. When grizzled ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland arrives, the unlikely foursome strike up a business capturing wild horses.

Epic film of the legendary Spanish hero, Rodrigo Diaz ("El Cid" to his followers), who, without compromising his strict sense of honour, still succeeds in taking the initiative and driving the Moors from Spain.

Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall.

Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton are rival Madison Avenue advertising executives who each dislike each other’s methods. After he steals a client out from under her cute little nose, revenge prompts her to infiltrate his secret "VIP" campaign in order to persuade the mystery product’s scientist to switch to her firm.

British reporters suspect an international cover-up of a global disaster in progress... and they're right. Hysterical panic has engulfed the world after the United States and the Soviet Union simultaneously detonate nuclear devices and have caused the orbit of the Earth to alter, sending it hurtling towards the sun.

Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.

Robert Talbot, an American millionaire, arrives early for his annual vacation at his luxurious Italian villa. His long-time girlfriend Lisa has given up waiting for him and has decided to marry another man. Meanwhile, his sneaky business associate Maurice secretly misappropriates the villa as a hotel while Talbot is away. The current guests of the "hotel" are a group of young American girls.

Middle-aged businesswoman Paula Tessier resists the advances of Philip Van der Besh, the 24-year-old son of one of her clients. But when her longtime paramour, Roger Demarest, begins yet another casual affair with a younger woman, Paula decides that two can play that game. However, it seems that society looks differently at May-December romances when the woman is the older partner.

In a small Mississippi town in 1916, an eccentric spinster battles her romantic yearnings for the randy boy next door.

Almost 19-year-old Marius feels himself in a rut in Marseille, his life planned for him by his cafe'-owning father, and he longs for the sea. The night before he is to leave on a 5-year voyage, Fanny, a girl he grew up with, reveals that she is in love with him, and he discovers that he is in love with her. He must choose between an exciting life at sea, and a boring life with the woman he loves. And Fanny must choose between keeping the man she loves, and letting him live the life he seems to want.

Brendan O'Malley arrives at the Mexican home of old flame Belle Breckenridge to find her married to a drunkard getting ready for a cattle drive to Texas. Hot on O'Malley's heels is lawman Dana Stribling who has a personal reason for getting him back into his jurisdiction. Both men join Breckenridge and his wife on the drive. As they near Texas tensions mount, not least because Stribling is starting to court Belle, and O'Malley is increasingly drawn by her daughter Missy.

During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.

A young woman arrives in San Francisco's Chinatown from Hong Kong with the intention of marrying a rakish nightclub owner, unaware he is involved with one of his singers.

Critics and the public say Karen Stone is too old -- as she approaches 50 -- for her role in a play she is about to take to Broadway. Her businessman husband, 20 years her senior, has been the angel for the play and gives her a way out: They are off to a holiday in Rome for his health. He suffers a fatal heart attack on the plane. Mrs. Stone stays in Rome. She leases a magnificent apartment with a view of the seven hills from the terrace. Then the contessa comes calling to introduce a young man named Paola to her. The contessa knows many presentable young men and lonely American widows.

A. J. Niles is the author of a series of 'Bachelor Books'. These books describe the romantic life of a bachelor in various cities of the world. But when he runs into trouble with the I.R.S. for back taxes, he needs to write another book fast, to pay them. His publisher decides a book about life in the American suburbs would be a hit and settles him into Paradise Village. One bachelor plus lonely housewives equals many angry husbands.

A troubled young man discovers that he has a knack for writing when a counselor encourages him to pursue a literary career.

Parrish McLean lives with his mother Ellen on Sala Post's tobacco plantation in the Connecticut River Valley. His mother winds up marrying Sala's rival Judd Raike, ruthless planter who wants to drive Sala out of business. Judd insists that Parrish learn the business from the ground up.

Ambitious but thwarted, Rae Smith meets handsome Marine Paul Saxon, (of the Saxon department store chain), as he passes through Lincoln, Nebraska, on his way home from World War II. There's a definite spark between them but circumstances intervene and he leaves town without her. Later she learns he's married. Determined to make it as a fashion designer, Rae moves to New York and becomes a great success. One day she happens to meet Paul again and again there's that spark but he's still married so, as a form of escape, Rae moves to Rome to set up shop. Once again she meets Paul and finally they begin an actual affair since Paul's shrewish, drunken wife, Liz, won't give him a divorce. Time passes, the affair continues whenever time and place permit, but then, Paul's young son finds out about Rae and Rae's back-street world begins to crumble.

Tells the true story of Gwen Terasaki, who falls in love with, then marries a Japanese diplomat. When war breaks out they find animosity and trouble from both sides.

Sensitive story of a British girl's awakening from childhood into life and love on vacation in France.

Francis is desperate: her parents want to force her to come with them on vacation to Hawaii - just during the two weeks when her beloved "Moondoggy" is home from College. When he suggests her to go for it, she's even more in panic - doesn't he care to be with her? So she sets out for Hawaii in the worst mood. On the plane she meets the sociable Abby, who gives her the advice to forget about Jeff - and regrets it shortly after, when Francis follows the advice and steals her boyfriend Eddie, a famous dancer. But then Jeff discovers he's missing Francis...

Residents of the small town of Peyton Place aren't pleased when they realize they're the characters in local writer Allison MacKenzie's controversial first novel. A sequel to the hit 1957 film.

An Edinburgh travel agent loses his keys and his fiancé in one night. A friend finds the keys and makes loads of copies with his address attached as a joke. She gives them to him as he leaves for a holiday. He gives the keys to several women he romances across the continent. He gets engaged again by phone and arranges to meet his fiancé at his flat, but the flat isn't empty

After the sudden death of magazine publisher Colonel Ryder, his nephew, Tony inherits the magazine and has big plans to expand it. While negotiating a loan from the bank, Tony gets a call from a detective surrounding his uncle's death. It turns out Colonel Ryder died in his hotel room with a smile on his face and a young woman was seen fleeing his room wearing only a towel. Suspicious of this woman and afraid the magazine's wholesome image may be tarnished and their loan denied, Tony asks the detective to stick around and find her.

A pregnant teen allows her mother to pass the baby off as her own.

Tammy leaves the river in Mississippi to attend college, developing a relationship with Tom Freeman (John Gavin). Sandra Dee replaces Debbie Reynolds in this and the third Tammy movie. This film introduces both a new theme song, "Tammy Tell Me True", and the character of Mrs. Annie Call, played by veteran Beulah Bondi. Mrs. Call ultimately moves in with Tammy at the Ellen B. and would be the catalyst for the events in the following film, "Tammy and The Doctor".

A female doctor in the Congo is torn between two loves.

Travel agent Emrys Jones and tourist Patricia Dainton fall in love in sunny Italy. Jones has led Dainton to believe that he's fabulously wealthy, and she has likewise deceived him. When the truth inevitably outs, it hardly matters, since hero and heroine now love each other for themselves rather than their bank accounts.

Army photographers on leave in Japan take over a geisha house.

Dr.Decker comes back from Africa after a year, presumed dead. During that year, he came across a way of growing plants and animals to an enormous size. He brings back a baby chimpanzee to test out his theory. As he has many enemies at home, he decides to use his chimp, 'Konga' to 'get rid of them'. Then Konga grows to gigantic proportions and wreaks havoc all over the city of London!!

Nudie-cutie suggested, as the title lets on, by a Kipling poem.

Newspaper editor Arthur Sherwood is on a hunting trip when he accidentally stumbles upon a nudist camp in the woods. He is very much shocked by this and decides to send reporter Stacy Taylor to the camp so she can write an expose on the camp and have it shut down. However, much to her surprise, Stacy finds that she enjoys the nudist lifestyle and writes some very positive articles on her experiences, which doesn't sit well with Arthur. Arthur then decides to join the camp himself and write his own story.

Two platonic college friends spend a weekend away together. One is romanced by a member of the coast guard.

Helen Lester is in love with a man she has known just 24 hours, a playboy who spent time in jail for passing bad checks. Though the man has promised to change, most of her strait-laced relatives are up in arms. But Clare Lester, Helen's grandmother, says the girl is free to join the man she loves. On one condition, that she listen to the story of a day in Clare's own life and of a man she tried to change.

The story of an iron-willed man who looks after his seven daughters after the death of their mother, as his three older daughters, Ahlam, Wedad, and Salwa, fall in love and suffer the agonies of it, only for their dad to try to save them the heartache.

Wolmae is a gisaeng living in Namwon. Her daughter, Chun-hyang, is secretly engaged to marry Lee Mong-ryong. Lee leaves for Seoul with his father and the new governor, Byeon Hak-do, begins coveting Chun-hyang.

Part 1 ended with Jianbai and Su Yanan among the students fleeing the invading Japanese. Part 2 follows the efforts of all four characters to participate in the war effort. Su Yanan joins the army and fights. Jianbai enlists to be near her. A-Lan becomes a nurse at a battlefront hospital and Qiuming entertains the troops. (Grace Chang, Cathay's leading musical star at the time, performs some rousing patriotic numbers in these scenes.) Jianbai is reunited with Su in the battlefield, but...

The title sums up the mood of this elegant short film in which a woman recalls her life, locked up for 30 years in the courtyard of a building where a young man with whom she was hopelessly in love had lived. The tenants grow up, get married, die. A whole life passes.

Amidst intrigue and cannibalism, a mad and homosexual king, searching for immortality, finds himself caught up between two women. Based on William Shakespeare's unfinished play.