Becau se I could not stop for Dea th, he kindly sto pped for me; the carriage held but just ourselv es and immor tality” – Emily Dickinson If Death took a holiday, the guns would go si lent i n Iraq, the sl aughte r on our nation’s high ways would ce ase, and the news m edia woul d be compe lled to cover pos itive events in t he humaniti es, ar ts, and scie nces. Unfortunately, Death has not ha d a vacation in recorded h istory, but Mitche ll Leisen’s 1934 fantasy, Death Takes a Holiday, allows us to c onsider the possibi lity. Co -written by Maxwell Anderso n an d Gladys Lehman and based on the play La Morte in Vacanza by Alberto Casella, Death Takes a Holiday stars Frederic March as the Grim Re aper who takes o n human form in an attempt to discover why m en fear h im so much. Why he has wa ited 5,000 years to satisfy t his curiosit y is not explained. [Spoi ler] After a brief tryout as a shadowy f igure who s cares th e daylights out of those th at cross h is path, Dea th shows up at, of all places , an upscale par ty at an It alian villa, posing a s th e mysteri ous Prince Sirki. Only one person k nows who he reall y is, the host Duke Lambert (Guy Standing), and he is sworn to secrecy . Sirki proceeds to fas cinate t he guests. Given to bursts of wit and poetry, he can just as quickly turn sulle n and threa tening, and some soon find out that i t is better not to look too deep ly into his eyes. During the three days in which t he Prince is at the vill a, h owever, pe ople all over the world miraculously escape death and p otentia l suicides are doome d to f rustration. To see what’ s behind all the c onversation about love, t he sua ve but naïve P rince Si rki falls fo r the irresistible Grazia (Evelyn Venable), t he daugh ter of on e of Duke’s friends. Grazia knows who De ath is but does not fear h im, much to the chagri n of her fiancé, Corrad o (Kent Taylo r) who has developed a stro ng di sdain for Pr ince Charming . M ore sinister than Brad Pitt in the 1998 rem ake Meet Joe Black, March t urns in a ve ry convincing performance as the creepy yet strangely appealing guest. Although th e end ing is mel odramat ic, the em otions are very real and th e suggestion that Death may in real ity be a friend disguised as a foe is quite to uching. (Howar d Schumann, talkingpix.co.uk) In this wearisome and predictable pl ot line, Death falls in love and bores us to death talki ng about it. (Denni s Sch wartz, hom epages.sover.net) I've heard DRACULA was ad vertised with t he tag line The Weirdest Love Stor y ever told! (t his is probably a paraphrase), but at heart, I've n ever felt that you could h onest ly call tha t movie a lo ve story. T he t ag line would be m uch more app ropriate f or this one, since it ultimate ly boils down to what amounts to a love story. This movie i s very good indeed, particular ly if you conside r that it is built around a con cept that could have easily been ha ndled in a cute or f acile manner. Instead, it is h andled as s eriously as possi ble, with some real thought put into how d eath would try to come to terms with a life and an outlook that was t o th at po int totally unfamiliar to him; much of the credit does go to Fredric M arch in the title role. It's quite scar y when it needs to be, particularl y du ring the first twe nty min utes. From then on, it deals with i ts themes with subtlety, a qu iet wit, an enduring sadn ess, and an everp resent tension on how Death migh t rea ct if crossed. It's not pe rfect; some of the dialog ue is self-conscious and artificial, as if the writers knew they were dealing with weighty issue s and were t rying to be profound. Bu t I am certainly glad they didn't try to turn it into a music al comedy o f sorts. (Dave Sindelar , scifilm.o rg) See also the re make Death T akes A Holiday (1
精彩剧情/对白：“隔壁就是我的庄子，请倒是请人了，基本上都是请人打理的。不 过跟前这院子和跟前的土地呢，是我自己的，闲来无事的 时候，就会自己过来种种 东西。在朝为官，想要出去走走看看，基本已经不行了，就这么个事情 ，能让自 己打发打发时间 了。”
“晶石矿山的事情闹的不，各大家都清楚了我与王家闹翻，如今是王贤在管晶石矿山的事情，王贤才有可能是日 后的王家家主。所以这些名家，与我并没有往来，若是往来，王贤定然不 悦，他们 并不会做这样的事情。如今做这些货物交易，没人知道我的身份。”
“这人啊，经历了一些事情，的确是会变的，但那里就会变化如茨大呢？以前的囡囡 ，就算是不任 性骄纵了，可也没有这样聪明的智慧啊？而现在的囡囡呢，冷静聪明，甚至到 了一个你无法想象的地步，即便是在皇上的跟前，她依然是可以好好谈 条件，给我们宁家争取利益最大化，难道不是
“再者，真要是答应 了，便搅进去浑水里面去了 。当今圣上年纪大了，皇子们也都不了，这会 儿恐怕早就已经分了派系，有了各自的党羽了。 礼部侍郎这样的位置，只 怕早就站队了，真要是和他扯上关系，咱们岂不是也站 了队，往后还能有什么 好的，除非运气好，站对了人。 ”
“我知道，不管是 我自己和战深之间一对一的较量，还是我们背后的支撑的 对比，要现在 扳倒他，都不是一件容 易的事情。但是周 二，想要在躲藏中积 累力量，是不可能的。现在就是 我们要把一切 能积累的力量，都积累起来 的时候了。”
