Suzie Rodriguez – Examiner.com

Mention honeymoon travel, and almost everybody starts thinking about tropical islands, romantic cities, luxury cruises, national parks gifted with nature’s wonders, and all the world’s other fabulous destinations.Right?

So tell me why it’s nearly impossible to find a honeymoon movie that takes place in a gorgeous locale. Most of the time the destination isn’t even identifiable. Not to mention you wouldn’t want to spend your honeymoon or any other moments of your life around some of the deranged characters (ax murderers, for instance) found in many of these films.

The Internet Movie Database lists more than 200 movies about honeymoons. Here are a few highlights of the good, the bad, and the downright horrible:

Honeymoon in Vegas (1992): A comedy with James Caan, Nicolas Cage, and Sarah Jessica Parker. Honeymoon Locale: Las Vegas. Very funny, with lots of comedic twists and turns—who can forget the Flying Elvises? Caan, Cage, and Parker are all at their considerable comedic best. Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Definitely one of the better honeymoon movies to be found.

Once upon a Honeymoon (1942): A war-time drama/romance with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers. Honeymoon Locale: Europe. Grant is a radio correspondent in 1938 Europe, when he meets and falls in love with Rogers—who is married to an Austrian Baron (who, unknown to her, is a Nazi spy). Grant tries to expose the Baron, and complications ensue. These two superstars from the past are something to watch.

What Happens in Vegas… (2008): A comedy starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. Honeymoon Locale: Las Vegas. Two strangers vacationing in Vegas get drunk and wake up married—and totally disliking each other. A judge refuses a quickie annulment, ruling that they live together for 6 months before splitting the huge jackpot they won the night before (which precipitated their big drunk to begin with)…and the plot, such as it is, thickens. As one reviewer put it, “…the filmmakers assume everyone in the audience has both attention deficit disorder and dementia.”

The Honeymoon Killers (1970): A thriller starring Tony Lo Bianco and Shirley Stoler. Honeymoon Locale: Various seedy spots in the USA. When a womanizing con man and a no-nonsense nurse fall in love, they travel across the country as brother and sister. Their goal: to swindle and kill, in increasingly bloody fashion, the lonely women he marries. Based on the 1940s real-life “Lonely Hearts Murders,” the black-and-white film has a gritty reality and deserves a wider audience. New Wave French film director Francois Truffaut supposedly called this his favorite American film.

Haunted Honeymoon (1986): A comedy-thriller starring Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, and Dom Deluise. Honeymoon locale: Who knows? A genius of a comedy trio! Wilder & Radner are caught in his aunt’s big, spooky house out in the country with lots of wacky/scary people—and a werewolf on the loose. Wilder also directed.