Romance doesn’t come easy in this week’s festival of free films on Hulu, Love Under Pressure. Whether separated by circumstances beyond their control or challenged by their own neuroses, the couples in these films are up against many obstacles. In Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus, Orfeu must travel all the way to the underworld to save Eurídice; in Jacques Becker’s Casque d’or, things are rocky for a gangster’s moll and an ex-con in belle epoque Paris; a newly engaged couple must contend with the difficulties posed by a long-distance relationship after he accepts a far-off job in Ermanno Olmi’s I fidanzati; a real-life squabbling husband and wife allow a camera into their home for Allan King’s documentary A Married Couple; a passionate affair turns ugly in Luchino Visconti’s melodrama Senso; an adulterous relationship shakes up a marriage in François Truffaut’s The Soft Skin; young love blossoms and then quickly withers in Ingmar Bergman’s Summer with Monika; and Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh bring to life the scandalous affair between Lord Horatio Nelson and a British ambassador’s wife in Alexander Korda’s That Hamilton Woman.
Also included is Jacques Feyder’s intense—and intensely romantic—Russian Revolution drama Knight Without Armour, starring Marlene Dietrich as a Russian general’s daughter and Robert Donat as the British spy who loves her. The film is unavailable on disc, but you can watch it below or at Hulu. And remember, if you sign up for Hulu Plus for just $7.99 a month, you can see these and hundreds of other Criterion films commercial-free, anytime.