Independence Day approacheth -- parades and fireworks and barbecues – but what if it rains? And what about the evening of the 3^rd? You can’t count on the movies for accurate history, but they can contextualize the party.

Janice Meredith (1924) A pulpy silent romance in the D.W. Griffith tradition that positions its heroine, played by Hearst protege Marion Davies, as helping out with both Paul Revere’s ride and Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. Extremely rare, with a sensational cast that also included W.C. Fields (as a drunken Brit officer), Tyrone Power Sr. (as Lord Cornwallis), Fatty’s cousin Macklyn Arbuckle (as Davies’ father), and, as Marie Antoinette, one Princess Marie de Bourbon, a popular model and sole living relative of King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy, in one of only two known film appearances.

Ah, Wilderness! (1935) Small-town, turn-of-the-century life by way of Eugene O’Neill, so depression, alcoholism and prejudice cuts the sun-dappled optimism to some degree. But it’s set on and around a 19^th-century-style, midwestern 4^th of July celebration, and the exuberant, creaky, cracker-barrel priorities are in line, with Mickey Rooney and his little-rascal buddies setting off firecrackers underneath the grown-ups’ various melodramas.

Lafayette (1961) A little-seen French historical pageant about the revolutionary hero, good for old-fashioned European attention to period sumptuousness, as well as a spot-the-star cast of internationals, including Orson Welles as Benjamin Franklin, Jack Hawkins as Cornwallis, vet character star Howard St. John as George Washington, and Vittorio de Sica as Edward Bancroft, Franklin’s double agent.

1776 (1972) Easily the most thorough-going War of Independence film ever made in Hollywood – there aren’t many competitors – this silly anachronism is also a eager-to-please Broadway musical put on film, which says something about how truly interested Americans have been about their own history. Still, it has its devotees, and besides, the facts are there, a good deal of the dialogue is attributed quotes, the cast is game, and the anti-conservative number "Cool, Cool Considerate Men" is now included on video versions, after being initially cut by studio chief Jack Warner at the behest of President Richard Nixon.

Blow Out (1981) Brian De Palma’s tribute to Antonioni’s Blow Up, Chappaquiddick, Watergate, JFK, sound engineering and Philadelphia, all rolled into a crazy political-assassination plot that the hero (John Travolta, engagingly relaxed) may or may not have accidentally recorded on audio tape. The background of a berserk City of Brotherly Love during the July 4^th fete is as central, visually and ironically, as Hitchcock’s use of national monuments. All in all, a smashing, thoughtful, stirring piece of pulp, and probably the best movie for the holiday.

Revolution (1985) A rare attempt by the Hollywood studios to make a serious film about the Revolution, but boy, the engine dropped out of this lemon straight from the factory. Which makes it something like a comedy now, what with Al Pacino’s meant-to-be-historical Brooklyn accent, Annie Lennox stalking around as "Liberty Woman," a sound mix that literally loses 50% of the mumbling dialogue, a stupefying lack of history or action, and an impressive visual pallette that runs from umber to sienna.

The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Though Michael Mann’s buckskin-sex, tomahawk-to-the-head take on James Fenimore Cooper isn’t about the Revolutionary War or national independence, it evokes as few films do the real wilderness of the time, as both homestead, battlefield and frontier. Log cabins, cannon-stocked forts, gunsmoke and mud, eating venison by real candlelight – this may be the closest an American film will ever come to capturing the period. Plus it has Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe as star-crossed lovers amidst the warfare, making the most convincingly hot movie pair of the ‘90s.