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deliver us from sleepless nights, one day at a time
Two weeks ago, shortly after finishing my last post, I read the obituary for Haskell Wexler, who received five Oscar noms and two wins. The one for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Mike Nichols, 1966)...
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The Moving Picture Girls
While wandering through an antique mall in the middle of nowhere, I came across a beat-up bookcase crammed into a corner nook. As I walked toward it, a book caught my attention right away: The Movie...
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The Great Train Clobbering: Emperor of the North (1973)
“1933, the height of the Great Depression. Hoboes roamed the land; riding the rails in a desperate search for jobs. Spurned by society, unwanted and homeless, they became a breed apart. Nomads who...
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This week on TCM Underground: Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) and I Confess (1953)
To miss this week’s Catholic-themed TCM Underground would be an grievous sin! Horror movies have long availed themselves of the iconography and sacraments of the Catholic Church, whose essential...
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15 Favorite Films of 2015
Marlon Brando (who makes an appearance on my list) and his cat With the Oscar nominations making news around the world today I thought I’d join my fellow Morlocks, Susan Doll and R. Emmet Sweeney, by...
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1937: My Favorite Year of the Thirties
We, each of us, have plenty of favorite movies and of those favorites, many will often come from the same year or, better put, each year contains many favorite films. Some years, however, stand out...
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The Fall and Rise of Max Linder
There’s an autographed photo of Charlie Chaplin, inscribed “To the one and only Max, “The Professor”. From his disciple, Charlie Chaplin. May 12th 1917.” The “Max” in this scenario was Max Linder, the...
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Sophisticate or Yokel? Rugged or Delicate? The Roles They Couldn’t Play
Tonight on TCM, Design for Living airs, the 1933 adaptation of Noel Coward’s play, starring Gary Cooper, Frederic March, and Miriam Hopkins. I bring it up because Gary Cooper, the man who spent a...
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Return to Hell Harbor
Hoist the colors! Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 19, TCM takes us out to sea with a series of cinematic adventures aboard pirate ships. Prepare to be shanghaied at the ungodly hour of 6:00am when the first...
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Girlhood: Anne of Green Gables (1934)
The books of my childhood have no hold on me, no permanent perch in my imagination. I was immersed in the boys-solving-crimes genre of The Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown as a lad, and today I...
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This week on TCM Underground: The Church (1989) and The Devil’s Bride (1968)
If you thought we were up to the Devil’s business last week on TCM Underground, well… this week we are literally up to the Devil’s business. And I mean that quite literally. Not figuratively, like...
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’60s Spy Stories: Gila Golan
Gila Golan in Our Man Flint (1966) I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I love ’60s spy movies! They typically contain more style than substance and seem to delight in ridiculous plot lines,...
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Is There Really Such A Thing As An Instant Classic?
Tonight on TCM, the prime time lineup features four movies with Emma Thompson. Since Emma didn’t arrive on the movie making scene until well after the Golden Age of Hollywood, the movies being shown...
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Musty Suffer
It’s March 1, 1916 (or its November 1915 if you want to be pedantic and argumentative. I know who you are, and I’m ready for you). Let’s start again: It’s March 1, 1916. There. This is the day that the...
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Introducing… The Stars Make Their Debuts
Tonight on TCM, No Way Out, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s controversial 1950 film dealing with racism and violence that marked Sidney Poitier’s screen debut. As debuts go, it’s one of the better ones out...
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Early Hitchcock: Which Would You Select?
Once again, I am teaching a section on Hitchcock to my advanced film history course. I told the students that we would study one filmmaker this semester, and I let them choose a director from a short...
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Knocked Up: Susan Slade (1961)
In 1958 Delmer Daves suffered a heart attack, forcing him out of the Wild West and into the boudoir. Instructed by his doctors to avoid physically taxing Western location shoots, he embarked on a...
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This week on TCM Underground: Some Call It Loving (aka Sleeping Beauty, 1973)
Spectators who like to keep their fairy tales innocent, their pornography sordid, their allegories obvious and their dreams intact,” wrote critic Jonathan Rosenbaum in the pages of Film Comment in...
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A Minor Picture Compendium of Classic Movie Nurses
Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) I’ve been wrestling with a nasty cold bug all week and while perusing TCM’s Now Playing Guide I noticed that they’ve got three...
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Great Actor, Wrong Performance: Part Next
Later tonight on TCM, the 1978 Oscar winner The Deer Hunter runs, starring Robert de Niro, John Cazale, Meryl Streep, John Savage, and Christopher Walken. That last guy took home a Best Supporting...
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