Clik here to view.
When Jerry Lewis Met Norman Rockwell
Jerry Lewis, the consummate auteur, exerted a degree of creative control over all of his solo films. In 1959, Lewis was working with Frank Tashlin on Cinderfella: He served as producer and star while...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Print the Legend: Barbarosa (1982)
In 1982 Universal Pictures quietly dumped the Willie Nelson-Gary Busey Western Barbarosa into a few drive-ins. After low turn-out, they pulled it from distribution. There may have been more critics...
View ArticleClik here to view.
That Ealing Touch
If you know the name “Ealing Studios,” chances are it makes you think of a string of astonishing comedies the British studio cranked out in the decade or so after World War II, usually starring Alec...
View ArticleClik here to view.
52 Films By Women: #52FilmsByWomen
Last October TCM in association with WIF (Women in Film) launched their Trailblazing Women film initiative by airing a month of movies made by women. Many of the films and filmmakers highlighted...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gene Hackman: A Perfectly Ordinary Man
Gene Hackman shows his talents today on TCM with a pair of terrific movies, The Conversation from 1974 and Scarecrow from 1973. He also makes an appearance, and a great one, in the movie following...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Movie Love: General or Specialized
I apologize for my back to back posts lately but that’s only because we have not yet replaced the irreplaceable David Kalat whose Saturday posts provided a nice break between my Friday and Sunday...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Flipper Meets the Creature from the Black Lagoon
I enjoy reading and writing about the cinematic history of my adopted home state of Florida . From the silent era when Jacksonville almost became the center of the industry until now, Florida has...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Family Ties: Sunset Song (2015)
“The June moors whispered and rustled and shook their cloaks, yellow with broom and powdered faintly with purple – that was the heather but not the full passion of its colour yet … and maybe the wind...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Day of the Doberman
Do you love dogs? Of course you do, and so do most moviegoers if Hollywood history is any indication. However, if you had to name the biggest decade for man’s best friend, which one would it be? The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Out of the Closet: Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)
On September 19 TCM is airing a Tab Hunter double feature. More info about programming can be found at the end of my post. Everyone loves a good Hollywood tragedy. The violent murders of Sharon Tate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Playing it Straight: Dr. Strangelove
Years ago, Arthur Schlesinger was asked by David Wallechinsky to list his favorite political movies for Wallechinsky’s 1977 edition of The Book of Lists. Schlesinger had some interesting titles on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A MAD DASH FOR CASH
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Stanley Kramer, 1963) screens this Wednesday on TCM. The madcap road-race featuring a who’s-who of comedy racing across state lines to dig up stolen cash is a marvel...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Forgotten Film to Remember: Patterns
“The patterns of which this piece speaks are behavior patterns of little human beings in a big world—lost in it, intimidated by it, and whose biggest job is to survive in it.” So said Rod Serling about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Other Gold Diggers of 1933: Girl Missing (1933)
In the first scene of Girl Missing (1933), Guy Kibbee tries to seduce Mary Brian with the line: “I don’t feel fatherly, I feel…hotcha!” And so begins this randy, money-grubbing, mystery-solving...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Panning for Gold with Nicolas Roeg’s Eureka
I have a real soft spot for that strange period after the ‘70s when all the British filmmaking enfants terribles tried to wedge their styles into a movie landscape that had radically changed in front...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Offbeat Otto: Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970)
One of my favorite Otto Preminger films has finally found its way onto DVD and Blu-ray thanks to Olive Films. Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) was never released on home video so this marks...
View ArticleClik here to view.
And Now a Word from Our Resentment
What happens when art is created in anger? What if there’s a sense of resentment hanging over it? Maybe it has a feeling of retribution that darkens the whole enterprise. After the Beatles broke up,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Made for TV, but Shown in a Theater
Last night, Patterns played on TCM, the 1956 drama adapted from the television presentation of a year earlier. Both were written by Rod Serling and both are very good but the point is, television has...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remade, Reworked, and Recycled: Who Knew?
The big Hollywood studios continue to insist that audiences will line up around the block to see movie remakes, though that is counter to conversations I overhear at theaters or among movie-goers. Even...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Law and Disorder: The Naked Gun (1988)
David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker were three wiseasses from Milwaukee who killed time watching movies. They gained an admiration for the stoic leading men in cheap genre productions, those...
View Article