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“Miami: Where Rich Men Are as Plentiful as Grapefruit and Millionaires Hang...
Now that I live in Florida, this line of dialogue from Moon Over Miami passes across my mind from time to time. I have not seen any millionaires hanging from palm trees, but I do glance up from time to...
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Identity Thief: Cheyenne (1947)
I am a man of few principles, but when a Raoul Walsh film comes out on home video I am duty-bound to write about it. The Warner Archive has been a blessing for Walsh enthusiasts, and their latest gift...
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A Sense of Place and Time
When a movie is made, that is, the actual dates in time in which the movie is completed, is often of little value to the plot. A story with well drawn characters may or may not be much affected by...
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The Pulp Adventures of Lee Marvin
Illustration by Robert Foster “Lee Marvin in a room is the best storyteller I know. Lee Marvin brings me to tears laughing when he starts talking about fishing tournaments he’s been in and this, that...
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Let us now praise famous men… named Dracula.
These are exciting times for nerdish types such as myself. Here in the States, the Universal classic monster canon has been remastered recently for Blu-ray, teasing out details in the art direction of...
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Ralph Bellamy – the right wrong guy
Just in case my love of screwball comedies wasn’t evident from all the times I’ve posted about it here before, I’m here this week to celebrate Ralph Bellamy’s contributions to the genre. I need to note...
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Hooray for Hooray for Hollywood. Also, Boo.
Hollywood has long been in love with itself. It has also loathed itself in equal share. It’s the all-time Hollywood love/hate relationship and it’s with itself. They even make movies in Hollywood...
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The Movie Posters of Joseph A. Maturo
Big, bright, and bold, movie posters were the dominant way to promote movies during the Golden Age of Hollywood. As important as TV trailers for films today, movie posters were designed to interpret...
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DTV Action Item: An Interview with Director Jesse V. Johnson
To make a thoughtful direct-to-video action movie is about as difficult as recovering from a meaty right hook to the jaw from Stone Cold Steve Austin. Working on shoestring budgets and two-week...
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The Shared Cinema
Moviegoers everywhere understand the concept of shared cinema. Even if they don’t know it as a topic of conversation or classroom discussion, they understand that a part of the thrill of seeing a new...
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Telefilm Time Machine: That Certain Summer (1972)
Just three short years after the Stonewall riots took place in New York ABC made television history when they aired THAT CERTAIN SUMMER (1972), the first gay-themed made-for-TV movie. This landmark...
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Video Watchdog issue 173 reviewed!
It’s been long enough since I last wrote with any regularity for Video Watchdog that I feel certain I may speak critically of it without attracting charges of cronyism. I first contributed to the...
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Psychotronic Case Study – The Sell-Out (1976)
Like a lot of film aficionados of my generation, I went through a psychotronic phase in the early 1990s. The terminology for “psychotronic film” had been coined by Michael J. Weldon in 1980 in the...
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BILL, THE GALACTIC HERO
I know Harry Harrison for his collaborative work with Wally Wood on EC Comics (circa 1948), his work on the revived Flash Gordon scripts (’58 – ’68), the first of 12 Stainless Steel Rat novels...
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Before the Production Code: Trips to Hell for a Nickel
Who doesn’t love Pre-Code films? Those early sound films released between 1930, when the Production Code was adopted, and 1934, when it became mandatory, have been treated like a genre unto themselves...
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George Sherman, Director of Westerns
When director George Sherman passed away at the age of 82 in 1991, he was noted only for the quantity of his output. The obituaries in both the Los Angeles and New York Times pointed out the “175″...
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Nickelodeon, Director’s Cuts and Peter Bogdanovich
By 1976, Peter Bogdanovich’s breakout movie, The Last Picture Show, had officially become an anomaly. Its stark drama stood in sharp relief to his next four movies, all comedies. Bogdanovich seemed...
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In Memoriam: Jesús “Jess” Franco (1930-2013)
If you tuned into TCM Underground on March 15th you may have had the pleasure of seeing Jesús “Jess” Franco’s eerie and atmospheric horror film THE AWFUL DOCTOR ORLOF (1964). When the movie aired I...
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If it’s April, this must be Noir City!
Noir City, the annual festival of film noir, returns to the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica starting this Friday and kicking off three...
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How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Carnegie Hall (airing on Tuesday at midnight—set your DVR) is an epic-length cinematic love letter to classical music from one of America’s most important, if elusive and enigmatic, directors. It is...
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