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Mission critical Harold Lloyd
This week TCM debuts some super-rare Harold Lloyd shorts from the early years of his career. I cannot overstate the significance of this find. I was asked by TCM to write some material for the web...
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The Other Great Scene in the Movie
A few months back I wrote a post on The Other Great Performance in the Movie, about great performances (usually by supporting actors) in movies with famously great lead performances. I’d like to...
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Still Searching for Old Hollywood, Part 1
Last year when I attended the TCM Classic Film Festival, I was hoping to find remnants of the film industry’s mythic, glamorous past. But, Hollywood’s enchanted past is well hidden beneath a tacky...
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Nature and Nurture: Wolf Children
One of these images is from James Benning’s long-take experiment in landscape photography, 13 Lakes (2004), and the other is from the hit Japanese anime of 2012, Wolf Children. I’ll let you figure out...
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The Unfilmable Book and the First Person Narrator
With the release of the new movie version of The Great Gatsby (I haven’t seen it yet), the subject of book versus movie rears its ugly head yet again. Some books are said to be unfilmable and Gatsby...
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Hail Cleopatra! Queen of the Nile & Queen of ’60s Style
Bold, brave and beautiful. Elizabeth Taylor in a promotional photo for CLEOPATRA (1963) This week the 50th Anniversary of CLEOPATRA (1963) is being celebrated at the Cannes Film Festival where a...
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The Peter Cushing nobody knows
I don’t mean that literally, of course… it just feels that way sometimes, that there is a whole other side to Peter Cushing that no one ever talks about. Fans of the late and greatly missed actor are...
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Harold Lloyd’s Marathon
This past week TCM debuted a package of rare Harold Lloyd films from 1917-1919, including one especially eye-opening treat, The Marathon. Of all the thrilling discoveries shown that night, this was the...
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On HAROLD TEEN and the Joy of True Surprise
Chances are, you’re not familiar with Hal Le Roy, who appeared in just three feature films and a smattering of shorts. But if you’ve seen him once, you’ll likely remember him: those limbs that keep on...
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Still Searching for Old Hollywood, Part 2
In Part 2 of my excursion into Hollywood Forever Cemetery in search of the myth and romanticism of Old Hollywood, I focus on the great stars whose final resting places are indicative of their...
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To Wed or Not To Wed: Illicit (1931) and Ex-Lady (1933)
Today’s Hollywood has a reputation for unoriginality, but the classical era was also rife with recycling. Before Robert Riskin became Frank Capra’s favorite screenwriter, he was a struggling playwright...
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The Unexpected Double Feature: Black Narcissus and La Grande Illusion
I often take in movies at the AFI Silver for all the obvious reasons; it’s a beautiful theater, has great audiences (always quiet, respectful and attentive) and I get to see countless classic movies on...
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Telefilm Time Machine: Death at Love House (1976)
It’s time for another installment of Telefilm Time Machine and this month I decided to revisit DEATH AT LOVE HOUSE (1976). This macabre love letter to old Hollywood suffers from the same production...
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YouTube Vault of Horrors!
There’s a lot of great stuff coming out on DVD and Blu-ray lately — brand new, remastered transfers of classic horror and science fiction films, culled from original materials and larded with lavish...
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Tales of the Audio Commentariat
Earlier this month I recorded my 20th audio commentary, which sounds more impressive than it is, and also doesn’t sound very impressive. But I’ll take my jollies where I find them, so I’m going to...
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Do You Want to See the Movie or Not?
When we go to the movies, we want to be entertained, enlightened, delighted, frightened, amazed and an endless number of other menu choices that make the movies such a great and consistently rewarding...
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Julia Ann Graham: A Hollywood Story
Recently, I was reminded of the tragic story of an aspiring starlet named Julia Ann Graham. I was visiting family near Sistersville, West Virginia, which was Graham’s hometown. And, while I was there,...
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Better Than Nothing: The Complete (Existing) Films of Sadao Yamanaka
The history of Japanese cinema can never completely be told. It is estimated that 90 percent of its pre-1945 film output was lost or destroyed, the silent era razed in the 1923 Kanto earthquake, and...
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When the Idea is Enough
Once, years ago, someone had the idea to make a movie about a man at a hotel who insists to a woman that he met her a year before at the same location. A second man shows up and becomes a part of the...
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Arsenic & Ambiguity in David Lean’s Madeleine (1950)
I planned on writing about a completely different film this week but something unexpected happened that caught me by surprise. I watched David Lean’s magnificent MADELEINE (1950) yesterday for the...
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