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Pigskin Psychology: Semi-Tough (1977)
The NFL regular season begins this Thursday night when the defending champion Baltimore Ravens face the Denver Broncos. It has been a tumultuous offseason for the National Football League, as they...
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The Message in the Movie
Message movies, sometimes referred to as “social dramas,” are one of the few types of movies (couldn’t really call them a genre as they work within each separate genre to spread their joy of smug...
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Telefilm Time Machine: SATAN’S TRIANGLE (1975)
Kim Novak & Doug McClure in SATAN’S TRIANGLE (1975) One of my favorite actresses is the beautiful and enigmatic Kim Novak and she happens to be TCM’s Star of the Month. Every Thursday throughout...
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Son of Trailer Park!
Lazy? Hell no! I’m just giving the people what they want! Rated GP! I miss the old ratings… GP and M… and messed up flicks like MARK OF THE WITCH (1970). It’s the perfect drive-in movie but I actually...
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The Story of Film: The Life of an American Editor
As any fan of reality TV can tell you, the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction are poorly policed. Reality shows emphasize drama—often following entirely predictable and palpably artificial...
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A tale of two Alfreds.
A week ago I attended the Telluride Film Festival. Their program used the XL Roman numerals to mark the occasion of their 40th anniversary. With the addition of an extra day of programming as well as a...
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History According to Buster Keaton: The Three Ages
The second episode of The Story of Film, a 15-hour documentary series on cinema history by historian Mark Cousins, airs tonight on TCM. This week’s episode is subtitled “The Triumph of American Film...
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The Story of Film: The Crowd (1928)
Earlier this month Turner Classic Movies began airing The Story of Film, a 15-chapter documentary by Mark Cousins tracking the history of the moving image from 1895 – 2000s. Running from now through...
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The Cinema of the Other Worldly
This morning, TCM airs Brigadoon, the 1954 film version of the popular Broadway musical. For those precious few unaware of the story of Brigadoon, it involves a couple of Americans played by Van...
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The Story of Film: UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1928)
UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1928) is making its noteworthy debut on TCM September 17th in association with the 15-episode STORY OF FILM documentary currently airing every Monday and Tuesday night for the next...
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Following up on a hunchback
The other day, on an otherwise ordinary drive to school, my 8 year-old daughter name-checked the hunchback in Roman Polanski’s THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (UK: DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES, 1967). It’s one...
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The unexpected comedy stylings of Alfred Hitchcock
A while back, when I was preparing the audio commentary for To Be Or Not To Be, I found myself making repeated allusions and references to Foreign Correspondent. The more I made them, the more I found...
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“I like to watch” – Jimmy Stewart’s Passive Protagonists
Today on TCM, Jimmy Stewart shines in three Alfred Hitchcock classics, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much (unfairly maligned as a collection of great scenes without being a great movie –...
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Dr. Caligari: A Macabre Tale by Haunted Writers
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari airs tonight on TCM as supportive programming for The Story of Film, the 15-part documentary series about the history of world cinema. Episode 3 covers German...
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Mating Games: A Girl in Every Port (1928)
It’s hard to conceive of Howard Hawks without sound. His films are focused on work and its downtime, and it is in spurts of chatter in which his characters define themselves. As physical as their...
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I’m Tired: When Genre Exhausts Its Possibilities
For the first half of today’s schedule on TCM, the movies of Victor Mature will be showing. Conspicuously absent from the lineup is his most famous biblical epic, Sampson and Delilah. It’s a big,...
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In the Trenches with James Whale
Boris Karloff & James Whale on the set of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) (Note: FRANKENSTEIN airs on TCM September 23 as part of the ongoing STORY OF FILM series) THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) is...
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Dynamite with a laser beam!
The other day, while doing non-Morlock duty for Turner Classic Movies, I had occasion to write about the 1950 RKO Radio Pictures crime/trial drama HUNT THE MAN DOWN. This was Gig Young’s first starring...
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Don’t send in the clowns
From September and on for the next several months, on Mondays and Tuesdays TCM is airing a sprawling and ambitious multipart documentary called The Story of Film. As you have may have sussed out by...
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The voyage of L’ATALANTE.
Within four years he filmed three acclaimed shorts and one feature that would later be hailed a masterpiece – only to die on October 5th, 1934, at the age of 29, from rheumatic septicaemia. Jean Vigo’s...
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